ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 45

the Court of Appeals with the Commission for preservation, such Codes
may, of course, be certified by the Commission in the same manner as
other laws that may have come into its custody by virtue of Section 127.
The Code of 1924, 'however, is merely evidence of the law (Chapter
219 of the Acts of 1924), and while the Act making it evidence of the
law has been recorded with the Court of Appeals, there is no public official
who can be said to have the custody of the Code, itself. This being true,
there is no public official authorized to turn it over to the Commission and
deposit it for preservation, and therefore, the prerequisite of certification,
i. e. deposit with the Commission by a public official having custody, is not
present. The purpose of the Section, of course, was to enable those need-
ing certified copies of documents, records, etc., to obtain them from the
Commission after the deposit of the originals by the proper custodian,
but it was not intended to authorize a certification of every paper or book
that might come into the Commission's possession.

You are, therefore, advised that you have no authority to certify the
portion of the 1924 Code enclosed with your letter, and which we return
enclosed herewith.

WILLIAM C. WALSH, Attorney General
ROBERT E. CLAPP, JR., Asst. Attorney General.

ACTS OF ASSEMBLY

The Hall of Records was interested directly in five bills introduced in
the 1949 meeting of the General Assembly.

CHAPTER 504

The first of these provided for the microfilming of deeds, mortgages,
and releases of mortgages and the deposit of these films in the office of the
Land Commissioner in lieu of the abstracts which had been prepared in
the various counties and Baltimore City and sent to Annapolis since 1784,
first to the Court of Appeals and then to the Land Office. The special
interest of the Hall of Records was in the saving of space in our stack area
which would be accomplished by this substitution.

CHAPTER 504
(House Bill 1)

AN ACT to repeal and re-enact, with amendments, Sections 71
and 72 of Article 17 of the Annotated Code of Maryland