alleged for his removal, at least five days before the day on which either house of the general assembly shall act thereupon.

SEC. 15. The general assembly may by law give to any inferior courts by them to be established, or to one or more justices of the peace, jurisdiction of the criminal matters following, that is to say, assaults and batteries, keeping without license a public house of entertainment, tavern, inn, ale-house, ordinary, or victualling house, retailing or selling without license wine, rum, brandy, gin, whiskey, or spirituous or mixed liquors contrary to law disturbing campmeetings held for the purpose of religious worship, disturbing other meetings for the purpose of religious worship, nuisances, horseracing, cock-fighting, and shooting-matches, larcenies committed by negroes or mulattoes, and the offence of knowingly buying, receiving or concealing, by negroes or mulattoes, of stolen goods and things the subject of larceny, and of any negro or mulatto being accessary to any larceny. The general assembly may by law regulate this jurisdiction, and provide that the proceedings shall be with or without indictment by grand jury, or trial by petit jury, and may grant or deny the privilege of appeal to the court of general sessions of the peace. The matters within this section shall be, and the same hereby are, excepted and excluded from the provision of the constitution that "No person shall for an indictable offence be proceeded against criminally by information," and also from the provision of the constitution concerning trial by jury.

SEC. 16. In civil causes, when pending, the superior court shall have the power, before judgment, of directing, upon such terms as they shall deem reasonable, amendments in pleadings and legal proceedings, so that by error in any of them the determination of causes, according to their real merits, shall not be hindered; and also of directing the examination of witnesses that are aged, very infirm, or going out of the State, upon interrogatories de bene esse, to be read in evidence, in case of the death or departure of the witnesses before the trial, or inability by reason of age, sickness, bodily infirmity, or imprisonment, then to attend; and also the power of obtaining evidence from places not within this State.

SEC. 17. At any time pending an action for debt or damages, the defendant may bring into court a sum of money for discharging the same, and the cost then accrued, and the plaintiff not accepting thereof, it shall be delivered for his use to the clerk or prothonotary of the court; and if, upon the final decision of the cause, the plaintiff shall not recover a greater sum than that so paid into court for him, he shall not recover any costs accruing after such payment, except where the plaintiff is an executor or administrator.

SEC. 18. By the death of any party, no suit in chancery or at law, where the cause of action survives, shall abate, but, until the legislature shall otherwise provide, suggestion of such death being entered of record, the executor or administrator of a deceased petitioner or plaintiff may prosecute the said suit; and if a respondent or defendant dies, the executor or administrator being duly served with a scire facias, thirty days before the term thereof, shall be considered as a party to the suit, in the same manner as if he had voluntarily made himself a party; and in any of those cases, the court shall pass a decree, or render judgment for or against the executors or adminis

trators, as to right appertains. But where an executor or administrator of a deceased respondent or defendant becomes a party, the court, upon motion, shall grant such a continuance of the cause as to the judges shall appear proper.

SEC. 19. Whenever a person, not being an executor or administrator, appeals from a decree of the chancellor, or applies for a writ of error, such appeal or writ shall be no stay of proceeding in the chancery, or the court to which the writ issues, unless the appellant or plaintiff in error shall give sufficient security, to be approved respectively by the chancellor, or by a judge of the court from which the writ issues, that the appellant or plaintiff in error shall prosecute respectively his appeal or writ to effect, and pay the condemnationmoney and all costs, or otherwise abide the decree in appeal, or the judgment in error, if he fail to make his plea good.

SEC. 20. No writ of error shall be brought upon any judgment heretofore confessed, entered, or rendered, but within five years from this time; nor upon any judgment hereafter to be confessed, entered, or rendered, but within five years after the confessing, entering, or rendering thereof; unless the person entitled to such writ be an infant, feme-covert, non compos mentis, or a prisoner, and then with five years exclusive of the time of such disability.

SEC. 21. An executor, administrator, or guardian shall file every account with the register for the county, who shall, as soon as conveniently may be, carefully examine the particulars with the proofs thereof, in the presence of such executor, administrator, or guardian, and shall adjust and settle the same according to the very right of the matter and the law of the land; which account so settled shall remain in his office for inspection; and the executor, administrator, or guardian shall, within three months after such settlement, give due notice in writing to all persons entitled to shares of the estate, or to their guardians respectively, if residing within the State, that the account is lodged in the said office for inspection. Exceptions may be made by persons concerned, to both sides of every such account, either denying the justice of the allowances made to the accountant, or alleging further charges against him; and the exceptions shall be heard in the orphans' court for the county; and thereupon the account shall be adjusted and settled according to the right of the matter and the law of the land.

SEC. 22. The registers of the several counties shall respectively hold the register's court in each county. Upon the litigation of a cause the depositions of the witnesses examined shall be taken at large in writing, and make part of the proceedings in the cause. This court may issue process throughout the State to compel the attendance of witnesses. Appeals may be made from the register's court to the superior court, whose decision shall be final. In cases where a register is interested in questions concerning the probate of wills, the granting letters of administration, or executors, administrators, or guardians' accounts, the cognizance thereof shall belong to the orphans' court, with an appeal to the superior court, whose decisions shall be final.

SEC. 23. The prothonotary of the superior court may issue process, take recognizances of bail, and enter judgments according to law and the practice of the court. No judgment in one county shall bind

lands or tenements in another, until a testatum fieri facias being issued, shall be entered of record in the office of the prothonotary of the county wherein the lands or tenements are situated.

SEC. 24. The governor shall appoint a competent number of persons to the office of justice of the peace, not exceeding twelve in each county, until two-thirds of both houses of the legislature shall by law direct an addition to the number, who shall be commissioned for seven years, if so long they shall behave themselves well, but may be removed by the governor within that time on conviction of misbehavior in office, or on the address of both houses of the legislature. SEC. 25. The style in all process and public acts shall be, “The State of Delaware." Prosecutions shall be carried on in the name of the State.

ARTICLE VII

SECTION 1. The members of the senate and house of representatives, the chancellor, the judges, and the attorney-general shall, by virtue of their offices, be conservators of the peace throughout the State; and the treasurer, secretary, prothonotaries, registers, recorders, sheriffs, and coroners shall, by virtue of their offices, be conservators thereof within the counties respectively in which they reside.

SEC. 2. The Representative, and, when there shall be more than one, the Representatives of the people of this State in Congress, shall be voted for at the same places where representatives in the State legislature are voted for, and in the same manner.

SEC. 3. The sheriff and coroner of each county shall be chosen by the citizens residing in such county. They shall hold their respective offices for two years, if so long they behave themselves well, and until successors be duly qualified; but no person shall be twice chosen sheriff upon election by the citizens in any term of four years. They shall be commissioned by the governor. The governor shall fill vacancies in these offices by appointments to continue until the next election, and until successors shall be duly qualified. The legislature, two-thirds of each branch concurring, may vest the appointment of sheriffs and coroners in the governor; but no person shall be twice appointed sheriff in any term of six years.

SEC. 4. The attorney-general, registers in chancery, prothonotaries, registers, clerks of the orphans' court and of the peace, shall respectively be commissioned for five years, if so long they shall behave themselves well, but may be removed by the governor within that time on conviction of misbehavior in office, or on the address of both houses of the legislature. Prothonotaries, registers in chancery, clerks of the orphans' court, registers, recorders, and sheriffs, shall keep their offices in the town or place in each county in which the superior court is usually held.

SEC. 5. Attorneys at law, all inferior officers in the treasury department, election officers, officers relating to taxes, to the poor, and to highways, constables and hundred officers, shall be appointed in such manner as is or may be directed by law.

SEC. 6. All salaries and fees annexed to officers shall be moderate; and no officer shall receive any fees whatever without giving to the person who pays a receipt for them, if required, therein specifying every particular, and the charge for it.

SEC. 7. No costs shall be paid by a person accused on a bill being returned ignoramus, nor on acquittal by a jury.

SEC. 8. The rights, privileges, immunities, and estates of religious societies and corporate bodies shall remain as if the constitution of this State had not been altered. No ordained clergyman or ordained preacher of the gospel of any denomination shall be capable of holding any civil office in the State, or of being a member of either branch of the legislature while he continues in the exercise of the pastoral or clerical functions.

SEC. 9. All the laws of this State existing at the time of making this constitution, and not inconsistent with it, shall remain in force, unless they shall be altered by future laws; and all actions and prosecutions now pending shall proceed as if this constitution had not been made.

SEC. 10. This constitution shall be prefixed to every edition of the laws made by direction of the legislature.

SEC. 11. The legislature shall, as soon as conveniently may be, provide by law for ascertaining what statutes and parts of statutes shall continue to be in force within this State; for reducing them and all acts of the general assembly into such order, and publishing them in such manner that thereby the knowledge of them may be generally diffused; for choosing inspectors and judges of elections, and regulating the same in such manner as shall most effectually guard the rights of the citizens entitled to vote; for better securing personal liberty, and easily and speedily redressing all wrongful restraints thereof; for more certainly obtaining returns of impartial juries; for dividing lands and tenements in sales by sheriffs, where they will bear a division, into as many parcels as may be without spoiling the whole, and for advertising and making the sales in such manner and at such times and places as may render them most beneficial to all persons concerned; and for establishing schools and promoting arts and sciences.

SEC. 12. No property qualification shall be necessary to the holding of any office in this State, except the office of senator in the general assembly, and the office of assessor, inquisitor on lands, and levycourt commissioner, and except such offices as the general assembly shall by law designate.

ARTICLE VIII

Members of the general assembly and all officers, executive and judicial, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the constitution of this State, and to perform the duties of their respective offices with fidelity.

ARTICLE IX

The general assembly, whenever two-thirds of each house shall deem it necessary, may, with the approbation of the governor. propose amendments to this constitution, and at least three, and not more than six months before the next general election of representatives. duly publish them in print for the consideration of the people; and if three-fourths of each branch of the legislature shall, after such an election and before another, ratify the said amendments, they shall be valid to all intents and purposes as parts of this constitution.

No convention shall be called but by the authority of the people; and an unexceptionable mode of making their sense known will be for them at a special election on the third Tuesday of May in any year to vote by ballot for or against a convention, as they shall severally choose to do; and if thereupon it shall appear that a majority of all the citizens in the State, having right to vote for representatives, have voted for a convention, the general assembly shall accordingly at their next session call a convention, to consist of at least as many members as there are in both houses of the legislature, to be chosen in the same manner, at the same places, and at the same time that representatives are by the citizens entitled to vote for representatives, on due notice given for one month, and to meet within three months after they shall be elected. The majority of all the citizens in the State having right to vote for representatives shall be ascertained by reference to the highest number of votes cast in the State at any one of the three general elections next preceding the day of voting for a convention, except when they may be less than the whole number of votes voted both for and against a convention, in which case the said majority shall be ascertained by reference to the number of votes given on the day of voting for or against a convention; and whenever the general assembly shall deem a convention necessary, they shall provide by law for the holding of a special election for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of the majority of the citizens of the State entitled to vote for representatives.

SCHEDULE

That no inconveniences may arise from the amendments of the constitution of this State, and in order to carry the same into complete operation, it is hereby declared and ordained as follows:

SECTION 1. The offices of the present senate and representatives shall not be vacated by any amendment of the constitution made in this convention, nor otherwise affected, except that the terms of the representatives and the terms of the senators which will expire on the first Tuesday of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, are hereby extended to the second Tuesday of November in that year; and the terms of the senators which will expire on the first Tuesday of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, are hereby extended to the second Tuesday of November in that year. And the terms of the senators which will expire on the first Tuesday of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirtyfour, are hereby extended to the second Tuesday of November in that

year.

The general assembly shall meet on the first Tuesday of January next, and shall not be within the amended provision respecting biennial sessions, which biennial sessions shall commence with the session of the general assembly on the first Tuesday of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three.

SEC. 2. The offices of the present sheriffs and coroners shall not be vacated by any amendment to the constitution made in this convention, nor otherwise affected, except that the term of office of the sheriff of Sussex County is hereby extended to the second Tuesday of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty