Proceedings of the Estates of the Kingdom of Württemberg

[p. 567]

|567| chiefly two kinds of objects to be singled out, in which the pressure and nuisance of scribedom seems to have its principal seat. First, they have to draw up the acts of non-contentious jurisdiction, contracts, marriage pacts, in particular wills, inventories of what is brought into a marriage, i.e. of the property of a newly married couple, inventories of estates of the deceased and of insolvent estates, divisions of inheritances and the like. On the latter objects it says, for example, at the place cited, p. 65: In almost all divisions of inheritances there is not so much money to be found as the writing fees amount to; the best piece of property is therefore sold publicly in order to obtain ready money; with the newly married it goes no better: either the costs of the inventory consume their little money, saved with difficulty in the single state, or they have to run into debt already at the beginning or sell a piece of property, etc., and as the consequence of such procedures the general impoverishment of the lower class of the people is given. An unmarried couple, for example, cannot therefore itself draw up the inventory which is to be taken according to the laws there, or have it written by whomever it likes and then confirmed by the court, but only the writing monopolist can do this; and with what prolixity and cost he turns out his works generally will be spoken of immediately. – Unanimous in the petitions and other statements are the complaints both about the nature of the legal dispositions themselves, which draw after them an endless writing and unspeakable costs, and about the swindles and the nuisance which doubles and decuples what is legally permitted. – The other further noteworthy occupation of the scribes is the drawing up of the mayors’ accounts, i.e. the communal and other accounts belonging here, then the accounts of the poor funds, of the church fabrics, of alms, hospitals and trusts, in general the accounts of the funds for the poor and the church, – besides which they also have the audit and revision of the communal and guardianship accounts. – Here, now,

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