balance found due by him to the Commonwealth. From that time he had sixty days, by the terms of the act, in which he might appeal to the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, which he failed or neglected to do. Again, by the provisions of the sixteenth section of the Act of March, 1811, he had a right, during the period of twelve months from the third of March, 1852, the date of the settlement, to demand a revision of his accounts by the accounting officers, when a full and ample opportunity would have been afforded him to bring forward his proofs, and show any errors in the accounts as stated by the public authorities. Of this privilege he neglected to avail himself, although this suit was brought against him in July Term, 1855, only some two or three months after the settlement of the account, when, if not sooner, he must have had full and ample notice by the service of the writ, of everything then remaining of record in regard to his accounts. The twelve months allowed for a rehearing of his accounts did not expire until from the third to the tenth of March, 1856, only a little more than a month before the trial of this case, and yet no appeal was taken, nor any request made to have his accounts revised by the accounting officers of this state. With all these facts before me, and they are all matters of record in evidence in the cause, I am of opinion the defendant's plea of want of notice is inadmissible and wholly unavailable, and that the plaintiff is entitled to judgment on the verdict. Let judgment be entered on the verdict in favor of the plaintiff. After delivering the opinion, Judge HAMPTON read the following NOTE FOR COUNSEL.-If the counsel should be of the opinion that the question of law has not been reserved in such a manner as to meet the rule laid down by the Supreme Court, they can draw up a formal bill of exceptions, presenting the questions more distinctly, and it will be sealed by the Court. I make this suggestion to the counsel by way of caution, inasmuch as my brother Williams and myself have both been unfortunate, it seems, in our mode of reserving questions. The Supreme Court recently reversed a judgment entered by myself, because the question was not properly reserved. I allude to the case of W. & F. Wilson v. The Steamboat Tuscarora, 1 Casey 317. In that case, the only contested fact in the case was submitted to the jury and passed upon by them, and the only question of law was reserved and decided by the Court. The counsel on both sides understood distinctly the question of law, and argued it with great ability, both in this Court and in the Supreme Court. Yet Mr. Justice Black, in delivering the opinion of that Court, says: "This was an issue of fact. A jury was called to try it, and each party produced whatever evidence he had to sustain the issue on his part. But the jury to whom the evidence on both sides was given, were discharged by the Court without giving a verdict, or even hinting an opinion on any part of it except the amount of the plaintiff's loss." Again, he says: "The jury found a single fact, and on that gave a verdict for the plaintiff. The Court found other facts, and thereupon disregarded the conclusion of the jury, and gave judgment for the defendant. Neither we nor the judge who tried the cause, have any authority whatever to do such things." In another place, he says: "We review here nothing but what appears on record. This record is a blank." That must have been a strange kind of a blank, indeed, if the learned Judge found in it all he thinks he did. Yet it must all be there, for he says they review nothing but what appears on the record. He has discovered far more in that blank record than either this Court or the learned counsel ever dreamt of. In another part of the opinion, he says: "Among the children of Israel it was the hard causes that were brought to Moses, not those which were plain." I have looked carefully into the practice of that distinguished Supreme Judge of Israel, for some light on the subject of reserving questions, but have not been able to find a solitary case, during his administration of justice for a period of forty years in the wilderness, in which he reversed the judgment of the inferior courts because the questions were not properly reserved. Nor can I find, after the most careful examination of the "Lamentations of Jeremiah," any complaint against the judges of Israel for not reserving their questions of law in a more formal manner. In another part of the learned Judge's review of this blank record, he says: "We can easily see how this practice crept into the District Court of Allegheny County." On what page of the blank record this information is contained, is more than I can discover. Yet it must all be there, because we are assured that the Supreme Court reviews "nothing but what appears on the record." Now I have been somewhat familiar with the practice of this Court, in the matter of reserving questions, for a period now bordering on twenty years, under all the former judges, and feel very safe in saying that, with perhaps one exception, their mode of reserving questions, was certainly no more exact or technical than ours at the present time. And yet not a solitary instance ever occurred of a case being reversed for that reason. No complaint whatever was even uttered by the old Supreme Bench on that subject. But this same learned judge, in a recent opinion delivered by him in the case of Hole v. Rittenhouse (supra, 284), has explained the reason of the present difficulty about reserved questions. He says: "But now, new lords, new laws, is the order of the day." "The majority of this Court changes on the average once every nine years, without counting the changes of death and resignation." Thus we see that the difficulty has not arisen from any deviation by this Court from the practice of either the children of Israel in the Wilderness, or of any of our predecessors on this Bench; and the warning voice of the learned judge given in his opinion in Barney Hole's case, tended to confirm my former convictions, that the best method of avoiding all the evils growing out of these modern innovations so apt to spring from the frequent changes of the judges, is to cling more closely to the ancient doctrine of stare decisis, so strongly recommended by Judge Black. A speedy return, therefore, to the practice of Chief Justice Moses in the Wilderness, and of the old Bench of the Supreme Court, in deciding all the "hard causes" brought up to them, without regard to the technical form in which they are reserved, would be the best practical illustration of this valuable precept. In the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. HOCK'S ADMINISTRATOR'S APPEAL. (Vol. IV., p. 469, 1856.) 1. To continue the lien of a judgment after five years a scire facias must have been sued out within that period. 2. The time of suing out the writ, will not be presumed to be the same as the date of the precipe, when the docket raises a different presumption. 3. Judgment entered 18th September, 1844. Precipe for sci. fa. on file, dated September 18, 1849, docketed September 19, 1849. The lien is not continued. APPEAL from the Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County. This was a matter of the distribution of the proceeds of a sheriff's sale of real estate of Michael Fallon. The appellant claimed the fund on a judgment entered September 18, 1844. This was the first lien if properly revived. The precipe for the sci. fa. was dated September 18, 1849. The writ was docketed as of September 19, 1849. The date of the precipe was taken from the "precipe book," according to the testimony of a deputy. T. S. Stambaugh, the auditor appointed, decided that the lien of this judgment was lost. The Court confirmed his report and this appeal was taken. Nill & Brewer for appellant. The opinion of the Court was delivered by WOODWARD, J.-No judgment shall continue a lien longer than five years from the date of its entry, unless revived within that period by agreement of the parties, "or a writ of scire facias to revive the same, be sued out within said period." Such is the Act of 26th March, 1827. The Act of 1798, had also the words "sue out," as applied to the writ of scire facias. Now the only question on this appeal is, whether Mrs. Hock's scire facias was sued out within five years from the entry of her judgment. Her judgment was entered on the 18th of September, 1844. Mr. Brewer's precipe for the scire facias is dated 18th of September, 1849, the writ is docketed as of the 19th of September, 1849, and the clerk swears he cannot remember whether it was issued on the 18th or 19th. The writ itself was tested as of the 21st of August, 1849, the last day of the preceding term, so that contributes nothing to the resolution of the doubt. Gentlemen of the bar sometimes misdate papers accidentally, sometimes do not file their precipes the day they are dated, and the writ demanded is not always issued on the day the precipe is filed. The docket says this scire facias issued on the 19th, and though that may be a mistaken date, there is nothing to prove it so. The precipe was not the writ, the issuing of which was to continue the lien and the making and filing of the precipe even if done on the 18th, were not the suing out of the scire facias within the meaning of the Act of Assembly. Until the writ was prepared, signed and sealed, it could not be sued out nor docketed, and the docketing could not regularly be delayed till the day after it issued, but must have been made the same day. Applying the necessary presumptions to this record, we hold that the scire facias was sued out on the 19th of September, and, therefore, not within time to continue the lien. In this view of the question, it is unnecessary for us to pass on the motion to quash the appeal, and we waive it. The decree of the Court is affirmed. In the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. CROYELL v. BLACKFAN. (Vol. IV., p. 469, 1856.) An administrator de bonis non, although not appointed until after a final decree of distribution among the creditors of his insolvent decedent, is entitled to recover from the former administrator the fund so decreed to be distributed. ERROR to the Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County. Scire facias upon a transcript from the Orphans' Court of the balance due by an administrator. Croyell, defendant below, and plaintiff in error, was administrator d. b. n. c. t. a. of Ely, deceased. An account of his administration showing a balance due to the estate of $1838 52 was filed and referred to an auditor to distribute the balance among the creditors of decedent. The auditor, after deducting the expenses of the audit, found a balance for distribution of $1816 27, out of which he directed the sum of $204 10 to be paid to a creditor who had been omitted in a former distribution, and then divided the balance, $1612 17, pro rata among twenty-nine creditors. The report was confirmed September 21, 1843, upon petition of a creditor, and November 20, 1843, Blackfan, plaintiff below and defendant in error, was substituted as administrator. August 18, 1847, the surety of Croyell paid Blackfan $1000, the penalty of the administration bond. April 4, 1850, the transcript from the Orphans' Court showing a balance as above stated, was filed; and May 13, 1850, this scire facias issued thereon. Defendant pleaded payment, and several other pleas not material to the present case; and the jury, under the instruction of the Court, that the proceedings of the Orphans' Court, on which the transcript was founded, were on the face of them so irregular and illegal as to be altogether invalid, found a verdict for defendant. Plaintiff took a writ of error, and the Supreme Court reversed the judgment, on the ground that the proceedings in the Orphans' Court could not be inquired into in the action. Prior to the second trial, the defendant, by leave of the Court, filed an additional special plea, setting forth the facts stated above, that |