thorized to take the acknowledgment or proof of conveyances, except a commissioner of deeds, may issue a subpœna requiring such witness to appear, and testify before such officer touching the execution of such conveyance. (a) If on being served with such subpoena he refuses or neglects, without any reasonable cause, to appear, or appearing, refuses to answer upon oath touching the matters aforesaid, he forfeits to the party injured one hundred dollars, and may also be committed to prison by the officer who issued such subpœna, there to remain, without bail, and without the liberties of the jail, until he submits to answer upon oath as aforesaid. (b)

In Tennessee and Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, a similar provision exists. The grantor, if the deed be acknowledged, and the witness when probate is admitted, are compellable to appear, and acknowledge or prove the deed; and, pending the proceedings for this purpose, the deed has the same effect as if it had been rescinded.

When the witnesses to any conveyances are dead, the same may be proved before any officer authorized to take the proof and acknowledgment of deeds, except commissioners of deeds, and county judges not of the degree of counsel in the supreme court. (c)

The proof of the execution of any conveyance in such case may be made by satisfactory evidence of the death of all the witnesses thereto, and of the hand-writing of such witnesses, or any one of them, and of the grantor ; all which evidence, with the names and places of residence of the witnesses examined before him, shall be set forth by the officer taking the same in his certificate of such proof. (d)

Any conveyance thus proved and certified pursuant to the statute, may be recorded in the proper office, if the original deed be at the same time deposited in the

(a) Sect. 13. (b) Sect. 14.

(c) N. Y. Rev. Stat. § 30. (d) Sect. 31.

same office, there to remain for the inspection of all persons desiring to examine the same. (a)

The proof of the deed, when the grantor dies before he has acknowledged, or the witnesses are dead or cannot be procured, is supplied in a similar manner by the statutes of Maine, Illinois, Georgia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Rhode Island. (b)

Every conveyance acknowledged or proved, and certified in the manner above prescribed by any of the officers before named, may by the New York statute be read in evidence without further proof thereof, and shall be entitled to be recorded. (c)

The record of a conveyance duly registered, or a transcript thereof, certified to be a true copy of such record by the clerk of the county in whose custody the same is, under the seal of the court of Common Pleas of the county of which he is clerk, or by the register of the city and county of New York, when such record shall be in his custody, is admissible as evidence. (d)

A similar effect is given to the records, and certified copies of the records, by the statute law of Kentucky, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois, Georgia, and Indiana. But they are admitted without accounting for the non-production of the original, as in the states of Alabama, Maine, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Massachusetts.

The New York Revised Statutes authorize the admission in evidence of any conveyance of real property situate out of the state without further proof, if it be acknowledged or proved in the manner prescribed by the laws of the state in relation to conveyances of lands within it, in the same manner, and with the same effect as if such conveyance related to real estate within the

(a) Sect. 32.

(c) Sect. 16. 1 R. L. 369, § 5.

(b) Griffith's Reg. (d) Sect. 26. 1 R. L. p. 370, § 5.

state; but this provision is not to be construed to prevent the reading in evidence of any conveyance of lands within any other of the United States, which shall have been duly authenticated, according to the laws of such state, so as to be read in evidence in the courts thereof. (a)

It also contains an express declaration that neither the certificate of the acknowledgment, or of the proof of any conveyance, nor the record, or transcript of the record of such conveyance, shall be conclusive, but may be rebutted, and the force and effect thereof may be contested by any party affected thereby. If the party contesting the proof of a conveyance make it appear that such proof was taken upon the oath of an interested or incompetent witness, neither such conveyance, nor the record thereof, can be received in evidence, until established by other competent proof. (b)

CHAPTER VIII.

SECTION I.

REGISTRATION UNDER THE CIVIL LAW, LAW OF HOLLAND, TRINIDAD, FRANCE, AND CODE CIVIL.

I. Insinuatio. Of what it consisted.-Required only in donations.— Certain donations not subject to it.

II. The law of Holland.-British Guiana, Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope.

III. Trinidad.

IV. Law of France.-Ordinances of 1539, de Moulins, and 1731, required the registration of donations.—In what manner and at what time to be made, and in what place. The consequences of omission to register.— By whom the default of registration could be set up.-By what actes donations must be made. -In force in Lower Canada.—Registration in St. Lucia.-Code Civil.-The transcription of sales for the purpose of purging hypothecs, &c.

I. In the civil law a solemnity resembling registration was adopted, It was called insinuatio, and consisted in the transcription of the act in the public registers. It was not necessary in any other alienation but that appropriated to the purpose of donation. The law by which it was enjoined was introduced by the Emperor Constantine, and extended to all donations in which the value of the gift exceeded two hundred solidi. It was altered by a subsequent law of Justinian, and the insinuation was required only when the value of the property, the subject of the donation, exceeded five hundred solidi. "Et quum retro principum dispositiones insinuari eas

actis intervenientibus volebant, si majores fuerant ducentorum solidorum, constitutio nostra eam quantitatem usque ad quingentos solidos ampliavit, quam stare etiam sine insinuatione statuit." (a)

Certain donations, whatever might be the value of the property transferred, were excepted from its operation, namely, those made propter nuptias, those proceeding from the emperor, and those called remuneratoriæ, and which are in the nature of an exchange. (b)

Although several donations are made, the aggregate value of which might exceed the prescribed amount, yet if the subject of each separate donation did not exceed it, they were valid without registration. (c)

Neither was it required when the donation consisted of an annual sum to the donee for his life, provided the annuity did not exceed this prescribed amount, because, although he might receive in the whole an amount greatly exceeding the sum which the law had prescribed, yet from the uncertainty of life it could not be predicated that he would receive it, and consequently that the total amount of the donation exceeded that sum. It would be otherwise, if it were the gift of a sum certain, payable by annual instalments. (d)

The omission to register the donation did not avoid the whole gift, but so much of it only as exceeded the limited amount. It was valid to the extent of the five hundred solidi. (e)

II. It has been considered that the law of Holland did not require the registration of donations. (f)

Voet expresses his opinion that the act of transport of (a) Inst. lib. 2, tit. 7, § 2.

(b) Novell, 52, c. 2. Ib. 119, c. 1. Perez. Cod. lib. 8, tit. 54, n. 34. Sande's Decis. Fris. lib. 5, tit. 1, def. 3. Voet, ad Pand. lib. 39, tit. 5, n. 17.

(c) Cod. lib. 8, tit. 54, l. 34, § 3.

(d) Cod. lib. 8, tit. 54, 1. 34, § 4. Voet, ad Pand. lib. 39, tit. 5, n. 16. (e) Cod. lib. 8, tit. 54, 1. 34.

(f) Hugo Grotius, Manud. ad Jurisp. Holl. lib. 3, c. 2, n. 27, 28. Matth. Paræm. Belg. Paræm. 5, n. 16; but see Groeneweg. ad Inst. de Donat. § 2, n. 2.