The Law Courts of Belgium. penalties upon offenders, and even to disbar them. Unlike the case of the avoues, the services of the avocats are not obligatory. It is customary for the lawyer, like all other professional men in Belgium, to have his office at his place of residence. The average Belgian avocat is consider ably older than his American confrere when he first obtains a comfortable practice. In deed, professional, like industrial competition, is so keen that scores of• lawyers constantly present themselves as applicants for govern mental and commercial clerkships, of which the salaries are only three or four hundred dollars a year. VII. Huissiers. — The huissiers are offi cers of the court named by the king from triple lists presented by the courts. They have some of the functions of our sheriffs, constables and process-servers. They draw up and serve citations, summonses and legal notices; execute judgments, decrees and or ders of the court; make levies on real and personal property; and conduct public judi cial sales of personal property. The huissier is a genuine terror to unstable debtors. His very name—pronounced whissee-d—is suggestive of the sweeping hurri cane. He is the veritable wolf that the tradesman struggles to keep away from his door; for his visit is very often the precursor of bankruptcy and ruin. Occasionally one sees a stamped legal document pasted on a store window or door. This is an invariable sign that poor Mynheer Van der Haege has been unable to meet his obligations and that a visitor feared almostas much as the pest has made his appearance. A few days later an immense canvas awning is stretched from the upper story across the sidewalk, and a long table and benches are disposed under it for the accommodation of the public. Then fol lows the public auction, at which the huissier presides and sells for the benefit of creditors the goods of the unfortunate merchant faster than the latter was ever able to do in his palmiest days.
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VIII. Notaires. — The notaires (notaries) of Belgium have the general attributes of notaries-public and conveyancers in the United States, in addition to others which make them far more important function aries. They are appointed for life by the king, and to be eligible must have attained the age of twenty-five and have completed an apprenticeship of several years in the office of a notaire, during which period they are known as candidats-notaires. The uni versities also confer the degree of CaudidatNotaire. The number of notaries is limited, and sometimes many years elapse before a qualified candidate receives the coveted nomination which fixes his place of official residence. It is alleged that politics often accounts for this delay. Notaries draw up and receive acknowl edgments of all acts and contracts to which it is necessary or expedient to give public authenticity. They preserve originals of all such acts, send duplicates of them to the office of the clerk of the Tribunal of Primary Instance, and deliver to interested parties partial or complete copies either on stamped or unstamped paper. Most acts may be ex ecuted under private signature without the intervention of a notary; but certain instru ments, such as marriage contracts and gifts entre-vifs, must be executed before a notary in order to be valid. The notaries are usually called upon to assist in the making of wills. Their services are not necessary in the case of holographic and privileged testaments; but they must participate in " testaments by public act" and " mystic testaments." The testament by public act is one received by two notar ies in the presence of two witnesses, or by one notary in the presence of four witnesses. The mystic testament is very peculiar; it is one which the testator writes, or causes to be written by another person, and presents closed and sealed to a notary in the presence of six witnesses. The notary then draws up an act setting forth the declaration of the
