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Does it bear the same price as any other annuity?—I think not so much, because there is the labour. There are two other prothonotaries, and three secondaries; those are the offices which have been generally considered saleable. Are there any other offices held for life in the court of Common Pleas which receive fees, which will be affected by the passing of the County Courts Bill, besides the prothonotaries?—Yes, there are several filacers; those are all in the appointment of the chief justice. How many filacers are there?—I think there are fourteen, but one person executes for so many different counties; but the principal one is held by the late chief justice's son. Those are saleable offices; then we have three that are not saleable, which are given generally in reward for services to some clerk. There is the clerk of the dockets. Are those places for life?—Those three are places of that description; the clerk of the judgments, and the clerk of the recoveries. Those offices would all be affected in their emoluments by any diminution in the business of the court, but to what extend I am sure I cannot say. Do all those officers receive their emoluments from fees?—All from fees. There is the custos brevium also. The fees which we receive now are the same fees that were received in the earliest period; I believe they have been ascertained to be the same that were paid in the 11th year of Queen Elizabeth; or, I should rather say, they are not the same, because we remitted a portion of those fees in the time of Charles the First. There is a record to that effect; we used to receive a shilling a folio previously to that time.
[The Witness was directed to send to the Committee a return of the amount of fees received during the last ten years, and a detailed account of how the fees arise, and how they are applied.]
Charles Short, Esquire, called in; and Examined.
WHAT office do you hold?—I hold the office of clerk of the Rules and Orders of the court of King's Bench; the terms of my patent are expressed in the petition I presented to the House. Is it a place you hold for life?—Yes. From whence does the emolument of it arise?—Upon an average lately, in consequence of the great increase of the business of the court, the expenditure that we are at is in net money about 1,600 l and I think, upon the average, the emolument has been about 4,000 l a year. From what does that salary arise?—The Reports of the Commissioners in the years 1798 and 1818 state expressly the duties of the office; it arises in every case from business actually done. It arises from fees?—From old fees of above a hundred years standing. It appears that there is not a single fee charged at this moment which was not charged above a hundred years ago, and I get no allowance of any sort of kind either for clerks or chambers, or any thing whatever; it is done completely free of expense to the public. I bought my office; I gave a very large consideration for it. What are the fees which constitute the emoluments of your office?—They are stated in the Report of the Commissioners on Fees. Do your fees vary in proportion to the amount sued for?—No, not at all; they are according to the length of the proceedings. Are there any fees upon actions which do not come to trial?—If there is business done in the office. Is any business done in the office, when a cause foes not come to trial?—Yes, in every case, if a man brings an action, he must occasionally apply to the court for a rule or an order to do different thins; if there is a nonsuit afterwards, there is always previous business done, as a matter of course; when a man files a declaration, he gives a rule to plead upon it; if he has an interlocutory judgment, of course, there would proceedings upon that interlocutory judgment. Can you form any guess as to what proportion of the fees have been taken for causes in which the cause of action is less than ten pounds?—I have not the most distant idea of it; I have no document in my office that would show it; nor do I apprehend it could ever be made completely to appear; the only way to get at it would be, if it were possible, to look at the writs they issue; but I do not know whether
Identifier: | JB/004/039/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 4.
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1825-05-04 |
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004 |
lord brougham displayed |
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039 |
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001 |
county courts bill / minutes of evidence / taken before the select committee on the / bill / for preventing delays and expenses in the proceedings of county courts, and for the more easy and speedy recovery of small debts, in england and wales |
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printed material |
36 |
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recto |
(6-35) |
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1960 |
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