REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS FOR THE REVISION AND REFORM OF THE LAW, SUGGESTING AMENDMENTS TO, AND OTHER CHANGES IN, THE CIVIL CODE. The Commissioners for the Revision and Reform of the Law respectfully present this, their report, showing the amendments and other changes which, in their judgment, should be made in the Civil Code of the state. In their recommendations they have pursued the same plan disclosed in their report, heretofore presented, to the Code of Civil Procedure, and which, because of such disclosure, need not be here repeated. In considering this code the Commissioners have had before them the printed report of their immediate predecessors in office, and have, in all cases, given it close attention, and have not only, in many instances, concurred in the substance of its recommendations, but in others have adopted the precise language employed. This adoption is referred to in some of the notes subjoined to the sections proposed for enactment or amendment, but this acknowledgment by no means measures our obligations to our predecessors, nor the extent to which we have availed ourselves of their work. The labor of codifying those statutory provisions which are conceived to be so germane to the subject-matters of the Civil Code that they ought, beyond question, to be made a part of it, has been much greater than the corresponding codification required for the Code of Civil Procedure. On the other hand, the amendments and other changes proposed to that code involving questions of substantive legislation exceed in number, and probably in importance, those proposed to this. Chief among the changes hereinafter suggested are: 1. Making the law of accession to real property applicable to lands fronting upon all waters, instead of restricting it to rivers and streams, as the statute apparently does at present. |