Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1885-01-09

anu UeSleEe Tue Legislature, Dnt Dellevc Inc
citizens of the county will see TO il that lege
power is obtained to do what is Just
The opinion of the Court of Appeals SAYS,
''The method of doing the work pas within The
poaoer OF the Judges of the Circuit Court to
direct. That method was prescribed. II that
method subjected the Clerk to unusual trouble
and expense, and greater than the statute
contemplated, then his only remedy was leg
islative Intervention in his behalf He should
have sought it from the Legislature instead of
an order of the Court"
| BY the method prescribed, the Court of APP
peals means the Campbells system instead of
the ancient system of lndexing. The chief
difference is that whilst the old system divides
A Volume of the Index into only 26 divisions
one under each letter of the alphabet-the
Campbelps system divides A Volume Of the
| Index into GIG divisions, and the names of
| persons indexed must be each placed in its
proper division, respecting the initial letter
| both of the surname and also of the Christian
name. Every time a name is 10 be entered the
inder ofth IndeZ Volume must be turned TO
| TO ascertain where TO en- !e: it, and after each
separate entry is made, ii must be perfectly
blotted and dried before you can turn again
| to the index of the Under volume 10 ascertain
where the next name must be entered, and so
on until all the names in deed are properly
| entered.
Anybody can see that indeying thus by the
Campbells system requires more time and
| labor and greater skill and care to avoid mis-
takes, &c, than the antiquated system that was
| in vogue fifty years ago. If any mistakes oc-
cur in such complicated Index, ii vitiates the
whole volume and makes it far worse than no
General Index. There is no room for careless,
apprentice work in such m index.
The Court of Appeals, misead, as believe,
| hrf baa Al nlL, r a.
| plainants brief, says that in its opinion, by
the 10th section Of Article 38 of the Code p
G. l.. the fee for doing this work General
Alphabetical Index OF all deeds and instru-
ments required to be recorded) is fixed at
one and one-quarter cents for e very ten words,
or twelve and one-half cents for every hun
dred words" find in the 29th Maryland
| Reports, page 579 the following sentence in
the opinion of the Court of Appeals, viz
at is the duty of the Court to interpret a
statute according to the intention of the franz
ers of the law" Now for three chronological
| facts. LIST. The 10th section Of Article 80 of
the Code of P. G. L. quoted by the Court of
Appeals as fixing the fee for makinga General
Index was passed by the Legislature in 1926,
chapter 247 I'd. In 1926 the Legislature of
Md. had never by any law, General or Local,
authorized the making OF General Index,
and consequently no such thing rs General
Index was in existence any where in all the
State of Maryland. 3rd. A Public General
Law authorizing and providing for the maxi
| ing of General Indexes to the Land Records was
passed by the Legislature of Maryland for the
first land in fact the only time) in the year Of
| Our Lord 1888, in chap. SO. Now what want
TO know is how could the Legislature in 1926
/ have intended to provide for payment for max
! ing General index which the Legislature
] tlnr ,1al g..
| wards As such antecedent intention is simply
impossible, itfollows that have demonstrated
that the complainant, in the 9th section of
his brief, has perpetrated an anachronism,
and the Court Of Appeals has sustained him in
| 1t in its opinion. Moreover, when the Legis-
tature in 1893 did pass for the first time p
/ &. L., chapter 88, for making General In
/ dex, it, in the same Act provides a different
method of paying for the same, viz Payment
! by the County Commissioners ''such sum as
| the County Commissioners may deem a fair
compensation for the making of the same. to
be levied and collected as other county charges
now are
One other matter. The Court of Appeals,
says its opinion, still sustaining the appel
| lanl's brief, "but it was contended that this
/ General Index was more especially for public
benefit, and was properly chargeabe against
the public. We cannot see why General
Index, which informs a party (depositing a
| deed for record) of l.iber and page where his
deed is recorded, is not to be regarded rs
made for his benefit" suggest two reasons.
LIST The party withdraws his original deed
from the Clerks Office after it is there record
ed and takes il home with him, and when he
looks at the endorsement thereon he finds
there the Clerk certificate stating the "!.ber
and page where his deed is recorded - And
4 10 In ,,ck
80 afterwards, wishes to know the ''Liber and
page where his deed is recorded, " all be has to
do, u he can read, is to look at the said en-
dorsemen s~@ at
end. The Legislature, once and only once,
believe, has stated IFS treason for. GhargiGg
sSre f','btIc with the cost of making Genera
Index. Laws of 1881 chapter &c. public
Local Law for Baltimore county, then ON
braring Baltimore city, passed only two years
before the passage of the only Public Genera
Law on the same subject hereinbeiore referred
to, rccites in its preamble that-"the Land
Records had accumulated during the last "a
years-that without General Index, the
search for conveyances aud asceriainment oil
titles OF land was rendered very laborlous,
tedious and eXpensive-and that said search
lad subjected the oolumes of those records Ia
much cedT, and in the end may make the
transcribing Of them requisite which would
prOvea heavy charge upon the city and county
Of BohimOre-and that the public interest re-
qnires that these evils should be remedied and
for the future prevented That is the Leg
islature's only reason, so far as can find, for
authorizing General Index.
The complainant and his senior counsel.
and the Court of Appeals, following their
suggestion, make emphatic reference to Arii-
Gle Is, Section SO Of the Maryland Code,
which provides for keeping up General In
dex cotemporaneously with the recording OF
deeds. | am charged with neglecting to keep
up lheGeneral Index from 1863 TO 1888, and
also with nsgleeting to charge and collect the
fees fot SO keeping il up, from the individuals
who presented their deeds for record. Said
section Is has been law for more than fly
years Ii has never been, in this county,
anything but dead letter, until 1883. No
former Clerk had ever written single word
in obedience to its provisions No Judge or
officer of this Court ever, prior to 1888, called
my attention lhereto. No Clerk had ever
charged or collected n cent from parties de-
posting deeds for such work. There ia to this
moment an utter absence of any specific law
authorizing Clerk 80 to charge parties.
This Section IS had been a dead letter else
where in the Stale. ! need only refer to the
fact that twice a Local Law for Frederick
county was passed., requiring the CLERK TO
bring up the General Index of the Land Re-
cords, for the period of his predecessors in
cdtnbency, and at the expense of Frederick
county. reason for this neglect is mani
fest, especially in county like this, where
the Clerk has no private room for work re-
curing extraordinary careiulness TO avoid
mistakes. Where, in fact be has not IA rail-
ing or counter 10 separate his Deputies from
the general reception room, and where he
cannot afford to employ constantly m Index
Clerk who attends to Iudexing alone.
doubt not that the custom found existing,
arose from the evident difficulty, il not i'm
I possibility, of keeping up reliable coempo-
raneous General hider, to be made by whoever
/ happened TO he recording at the time, and in
the midst of the constant interruptions of
other work, and that II was deemed better for
the interest OF the public, to make n special
work OF bringing up the General Index at
intervals and then giving the work into tue
exclusive charge of the most skilled Deputy.
cannot see any great dereictiou of duty
! in doing as all my predecessors had done.
especially rs il was sanctioned by common