RACHEL STOKES & AL vs. HAMILTON BROWN & AL.

A clerk and master is not entitled to any specific fee for issuing a subpoena for a witness to appear before him to give his deposition. For suck service he is to be compensated as the Court may think proper.

This was a motion by Boyden in behalf of the plaintiffs for a re-taxation of the costs of the clerk and master below, the cause having been removed to this Court and compromised at this term. The Court 'directed the mat ter to be referred to the Clerk of this Court, who made the following report:

“The Clerk of this Court, to whom this cause was re ferred for re-taxation of the costs in the Court below begs leave to report: That the only exception alleged is, that there is a charge of one dollar to the clerk and master for each summons he has issued for witnesses to attend in the cause. This charge the Clerk believes to be wrong and that it ought to be struck out of the bill of costs.

“The charge is to be attributed to the wording of the Act of Assembly, allowing fees to the clerk and master, which gives one dollar for “each subpoena, writ or other process,” which the clerk understands to reler to the process, by which defendants are brought into the Court of Equity, and not to a summons for a witness.

“The compensation for taking the testimony, in which is included the issuing of subpoenas, is embraced in the following words of the Act of Assembly of 1830, Rev. St. ch. 105, “for a report stating an account not exceeding fifty dollars,” and the Act of 1842, ch. 50, authorizing *34clerks and masters to take depositions, sec 2, “The clerks and mastersshall be entitled, for taking depositions, to such compensation as may be allowed them by the Court, to •which the depositions are returnable, to be paid as the Court may direct by either party or by both, in such proportions as the Court shall decree, to be taxed with and as part of the costs.”

“All which is respectfully submitted.

JAS. R. DODGE, Clebk.”