A STUDY IN LEGAL ADMINISTRATION AND RECORDS SHARON ...

esulted in the chernicals burning through the thin onion skin paper of the letter
book. The earfiest typewritten letters (which appear first in the previous volume,
in 1896) are nearly illegible because the ink has faded badly. These letters
were at first copied in the same manner as handwritten letters; later they were
simply glued into the letter book. A smaller number of incorning letters included
in the letter book also received the glue treatment.
Case files were generated throughout the twenty-three years of Equity's
operations. They are essentially the core of Equity records, in the sense that the
materials contained in any particular case file document the actual events in the
course of that case.
A case file may include bill of cornplaint or petition, answer or demurter,
replication, bills taken pro confessa, affidavits, exhibits, orders and decretal
orders, dispositions, bonds, praecipes, motion papers, master's reports, bi Ils of
costs, and receipts for goods or money." All of these, of murse, are original,
but handwritten copies appear in Equity case files as well.
Case files contain rnany affidavits. Leggo discussed situations where
affidavits were required: "There are certain cases in which it is neœssary that
the bill should be accompanied by an affidavit, to be filed with it, and in which
the omission of such accompaniment will render the bill liable to dern~rrer."~~
When an instrument that should be obtainable at Law was not obtainable, the
bill had to be accompanied by an affidavit testifying to this fad. An affidavit was
required when the bill was "for the purpose of perpetuating the testimony of