Chap. 43.—An ACT providing for Courts for the City of Richmond, and
Defining the Jurisdiction thereof.

Approved April 7, 1870.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly, That there shall
be for the city of Richmond a circuit court, to be held by the
judge of the seventh circuit; a hustings court, to be held by
the city judge of ‘said city, with like qualifications, and elected
in the same manner, as judges of the circuit courts; and a
court of probate and record, to be called the chancery court
of the city of Richmond, to be held by a judge with like
qualifications, and elected in the same manner, and for the
same term, as the judge of the hustings court.

2. The circuit court of the city of Richmond shall have ex-
clusive original jurisdiction of all causes, motions, matters and
things, which are cognizable by law in other circuit courts of
the commonwealth, whether now pending or hereafter brought
therein: except that said court shall have no jurisdiction of
any suit or proceeding in chancery, or of any criminal prose-
cution, unless by law such jurisdiction be specially given.

3. The circuit court of the city of Richmond shall have
jurisdiction of all criminal proceedings against convicts in the
penitentiary, and of all proceedings to enforce payment of
money to the commonwealth. There shall be brought and
prosecuted in said circuit court all suits in which it may be
necessary or proper to make any of the following® public
officers a party defendant as representing the commonwealth,
to wit: the governor, attorney-general, treasurer, register of
the land office, or either auditor; or in which it may be neces-
sary or proper to make any of ‘the following public corpora-
tions parties defendant, to wit: the board of the literary fund,
board of education, board of public works, or any other public
corporation composed of officers of government, of the funds
and property of which the commonwealth is sole owner, or
m which it shall be attempted to enjoin or otherwise suspend
or affect any judgment or decree on behalf of the common-
wealth, or any execution issued on such judgment or decree.

4. The hustings court of the city of Richmond shall (ex-
cept as hereinbefore provided) have exclusive original juris-
diction of all presentments, intormations and indictments for
offences committed within the jurisdiction aforesaid, including
criminal causes now therein pending.

5. The chancery court of the city of Richmond shall exer-
cise exclusively all jurisdiction now vested in circuit or corpo-

ration courts concerning the probate and recordation of wills,
the appointments, qualifications, and removal of fiduciaries,
and the settlement of their accounts, the docketing of judg-
ments, the recordation in the manner prescribed by law of
deeds and other papers required by law to be recorded, and
shall have exclusive jurisdiction of all suits and proceedings
in chancery cognizable by law in any circuit court of the com-
monwealth.

6. So soon as the clerk of the chancery court of the city of
Richmond shall have qualified, all chancery records and papers
in the clerk’s office of the circuit court of the city of Rich-
mond, and in the clerk’s office of the hustings court of the
city of Richmond, and all papers, books and records pertain-
ing to the probate and recordation of wills, the appointment,
qualitication, and removal of fiduciaries, the recordation of
deeds and other papers required by law to be recorded, and
the judgment docket shall be removed to and kept in the
office of the clerk of the chancery court of the city of Rich-
mond; and all books, papers and records in the hustings court
of the city of Richmond, pertaining to the common law side
of said court, shall be removed to the clerk’s office of the cir-
cuit court of the city of Richmond, so far as such removal can
be made without mutilating the record of said hustings court
in the jurisdiction conferred on it by this act. And when the
record in any pending case cannot be so removed, a copy
thereof shall be certified to the said circuit court by the said
hustings court, which shall have in said circuit court the same
force and etfect as if the original record had been so removed.

7. Appeals, writs of error and writs of supersedeas from
and to judgments, decrees and orders of the said hustings
court and the said chancery court of the city of Richmond,
shall be taken and allowed as if they were from or to those of
the circuit court or a circuit judge.

8. There shall be a clerk of the circuit court, a ‘clerk of the
hustings court, and a clerk of the probate court, who shall be
entitled to receive the fees and emoluments now allowed by
law to clerks of the circuit courts, and shall be appointed and
elected in the mode prescribed by law for the election of
clerks of circuit courts.

9. The sergeant of the city of Richmond shall be the officer
of the bustings court, and the sheriff of the city of Richmond
shall be the officer of the cifcuit court and also of the chancery
court.

10. There shall be a term of the hustings court of the city
of Richmond for each month in the year, commencing on the
first Monday in the month and continuing so long as the busi-
ness before the court may require. The circuit court of the
city of Richmond and the chancery court of the city of Rich-
mond shall each hold four terms in each year, commencing on
the first Monday in January, April, June, and October, and
said terms shall be continued so long as the business before
said’ courts, respectively, may require: provided, that the first.
term of the chancery court shall commence on the second
Monday after this act takes effect. But the said chancery
‘court shall be always en as a court of probate and record,
and the clerk thereof ‘shall at all times exercise such powers
and perform such duties, as to docketing judgments and re-
cording deeds and other papers, as have been heretofore exer-
cised and performed by the clerk of the hustings court of the
city of Richmond.

11. The severa] courts to which the records of judgments
and decrees heretofore rendered may be removed, shall have
as full power to enforce said judgments and decrees as, under
the laws now in force, the court which rendered the judgment
or decree had. And the court to which the papers and re-
cords in any pending cause may be removed under the pro-
visions of this act, shall proceed to try and determine said
cause as though the same had been originally brought there.

12. his act shall take effect and be in force from and after
its passage.