88 STRIKE'S CASE.

to require no higher proof than such as would induce the Orphans
Court to allow the* claim according to the testamentary system, in
case no objections were made. Because there being no other mode
by which the real estate of a deceased debtor can be subjected to
the payment of his debts generally, including those due by simple
contract, than by bill in chancery, the decree in such cases for-
merly expressly declared, that the real estate should be sold " for
the payment of the just claims of the creditors of the deceased in
a due course of administration," and the law required, that the real
assets should be paid by the heir or devisee in the same order as
the personalty was directed to be administered by the executor or
administrator ;(f) therefore, this court has felt itself authorized and
required to make a distribution of the real assets upon the same
grade of proof, and in the same order, as has been prescribed by law
for authenticating and paying claims against the personal estate be-
fore the Orphans Court.(g) So that the same claim, whether made
against the personalty or the realty, or whether presented to one
tribunal or another, should, as to the mode of authentication, be
governed by the same rule; and I find this practice spoken of as
far back as the year 1803, as then well established.(h)

that, being either put into the mail, or enclosed in a letter to be delivered by a
private hand, they never reached the office, than it is, that the register, having
received, carelessly lost or mislaid them.

It is injurious to the Chancellor to allege, that a claim with proper vouchers, filed
in this court, cannot be established without the aid of counsel. Any man, attending
to the proceedings of this court, might know, that all claims for money, arising from
sales under a decree of this court, are either examined in the first instance by the
Chancellor, or submitted to, and reported on by the auditor; and that counsel are
rarely, if ever, employed to support any claim, except those claims which are dis-
puted, and which are not, in the first instance, supported by proper proofs or vouchers.

The Chancellor has made these remarks; because he conceives, that it cannot be
improper for any man, or body of men, by a plain declaration, to refute a calumny,
which, (if unnoticed,) might produce disagreeable, mischeivous consequences.

It is ordered, that of the money arising from the sale, in this cause, heretofore
directed to be paid to O'Brian and wife, there be paid to Bernard Caskey, the princi-
pal sum of seventy five pounds, with interest thereon, from the 12th day of April
last, until payment by the purchaser. And, that there be paid to William Richardson
the sum of one hundred and seventy seven pounds, seven shillings, and nine pence,
with interest as aforesaid; and that, unless a further claim, or claims, be preferred
before the balance be paid to O'Brian and wife, in whose hands, money arisirig from
the sale aforesaid, would have been answerable, &c.

(f) 1785, ch. 80, s. 7.

(g) 179S, ch. 101, sub ch. 9.

(h) RINGGOLD v. JONES.—This was a creditors' suit instituted on the 21st of No-
vember, 1799, by William Ringgold, and others, in behalf of themselves and others,
the creditors of William Sluby, deceased, against Jones and others, his executor and