THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.—1 BLAND. 635

It would be foreign to the constitutional question, now under
consideration; and it would be invidious to contrast the duties of
the Chancellor with those of any common law Judge in the State.

But there are those, who mistake the object of the Act of
November, 1809, eh. 181, requiring the number of days each Judge
of the several Courts of law, attends in their respective Courts, to
be certified annually to the General Assembly; and, under that
mistake they have taken up an opinion, that judicial labour was a
sort of job work, the value of which might be estimated by the
number of days the labourer was employed. To those, it may be
satisfactory to learn, that the business of the Court of Chancery
has latterly very much increased, and continues to increase; and
that its records will show, that the present Chancellor has either
in the way of a formal session of a Court, or otherwise, been called
upon about three hundred different days of the last year, to trans-
act business which had been brought before him from almost all
the different counties of the State.

It is because of the continual calls to which a Chancellor must
always hold himself accessible, and because of the nature, and
the peculiarly heavy pressure of the duties imposed upon such an
officer, that the salary of the Chancellor of England, and of every
State in this Union; has always been double, or at least one-third
more than that of any other judicial officer. And it is for the
same reasons, that the salary of the Chancellor of Maryland, from
the first settlement of the country, up to this time, has always
been in a similar proportion higher than that of any other judicial
officer of the State, (x)

(x) The table on next page presents at one view the annual amount of all
judicial salaries in Maryland, from the year 1773, to the year 1825 inclusive,
translating those formerly given in the money of account of the State into
dollars and cents.

The facts exhibited by this table suggest many matters for reflection; some
of which it may be well here to notice. There was nothing in the frame of
the Provincial Government which made it incompatible for one judicial
officer to hold at the same time any other similar office, or indeed almost
any other kind of office; or which prohibited his taking fees or perquisites
of any kind; and it was in fact quite common for the same person to have a
plurality of offices and to receive a variety of fees and perquisites as such.
The last Provincial Governor was Chancellor and algo ex officio Chief Judge
of the Court of Appeals. (1713, ch. 4, s. 6; 1729, ch. 3,) and consequently the
aggregate amount of his salary as Governor, Chancellor, and Judge must
have been at least $5,066, besides fees and perquisites; yet at that time there
was not half the amount of population and wealth in Maryland, that there
is at preseent, (1835.)

The Declaration of Eights declares, that no person ought to hold, at the
same time, more than one office of profit; and that no Chancellor or Judge
ought to hold any other office civil or military, or receive fees or perquisites
of any kind. Consequently the authority of the Chancellor and Judges of
the Republic is limited to a single judicial office, and their official emolu-