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DEALE v. ESTEP. 437
mentioned kinds of subpaena were only those which issued from
the courts of common law. But the same law, in a subsequent
section, allows to the sheriff a fee for 'serving a subpaena,' without
making any allusion whatever to the court whence it may issue;
it also allows to the sheriff a fee for executing a 'Proclamation of
Rebellion,' a process known only to the Court of Chancery, whence
it is sufficiently evident, that it was then considered to be the duty
of the sheriff to serve subpoenas as well as to execute all other pro-
cess issuing from the Court of Chancery, (m)
The acts of Assembly regulating officers' fees under the govern-
ment of the Republic are, in this respect, entirely unequivocal.
For, in those paragraphs in which the fees of the register in Chan-
cery are regulated, the subpoena ad respondendum is, by name, set
down as the first item for which he is to be allowed a fee; and
then he is allowed another fee 'for every subpaena and return;'
which clearly shews, that those two kinds of subpaena were issued
from the Court of Chancery; and that the register was to be com-
pensated for each. And then, in other sections, by which the
sheriff's fees are regulated, it appears, that he is to be allowed a
fee for 'serving a subpoena and return.' (n) There is, it is true,
no designation of the kind of subpoena, or of the court whence it
emanates, for which he is to be thus compensated; but then the
phrase is general, and sufficiently comprehensive to embrace all
kinds of subpaenas, as well all those issuing from the Court of
Chancery as from other courts. By the same laws the sheriff is
allowed a fee for executing the process of a 'Proclamation of Re-
bellion,' which, although now abrogated, (o) it is well known
could then be issued only from the Court of Chancery. The late
act for regulating the fees of certain officers, (p) is silent as to
sheriffs' fees; and therefore, affords nothing illustrative of the
question now under consideration.
From these legislate enactment! it is clearly deducible, that it
was then considered as the duty of the sheriff to execute subpoenas
and all other process emanating from the Court of Chancery. And
besides, it appears from the records of the court itself, to have been
the constant practice and usage for the sheriff to execute all sub-
poenas ad respondendum, od testificandum, and duces tecum, which
issued from it, as well as attachments. And it also appears, that
on taking a party into custody, under an attachment, it had always
(m)1763, ch. 18.—(n) October, 1777, ch. 10 and 13; October, 1778,ch. 17;
November, 1779, ch. 25.—(o) 1785, ch. 72, s. 26.—(p) 1826, ch. 247.
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