Definition
"Trict" does not appear to be an independent legal term. The source material provided under this heading reflects either a truncated or corrupted entry — likely a fragment of "DISTRICT" or a cross-reference stub — rather than a standalone legal concept. Black's Law Dictionary's entry under this heading describes a regional police district composed of New York City and adjacent territory, which appears to be a fragment of a larger DISTRICT entry. Bouvier's Law Dictionary twice directs the reader to "DISTRICT TELEGRAPH COM-" (truncated), reinforcing that this heading functions as a redirect rather than a self-contained definition.
Researchers encountering "TRICT" in a historical legal dictionary should treat it as a corrupted or incomplete entry and consult DISTRICT directly.
Why It Matters in Research
Entries like this one are artifacts of the indexing and typesetting processes used in historical legal dictionaries. In printed editions of Black's and Bouvier's, cross-reference stubs, truncated headwords, and mid-entry page breaks occasionally produced orphaned fragments that were indexed or digitized as independent entries. When working with digitized versions of these dictionaries — including optical character recognition (OCR) scans — researchers will encounter headwords that are truncations of longer terms, particularly where the original typeset column broke mid-word (e.g., "DIS-" on one page, "TRICT" on the next).
If you are researching the substance reflected in the Black's fragment — a consolidated police district encompassing New York City and adjacent territory — the operative term is DISTRICT, and more specifically the historical concept of a unified metropolitan police district. Such arrangements were common in the late nineteenth century as American cities consolidated municipal services, and legal questions about jurisdiction, officer authority, and liability attached to the district as a defined geographic and administrative unit.
The Bouvier cross-reference to "DISTRICT TELEGRAPH COM-" likely points to an entry on district telegraph companies — private firms that operated alarm and signal networks in American cities during the same era, with distinct legal status as public utilities or quasi-public carriers. That entry would be found under DISTRICT TELEGRAPH COMPANY in a complete edition of Bouvier's.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary treats this heading as a fragment of a broader district-related entry, appending unrelated material (the METTESHEP / METTENSCHEP entry on acknowledgments paid in corn) that appears to have been typeset or digitized adjacently by error. The METTESHEP material is a genuine historical legal term relating to feudal customary service obligations but has no substantive connection to "TRICT" or to police district organization.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary offers only a cross-reference stub, appearing twice in identical or near-identical form, suggesting the entry was either never completed in the edition consulted or was lost in transmission. Neither source provides a coherent independent definition.
Historical dictionaries are most vulnerable to this type of artifact at alphabetical transition points and at entries beginning with common prefixes (DIS-, PRE-, CON-) where typesetting columns frequently broke. Researchers relying on digitized editions should verify suspect headwords against physical editions where possible.