NOTARY, or NOTARY PUBLIC, is a person whose chief business it is, in England, to authenticate and certify commercial documents intended to be used abroad, to note and protest bills of exchange, and to receive and take affidavits of shipmasters and seamen. In this part of his business a notary exercises an office which hits practically an international authority and recog nition, for it is originally derived from the universal usages of the law merchant. When, however, the functions of a notary include such acts as the preparation and custody of wills, mortgages, conveyances and other legal documents, his authority depends entirely upon the municipal law of the country in which he practises. The preparation of deeds and legal documents generally, in England, is practically the exclusive province of solicitors, to whom is largely resigned the exercise of any rights in this connection which barristers and notaries may possess. But solicitors have no position in this country as authorised custodians of legal documents. In France, however, and also in many other continental countries, the notaries occupy a position somewhat analogous to conveyancing solicitors in England. And this position is perhaps even a more responsible one than that of the Eng,lish solicitors, inasmuch as the notaries are required to retain the custody of certain docu ments and hand to the parties merely copies thereof. Such notaries are probably the most representative of their profession—one of an antiquity which reaches back to the days of early Roman jurisprudence, and, in England, to the period of the Anglo-Saxon.
In England notaries are appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury through the " Court of Faculties," which is called a court " although it holdeth no plea of controversie ;" but the profession is mainly regulated by the Public Notaries Acts of 1801, 1833, and 1843. Before any person can be so appointed he must have served as an apprentice for not less than five years to a duly qualified notary ; and during the whole of that period he must have been actually and exclusively employed in notarial practice by his master, unless the latter is also a solicitor, in which case the apprentice may also be employed in the practice of a solicitor. No one can become a notary within three miles of the City of London, or in Westminster, or Southwark, unless he is admitted to the freedom of the Scriveners' Company in London. But, without any necessity for such an apprenticeship as above-mentioned, any solicitor may be admitted as a notary if he resides at a greater distance from the Royal Exchange in London than ten miles, the admission, however, not conferring upon him any right to practise as a notary outside any specified limits, or within ten miles from London. This appointment of a solicitor is
made by the Archbishop " upon being satisfied as well of the fitness of the person as of the expediency of the appointment," and so as to operate only " within any district in which it shall have been made to appear to the said master of the Court of Faculties that there is not (or shall not hereafter be) a sufficient number of such notaries public admitted, or to be admitted . . . for the due convenience and accommodation of such district." A notary must not act or allow his name to be used for the profit of any unqualified person, or he will be struck off the roll, and be for ever after disabled from practising; and should an unauthorised person practise as a notary he will incur a penalty of .250.
The document or certificate in which a notary publishes his authentication is known as a notarial act, and consists of three parts. In the first part are stated the title, time, and place, and the names of the notary and witnesses ; in the second is described the nature of the transaction the subject of the act, whenever possible by means of a copy of the document containing the transaction ; and in the third part there is appended a statement that the act has been read to the parties and approved and signed by them, and finally the signature and seal of the notary. 'Merchants throughout the world, as between themselves, generally accept a notarial act as sufficient evidence of the matters it certifies or authenticates. An underwriter, for example, would therefore generally accept, v. ithout further inquiry, a foreign notary's certification of dealings with the subject-matter of the insurance; and a man of business, as a rule, would act upon a power of attorney which had been acknowledged before a foreign notary and made the subject of a notarial act. And the courts of many foreign countries would probably pay a like respect to the seal of a notary. But according to the law of England the mere production of a certificate of a notary public, stating that a deed had been executed before him, would not in any way dispense wit' the proper evidence of the execution of the deed. An affidavit in an action in an English Court may be sworn, however, before a duly authorised foreign notary, and it will be received in evidence here if accompanied by a verification.