State use Higginbotham's ad. vs. Watts et al. [JANUARY tion of an estate; while the other bond was given because Bouldin had been directed by the Probate Court to take control of an estate to save it from being wasted or purloined, is confined solely to the protection of the estate, is for a sum with securities deemed sufficient by the Probate Court, under whose direction it was taken and by whose judgment it was approved. If it was a question of feeling or of fitness, courts, with individnals, might sympathise with the defence which would restrict the liabilities of the securities of the first bond to its literal fulfillment. Or, if this were a proceeding in equity, the case might be considered, as between the two bonds, whether the second bond should be enforced with this, or whether it should not constitute the primary fund for the satisfaction of the present cause of action. But in this suit we can only pronounce upon the legal liability of the defendants as securities to the official bond of Bouldin; and with the view we take of our statutes, we cannot sustain the third plea without holding that the act of 1840 was an implied repeal of the 7th section above quoted, which is included in English's and Gould's Digests as sec. 8, of chap. 6, of both books, each continuing as part of the law of the state. This we cannot hold, as the law seems to us to be well settled against favoring a repeal of a statute by implication, nor could we do so independent of this principle, for the act of 1840 is no more a repeal of the 7th section mentioned, than the section immediately following was an abrogation of it as to all estates that amount to three thousand dollars; One construction would follow the other, which would oppose another sound rule of construction, that all statutes upon the same subject matter shall be so construed as that all shall continue in force if that construction be possible. Sedgwick, ub. supra 247; Smith's Com. 8. 8. 644, 647, 757; Kelly vs. McGuire, 15 Ark. 583; Wilson vs. Biscoe, 6 Eng. 47; McFarland vs. The State Bank, 4 Ark. 416. When several remedies are provided, they are to accumulate and exist together, not destroy each other. We therefore conclude, but with much hesitation, that, not TERM, 1861.] State use Higginbotham's ad. vs. Watts et al. withstanding the execution of a special administration bond in each estate taken by the public administrator, the "sheriff and his securities shall be responsible on his official bond, for misconduct in discharging his duties of public administrator." The securities must be taken to have acted with a view of their responsibilities as imposed by the letter of this law, as well as by the conditions written in the bond, and if entitled to commiseration for a more extensive responsibility than they imagined, they, perhaps, can have it in circles prone to the exercise of sympathy, but that is not to be expected in a court of law. We fully realize the hardship of the condition of the defendants, as compared with the concurrent or primary liability of the makers of the public administration bond, but whatever relief awaits them, must be sought in another tribunal. As the replication to the second plea is undoubtedly bad, we shall consider it and the demurrer to it as simply a demurrer to the plea. The plea is, that in the election of August, 1852, Bouldin was elected sheriff; that in October, 1852, he gave a new bond, and it thence infers that the second official bond released the parties to the first bond from any responsibility for the acts of Bouldin as public administrator, after the execution of the second bond. To relieve the case from complication, let the instance be put of another person than Bouldin, having been the successor of his first term of office; would the sheriff that was a stranger to Bouldin's administration be accountable for anything done in the administration? The question carries with it its own. answer, but it also refutes the conclusion of the plea. If Bouldin's second official bond should take the place of the first, it would be because his administration was attached to his second term of office, and the same result would have happened if any other person than Bouldin had been elected sheriff in 1852. We do not think that a public administration once begun, is an appendage to the sheriff's office, but that the sheriff who under C State use Higginbotham's ad. vs. Watts et al. JANUARY takes the administration may complete it, unless letters testamentary, or of administration be regularly granted upon the estate. This provision for the close of the public administration seems to exclude the idea of its transfer with the office of sheriff, and we hold that Bouldin continued to be the public administrator of Higginbotham's estate till he was removed, in October, 1855, after his second sheriff's term had expired, and that his first official bond remained as a security for his administration till four years from his misconduct as public administrator, and that the misconduct for which the defendants were responsible, was his noncompliance with the order of the probate court, made at its October term, 1855, directing him to pay the balance found against him to his successor in the administration. The same positions, both as to the continuance of the office of public administrator with the person to whom, as sheriff, it was committed, and as to the responsibility of the bond existing when the possession of the estate was taken, are fully sustained by cases that have arisen upon a similar statute in Virginia. Dabney vs. Smith, 5 Leigh 19; Douglass vs. Stump, ib. 395, 398; Tyler vs. Nelson, 14 Gratt. 221. These cases liken the condition of the public administrator to that of a sheriff, whose term of office has expired, but who completes his unfinished business, and for whose proper discharge his securities are responsible. This rule of practice has become statute law of this state. Sec. 65, ch. 67, Eng. Dig. And in Kentucky, where the statute, in certain cases, authorized the county court to commit an estate to the possession of the sheriff, who disposed of it under the direction of the court, and as its agent only, as held by the courts, although no provi sion was contained in the statute that his bond should protect the estate, the Court of Appeals held that it could not be intended that the sheriff was to have charge of the estate without security, and that as no other was provided, his official bond was his security, on which his sureties would be liable with him as far as he was officially responsible. Williams vs. Collins, 1 B. M. 60. TERM, 1861.] State use Higginbotham's ad. vs. Watts et al. And in the late condensation of the statute law of Kentucky, the revision extends the law to make it conform to the exposition of the Virginia statute, as given in the decisions we have cited. Ky. Rev. Stat. of 1852, 333, s. 18. In Alabama, a sheriff's administration by statute is attached to the office. Governor vs. Gantt, 1 Stew. 390. Hence its decisions might not accord with those of Virginia. We have examined the cases to which we have been referred by the appellees, that fix the liability of sheriffs, administrators and guardians between different bonds, and other decisions to which the cited cases referred. These cases are relied on by the appellees to sustain their second plea, but we cannot see that they do, or that they clash with the Virginia cases, and with our construction of our statute. The principle pervading them is, that the liability should rest upon the bonds in force when the default of the principal is committed, and that is the principle upon which we hold the first official bond of Bouldin to cover the whole term of his public administration. Phillips vs. Brazeal, 14, Ala. 746; Dumas vs. Patterson, 9 Ala. 484; Governor vs. Robbins, 7 Ala. 79; Sherrill vs. Goodrum, 3 Hump. 419; The People vs. Ten Eyck, 13 Wend. 448, and Sebastian vs. Bryan, 21 Ark. 447, are examples of this class of cases. We do not see how they can assist the second plea, for no default of Bouldin, as public administrator, occurred during his second term of the sheriff's office. Another class of cases represented by The Commonwealth vs. Fairfax, 4 Hen. & Mun. 208; Raney vs. The Governor, 4 Black. 2; and Thomas vs. Summey, 1 Jones Law R. 554, refuse to extend the liability of sureties beyond the term of the principal's office; and we should have followed those cases if we had considered Bouldin's term of office had expired till October, 1855, or before his default alleged in the declaration was committed. The anthority of these cases is not applicable to any of the pleas of the appellees, but were doubtless cited to show the fault of the State use Higginbotham's ad. vs. Watts et al. [JANUARY replication to the second plea, which, on inspection, we hold to be bad. For the reasons herein given, we think the court erred in sustaining the demurrer to the replication to the second plea, because, although the replication was bad, the court should have extended the demurrer back to the plea and quashed it; and that the court erred in overruling the demurrer to the third plea. No other questions than those arising upon the two pleas disposed of are made by the appellants, but as the case is to go back upon its reversal, some minor points made by the appellees may be noticed to prevent future embarrassment. No question arises upon the record on which the argument concerning the plea of limitation is properly founded, but an incidental remark in this opinion has disposed of that point. The authority of the probate court to make the order requiring the sheriff to take charge of the estate of Higginbotham is not to be questioned. It is a court of superior and exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of administration, and its acts are presumed to be lawful. It was not necessary for the direction to Bouldin to state the reason that moved the court to make the order. State vs. Stroope, 22 Ark. The first and last breaches assigned in the declaration charge that Bouldin did not deliver bonds, choses in action, and assets belonging to the estate of Higginbotham, etc., in his hand, to his successor in office, as he was ordered to do by the probate court. The objection, therefore, that an administrator de bonis non cannot sue his predecessor except for what remains in his hands unadministered, does not destroy the declaration, and the objection is not applicable against the successor of a public administrator, for he is not an administrator de bonis non, and the law requires the public administrator to pay to his successor the money, as well as to deliver the property belonging to the estate. Sec. 5, ch. 6, Eng. Dig. Other defects are alleged against the declaration, but need not be noticed after the appellees have pleaded to it, and espe |