422            JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 18,

the transcript of proceedings of the late Baltimore County
Court, in 1851, as follows:

We, the undersigned, having this day made a careful and
thorough examination of the papers and records of the office
of the Clerk of the County, such as the law requires, and the
Judges of this Court have performed from time to time, avail
ourselves on this, the last occasion, and the one which closes
our official relations to convey to you in terms of unqualified
approbation, our feeble attestations to your upright and per-
fect discharge of the responsible duties which the laws im-
posed upon your office. We only thus reiterate what we had
frequent occasion to certify, that now, as heretofore, we have
uniformly found the voluminous papers and records under '
your charge, arranged and preserved in perfect order and with
all the advantages of economy and convenience of access, and
reference so indispensable to its successful administration.

In our repeated examinations, we have never yet discover-
ed the slightest trace of omission or neglect. Through the
whole period of our official action, not the smallest complaint
has ever been breathed to the Court, from a single individual
of that vast public, whose business is daily connected with
your office. That these salutary ends should be obtained and
certified to the public, was in the view and design of the law
which imposed the visitorial power over the office upon the
Court, and it is with unfeigned pleasure we now record the
fact that you have not disappointed them. In return for your
courteous and gentlemanly bearing in all your relations with
the Court, and as a testimonial of our just appreciation of
your public services, we have directed a copy of this paper to
be recorded in the archives, as the last act of the Judges of
Baltimore County Court, and as a proper appendage to this,
their final report.

Sincerely and respectfully,

Wm. Frick,
John Purviance,
John C. LeGrand.

Thus it will be seen that the condition of the books and
records, and whole management of said office, at the time the
late clerk entered upon his duties, was in keeping with the
provisions of the law and faithfully secured the vast interests
of the citizens whose titles to estates are lodged within its
vaults, and confided to the care of its chief officer. The con-
dition in which your committee found it, they regret to be
compelled to report, was anything else than that described by
the Judges of the late Baltimore County Court.

Your committee examined every book in said office. They
found many of them greatly disordered, defaced and deranged;