Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 11).djvu/52

the time during which they have already exercised the said offices in the royal Audiencia, for which they have not given them. In the future, they shall be notified and ordered to renew the said bonds at the beginning of every year, under the said penalty. By this act they so provided, enacted, and decreed.

Before me:

An act decreeing that cases of twenty pesos or less shall not be brought to trial; and that the notary shall not take a larger fee than one-half peso from each party.

In the city of Manila, on the twenty-first day of the month of January, one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, the president and auditors of the royal Audiencia and Chancilleria of the Philipinas Islands declared that, whereas so many suits involving twenty pesos or less are wont to be begun, and as much time is consumed therein as if they were affairs of greater magnitude, whence there results to the parties concerned great harm and damage by reason of the great cost and expense wasted therein, beside the long and tedious delays in the collection of their debts: therefore, to remedy that, they agreed and ordered that, now and henceforth, no trial shall be made of cases amounting to twenty pesos or less, unless they are briefly and summarily disposed of; and that the notary before whom they are brought shall not take for his fee more than four reals only from each party, even if they make many investigations in the matter -under penalty that all that they take above that sum they shall return to the parties concerned, together with four times as much for his