from 1806 to 1851 135

chapter 68, section 4, it was directed that cases in
which the state was a party should be preferred.

Changes in the work of the court developed
gradually, for the most part. By an act of 1818,
chapter 204, the jurisdiction was increased by the
allowance of appeals from the Orphans Courts.
Cases at common law still came up sometimes on
formal writ of error, that method being used, in-
deed, in the greater number of cases for ten years
or more after 1806. After that it gradually dis-
appeared from use, and by 1840 its use, though
still optional, had become rare.⁷ The transcripts
of records were still manuscript papers down to
about the thirties of the last century, when we be-
gin to find printed records in a few scattered
cases. The first one printed seems to have been
that in the case of C. & O. Canal Co. v. B. & O.
R. R. Co.⁸ Richard W. Gill, clerk of the court,
prepared and presented to the Maryland State
Library in 1839 a volume of "Copies of Records
Printed for the use, of the Court of Appeals";
and it contains thirty-five records in all, of cases
since 1831. The reported cases of the same pe-
riod fill six volumes, 4 Gill & Johnson to 9 Gill
& Johnson, and nearly fill a seventh, 10 Gill &
Johnson. This means that in far the greater num-
ber of cases there was only a single manuscript
record. Of those printed, only one copy seems
to have been provided for the court.

The rules of court adopted on each shore in
1806,⁹ required that at the second term after an
appeal, that is, one term before argument, coun-

7. Evans, Maryland Practice, 1839, 424.

8. 4 Gill & Johnson, 1.

9. Rule 2.