552 ARTICLE 17.

judges of the circuit court for the respective counties or the supreme bench
of Baltimore city, as the case may be, in well bound books procured by him
for that purpose; and he shall perform all the duties required of him, or
which may hereafter be required of him, by law.

Court records are public property, and if lost the state must supply the defect,
and hence may put clerk's bond in suit. State v. Wayman, 2 G. & J. 282.

Copies must be obtained through the clerk, and upon payment of fees prescribed
by law. Belt v. Prince George's County Abstract Co., 73 Md. 291.

Under act of 1817, ch. 119, the clerk was not required to make up a formal record;
the docket entries and files of the court standing in place of such record. Proof
of docket entries. Philadelphia, etc., R. R. Co. v. Howard, 13 How. 307.

An. Code, sec. 2. 1904, sec. 2. 1888, sec. 2. 1886, ch. 322. 1914, ch. 241.

- 2. It shall be the duty of the Clerks of the several Courts of Equity of
this State to provide a well bound and suitable book, to be styled " The
Claims Docket," in which in all cases of voluntary trusts, or under decrees
for the payment of debts, or in any other cases in which creditors may prove
their claims in said Court, shall be entered in alphabetical order, the
names of the creditors, the character and amounts of their claims, and the
date when proven and for such entry the said clerks of the several Courts
shall receive the sum of twenty-five cents which said sums shall be taxed
as part of the costs in such cases.

An. Code, sec. 2A. 1916, ch. 327, sec. 2B.

3. It shall be the duty of the Courts of Baltimore City and the Counties,
where bills of sale are recorded, to provide a well bound and suitable book,
to be styled " Conditional Contracts of Sales Docket," in which all notes,
sales or contracts for the sale of goods and chattels, wherein the title thereto,
or a lien thereon, is reserved until the same be paid in whole or in part, or
the transfer of title is made to depend upon any condition therein expressed,
and possession is to be delivered to the vendee, is to be recorded; and such
recording shall contain a brief description of the goods and chattels in such
paper writing mentioned, the date thereof, the amount due thereon, when
and how payable and the names of the vendor, vendee, payee, guarantor and
witness, if any, or such names in plural if they so appear; and the said
Clerk shall index the names of the parties to said paper writing and shall
receive therefor a reasonable and just compensation but not more for said
work than is now provided by Law for the recording of other conveyances
which require the same amount of work.

As to conditional contracts of sale, see art. 21, sec. 55.
As to bills of sale, see art. 21, sec. 44, et seq.

An. Code, sec. 3. 1904, sec. 3. 1890, ch. 383, sec. 2A.

4. Whenever any auditor's report of distribution of the proceeds of
sale of real or personal property shall have been ratified by any of the
courts of this State, such audit and ratification shall be forthwith recorded
by the clerk of said court in a book or books provided for that purpose, the
cost of said record to be taxed in the costs of the case, and a certified copy of
said record shall be evidence. This section shall not apply to Somerset,
Baltimore or Calvert Counties.