according to their real merits, shall not be hindered; and also of directing the examination of witnesses who 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 the State.

SECTION 25. At any time pending an action for debt or damages, the defendant may bring into court a sum of money for discharging the same, together with the costs then accrued, and the plaintiff not accepting the same, if upon the final decision of the cause, he shall not recover a greater sum than 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.

SECTION 26. By the death of any party, no suit in chancery or at law, where the cause of action survives, shall abate, but, until the General Assembly 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 return 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 executors or administrators, 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.

SECTION 27. 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 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 condemnation money and all costs, or otherwise abide the decree in appeal or the judgment in error, if he fails to make his plea good.

SECTION 28. No writ of error shall be brought upon any judgment heretofore confessed, entered or rendered, or 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 within five years exclusive of the time of such disability.

SECTION 29. 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 situate.

SECTION 30. The General Assembly may by law give to any inferior courts by it established or 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 victualing house, retailing or selling without license, or on Sunday, or to minors, wine, rum, brandy, gin, whiskey, or spirituous or mixed liquors, contrary to law, carrying concealed a deadly weapon, disturbing meetings held for the purpose of religious worship, nuisances, and such other misdemeanors as the General Assembly may from time to time, with the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House prescribe.

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; provided, however, that there shall be an appeal to the Court of General Sessions in all cases in which the sentence shall be imprisonment exceeding one month, or a fine exceeding one hundred dollars.

SECTION 31. There shall be appointed, as hereinafter provided, such number of persons to the office of Justice of the Peace as shall be directed by law, who shall be commissioned for four years.

SECTION 32. Justices of the Peace and the judges of such courts as the General Assembly may establish pursuant to the provisions of Section 1 or Section 30 of this Article shall be appointed by the Governor, by and with the consent of a majority of all the members elected to the Senate, for such terms as shall be fixed by this Constitution or by law.

SECTION 33. The Registers of Wills 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. Appeals may be taken from a Register's Court to the Superior Court, whose decision shall be final. In cases where a Register of Wills is interested in questions concerning the probate of wills, the granting of letters of administration or executors' or administrators' accounts, the cognizance thereof shall belong to the Orphans' Court, with an appeal to the Superior Court, whose decision shall be final.

SECTION 34. An executor or administrator shall file every account. with the Register of Wills 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 or administrator, and shall adjust and settle the same according to the right of the matter and the law of the land; which account so settled shall remain in his office for inspection; and the executor, or administrator, shall within three months after such settlement give 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 law of the land.

SECTION 35. 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 V

ELECTIONS

SECTION 1. The general election shall be held biennially on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November, and shall be by ballot; but the General Assembly may by law prescribe the means, methods and instruments of voting so as best to secure secrecy and the independence of the voter, preserve the freedom and purity of elections and prevent fraud, corruption and intimidation. thereat.

SECTION 2. Every male citizen of this State of the age of twentyone years who shall have been a resident thereof one year next preceding an election, and for the last three months a resident of the county, and for the last thirty days a resident of the hundred or election district in which he may offer to vote, and in which he shall have been duly registered as hereinafter provided for, shall be entitled to vote at such election in the hundred or election district of which he shall at the time be a resident, and in which he shall be registered, for all officers that now are or hereafter may be elected by the people and upon all questions which may be submitted to the vote of the people; provided, however, that no person who shall attain the age of twenty-one years after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred, or after that date shall become a citizen of the United States, shall have the right to vote unless he shall be able to read this Constitution in the English language and write his name; but these requirements shall not apply to any person who by reason of physical disability shall be unable to comply therewith; and provided also, that no person in the military, naval, or marine service of the United States shall be considered as acquiring a residence in this State, by being stationed in any garrison, barrack, or military or naval place or station within this State; and no idiot or insane person, pauper, or person convicted of a crime deemed by law felony, or incapacitated under the provisions of this Constitution from voting, shall enjoy the right of an elector; and the General Assembly may impose the forfeiture of the right of suffrage as a punishment for crime.

SECTION 3. No person who shall receive or accept, or offer to receive or accept, or shall pay, transfer, or deliver, or offer or promise to pay, transfer or deliver, or shall contribute, or offer or promise to contribute to another, to be paid or used, any money or other valuable thing as a compensation, inducement or reward for the registering or obtaining from registering of any one qualified to register, or for the giving or withholding, or in any manner influencing the giving or withholding, a vote at any general or special or municipal election in this State, shall vote at such election; and upon challenge for any of said causes the person so challenged before the officers authorized for that purpose shall receive his vote, shall swear or affirm before such officers that he has not received or accepted, or offered to receive or accept, or paid, transferred or delivered, or offered or promised to pay, transfer or deliver, or contributed, or offered or promised to con

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tribute to another, to be paid or used, any money or other valuable thing as a compensation, inducement or reward for the registering or abstaining from registering of any one qualified to register, or for the giving or withholding, or in any manner influencing the giving or withholding, a vote at such election.

Such oath or affirmation shall be conclusive evidence to the election officers of the truth of such oath or affirmation; but if any such oath or affirmation shall be false, the person making the same shall be guilty of perjury, and no conviction thereof shall bar any prosecution under Section 8 of this Article.

SECTION. 4. The General Assembly shall provide by law for a uniform biennial registration of the names of all the voters in this State who possess the qualifications prescribed in this Article, which registration shall be conclusive evidence to the election officers of the right of every person so registered to vote at the general election next thereafter, who is not disqualified under the provision of Section 3 of this Article; but no person shall vote at such election unless his name appears in the list of registered voters.

Such registration shall be commenced not more than one hundred and twenty days nor less than sixty days before and be completed not more than twenty nor less than ten days before such election. Application for registration may be made on at least five days during the said period; provided, however, that such registration may be corrected as hereinafter provided, at any time prior to the day of holding the election.

Voters shall be registered upon personal application only; and each voter shall, at the time of his registration, pay a registration fee of one dollar, for the use of the county where such registration fee is paid.

From the decision of the registration officers granting or refusing registration, or striking or refusing to strike a name or names from the registration list, any person interested, or any registration officer, may appeal to the resident Associate Judge of the county, or in case of his disability or absence from the county, to any judge entitled to sit in the Supreme Court, whose determination shall be final; and he shall have power to order any name improperly omitted from the said registry to be placed thereon, and any name improperly appearing on the said registry to be stricken therefrom, and any name appearing on the said registry, in any manner incorrect, to be corrected, and to make and enforce all necessary orders in the premises for the correction of the said registry. Registration shall be required only for general biennial elections at which Representatives to the General Assembly shall be chosen, unless the General Assembly shall otherwise provide by law.

The existing laws in reference to the registration of voters, so far as consistent with the provisions of this Article, shall continue in force until the General Assembly shall otherwise provide.

SECTION 5. Electors shall in all cases, except treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest, during their attendance at elections, and in going to and returning from them.

SECTION 6. The presiding election officer of each hundred or election district, on the day next after the general election, shall deliver one of the certificates of the election, made and certified as required by law, together with the ballot box or ballot boxes, containing the bal

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lots, and other papers required by law to be placed therein, to the Prothonotary of the Superior Court of the county, who shall at twelve o'clock noon on the second day after the election present the same to the said court, and the election officer or officers having charge of any other certificate or certificates of the election shall at the same time present the same to the said court, and the said court shall at the same time convene for the performance of the duties hereby imposed upon it; and thereupon the said court, with the aid of such of its officers and such sworn assistants as it shall appoint, shall publicly ascertain the state of the election throughout the county, by calculating the aggregate amount of all the votes for each office that shall be given in all the hundreds and election districts of the county for every person voted for for such office.

In case the certificates of election of any hundred or election district shall not be produced, or in case the certificates produced do not agree, or in case of complaint under oath of fraud or mistake in any such certificate, or in case fraud or mistake is apparent on the face of any such certificate, the court shall have power to issue summary process against the election officers or any other persons to bring them forthwith into court with the election papers in their possession or control, and to open the ballot boxes and take therefrom any paper contained therein, and to make a record of the ballots contained therein, and to correct any fraud or mistake in any certificate or paper relating to such election.

The said court shall have all other the jurisdiction and powers now vested by law in the boards of canvass, and such other powers as shall be provided by law.

After the state of the election shall have been ascertained as aforesaid, the said court shall make certificates thereof, under the seal of said court in the form required by law, and transmit, deliver and lodge the same as required by this Constitution or by law, and deliver the ballot boxes to the sheriff of the county, to be by him kept and delivered as required by law.

No act or determination of the court in the discharge of the duties imposed upon it by this section shall be conclusive in the trial of any contested election.

For the purposes of this section the Superior Court shall consist in New Castle County of the Chief Justice and the resident Associate Judge; in Kent County of the Chancellor and the resident Associate Judge; and in Sussex County of the resident Associate Judge and the remaining Associate Judge.

Two shall constitute a quorum. The Governor shall have power to commission a judge for the purpose of constituting a quorum when by reason of legal exception to the Chancellor or any judge, or for any other cause, a quorum could not otherwise be had.'

SECTION 7. Every person who either in or out of the State shall receive or accept, or offer to receive or accept, or shall pay, transfer or deliver, or offer or promise to pay, transfer or deliver, or shall contribute, or offer or promise to contribute, to another to be paid or used, any money or other valuable thing as a compensation, inducement or reward for the giving or withholding, or in any manner influencing the giving or withholding, a vote at any general, special, or municipal election in this State, or at any primary election, convention or meeting held for the purpose of nominating any candidate