186 Urdahl—The Present Fee System in the United States. 
in the West the abstract costs comparatively little. These fees 
may in the end become so burdensome as to be a serious impedi¬ 
ment to the purchase of land by the humbler classes of a com¬ 
munity. 
Although the system of registration is slowly expanding, 
comparatively few new classes of objects have been found, which 
have been brought under this provision. In the ranching dis¬ 
tricts the recording of cattle-brands is of great importance, 
while in a logging district the recording of log-marks seems the 
most important from the recorder’s standpoint. The county 
recorders and registers of deeds are at present paid by means 
of fees in most of the states. 
B. STATE AND COUNTY COURT FEES. 
Sheriffs, constables, clerks of court, and other court officers 
are, as a rule, remunerated in the same way. In the older states 
scarcely any changes in this part of the fee-system have been 
accomplished. The result is, that many, r of the court officials are 
receiving fees which were designed for conditions existing from 
fifty to one hundred years ago. Not only are the fees entirely 
unsuited in amount to the modern conditions, but many of the 
primitive forms and formulas are clung to with great tenacity. 
The following example will illustrate this: in the early courts 
the sheriff was usually the jailor, court messenger, and consta¬ 
ble; this custom, once established, has been continued in most 
of the older states, and as a result the sheriffs pocket enormous 
amounts of fees for services which they are supposed to perform 
in these three distinct capacities. 
In spite of the numerous and heavy fees the courts are no 
where self-supporting. Not even those courts which deal ex¬ 
clusively with civil cases and have all their docket-fees and 
other fees, are able to maintain themselves without heavy drafts 
upon the state or local treasuries. Reforms to remedy this have 
been proposed, now in one state, now in another, but the legis¬ 
latures of the older states have not been able to rectify even the 
most glaring inconsistencies. The only states that have at¬ 
tempted any reform or solution of these problems, are a few 
Western commonwealths, which are less hampered, and freer 
