224 HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY.

The clause directing the commissioners to take evidence should be added to the
form of the commission.

The act of Assembly requiring thirty days notice of the execution of the com-
misgion to be given, is not complied with by stating in the return, that Mnsoti-
able notice was given; but the commissioners must say in their return, either
that they gave at least thirty days notice, or due notice, according to law.

[A partition having been decreed between the parties to this
cause, (other than Mary Ann Dorsey,) a commission was is-
sued for that purpose, and return made thereon, to which latter
various objections have been raised, and their merits argued
before the Chancellor.

The most prominent objections taken, were:

The assignment of the shares to the several parties interested,
by the commissioners themselves, without ballot.

The omission on the part of the commissioners to ascertain
and return the value of the whole estate to be divided, and that
of the several parts as laid off by them, or its value, subject to
the incumbrance of the widow's dower.

And the want of due notice to the complainant of the execu-
tion of the commission.

In considering the first of these, the Chancellor says :]

THE CHANCELLOR :

This objection, it seems to me, cannot be sustained, whether
we regard the practice of the court, the act of assembly, or the
rule of the English Court of Chancery in similar cases.

To whatever source we are to trace the jurisdiction of the
Chancery Court of England in cases of partition, and that there
is some obscurity in regard to it is very manifest, it never seems
to have been the duty of the agents employed by the court for
the purpose, to distribute the estate to be divided, by lot. On
the contrary, the general practice has been for the commission-
ers themselves to assign to each of the parties his share of the
estate. Allnutt on Partition, 88, 89.

This not only appears from the observations of the authors,
but from the.form of the commission, and the return of the com-
missioners to the Chancellor, as is shown by the precedents at
pages 210, 211, 212, of the same book.