110 
Urdahl—Historical Survey of Fee Systems. 
of the governors and other officers, it is perfectly natural that the 
official who fixed the legal metes and bounds of their respective 
lands, should increase in importance many fold. In that primi¬ 
tive state, his services became a necessity to everybody; as 
everyone owned, or wished to own, land. In some colonies this 
officer charged monopoly prices for his services. This led 
to numerous acts regulating the fees which he might legally 
charge. 1 Still, the remuneratiou was usually sufficient to con¬ 
stitute a handsome salary. 1 This is further evidenced by the 
fact that enterprising young men, like Washington and Jeffer¬ 
son, made surveying their profession. 
The quasi-public charges of attorneys at law caused so much 
dissatisfaction, that in the end laws were enacted providing 
maximum charges, 2 and forbidding any attorney to refuse to 
plead a case without just grounds. The large number of un¬ 
scrupulous and incompetent lawyers was perhaps responsible for 
enactments, providing that attorneys should pass satisfactory 
examinations before admission to the bar. 3 The fees of numer¬ 
ous other public or quasi-public officials were from time to time 
regulated or fixed in many of the colonies. 
D. CHURCH AND SCHOOL FEES IN THE COLONIES. 
It is perhaps well understood, that the colonial church and 
state were not separate in the modern sense of the term. The 
church still exercised many political or state functions, and was 
supported, indirectly at least, by the state. 4 It is true’that'at 
1 The law of New York even went so far as to pay the surveyor a fixed 
salary, and provided that all fees be paid into the treasury. Laws 1785, 
XXXII. Surveyors’ fees fixed at 100 lbs. of tobacco for making a survey of 
of 100 acres of land, in 1661. Statutes of Virginia, II, 99; III, 330. 
2 Attorneys on admission to the bar were required to take oath that they 
would not charge unreasonable fees. (1732.) Statutes at Large , Hen¬ 
ning, IV, 360. Attorneys fees regulated in Virginia. Laws, III, 162; 
II, 479. 
3 South Carolina license to practice law; fees 1£ 10s. Laws, 1791, V, 
156; 1785, IV, 699, fees 1£ 10s; 1736, fee 4£. 
* There was no distinction in Connecticut between the town, the church 
and the school, as far as taxes were concerned. Every inhabitant was 
compelled to help maintain each. History of Taxation in Connecticut. 
Johns Hopkins University Studies, Vol. 14, No. 8, 62. 
