DORSEY v. HAMMOND.—1 BLAND. 441

are wanted, all the pleadings, exhibits and proofs are put into his
hands, so as to enable him fully to investigate, and put the whole
matter in proper order as required. As an incident to every refer-
ence of a case to the auditor, he is thereby virtually, if not ex-
pressly, as under a commission to audit accounts, authorized to
take any testimony deemed requisite in relation to any account
which may he necessary or which the parties may desire to be
stated by him. Prac. Reg. 309. But, if it be necessary to collect
proof from a distance, the parties may either have a regular
commission, or be allowed, by a common order, to have it taken
any where within the State, before any justice of the peace, on
giving notice to the opposite party. All the materials, from which
the auditor makes his calculations and statements preparatory to a
final adjudication upon the matters in controversy, are thus, by
various, cheap, and contemporaneous movements, brought together
at one place, and before an officer conversant with the rules and
principles by which the case is to be decided, by a Court constantly
stationary and always accessible. With such facilities, where the
parties are themselves diligent, there can be no unreasonable delay,
nor any difficulty, but what arises out of the peculiar ambiguity of
the proofs, or the real complexity of the case.

The costs of the Court are no more, in any case, than a just com-
pensation for the labor required. The auditor's fees are consid-
ered as a part of the costs; aad, as such, are always included in
every general award of costs against a plaintiff or defendant: and
the payment of them may be enforced, against the party properly
chargeable, in the first instance, in the same summary manner as
any other costs. Denny v. Wallace & Davidson, MS. 1806; Far-
row v. White, 1 Jac. & Walk. 623. But in some cases it becomes a
matter of doubt who is properly chargeable, in the first instance,
with the auditor's fees. The law declares, that they are to be
"paid by the party desiring such account to be stated." Upon
which it has been held, that in all cases where an account is neces-
sary in any manner to ascertain the claim of a party, he alone is
chargeable, although he may not have specially desired the ac-
count; and in all other cases, where a party particularly instructs
the auditor to state an account in a certain way, he alone is
chargeable, upon the ground of its having been specially desired
* by him. Denny v. Norwood, MS. 1806; Denny v. Wallace
& Davidson, MS. 1806. The auditor is allowed by law $4.07 468
per day for every day he shall reasonably be employed in stating
any account; which by long established usage, has been construed
to mean an allowance of that fee for every account, however short
it may be. In this case the auditor has already stated two ac-
counts, for each of which he has been allowed that fee; but in the
most difficult cases, and where a statement and distribution are
required to be made, among a great multitude of claimants, his