Corporate limits are the limits or boundaries of the area over which the corporation has jurisdiction.  Here the phrase means the boundaries of the city of Richmond.

Prosecutions against convicts are prosecutions against convicts (prisoners) for crimes committed within the prison.  All such crimes are tried in the circuit court of the city of Richmond.

Causes removable from said court (police justice’s court) are cases that may at the request of the parties concerned be taken out of that court and tried in another court.

The condemnation of land or property for public use means the deciding by a proper authority (a court or judge) that certain lands must be given for such use. (See page 12.)

An assessment is the valuing of property for the purpose of fixing a tax upon it.  If any owner of property in Richmond thinks the valuation of his property too high, and that therefore the tax is too high, he may object to the assessment as erroneous and have a motion brought before the Hustings Court to have the assessment corrected.

Chancery Court of the City of Richmond.

Judge elected by the General Assembly for term of eight years. 
Salary, $3,500.

Qualifications.  Same as those of a Circuit Judge.

Terms.  Shall hold four terms each year; but shall always be open as a Court of Probate.

For explanation of chancery, see page 50, and for probate, see page 48.

Jurisdiction.  Shall exercise, within the corporate limits, exclusive jurisdiction concerning the probate and recordation of wills, the appointment, qualification, and removal of fiduciaries, and the settlement of their accounts; the docketing of judgments; the recordation of deeds and such other papers as are authorized or required by law to be recorded; exclusive jurisdiction of all suits and proceedings in chancery cognizable by law in the Circuit Courts of the Commonwealth, except such as are specially cognizable by the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond, and any duty devolved, or any power or jurisdiction conferred by law on the Circuit Courts, unless otherwise expressly provided, except as to matters of common law and criminal jurisdiction.

The recordation of wills is the recording of them in the court in which they are probated. (For probate of wills, see page 48.) FIDUCIARIES are trustees or persons appointed to hold property in trust for others.  The docketing of judgments is making summaries or brief statements of them for the purpose of record.  A docket is a small piece of paper containing the heads or principal points of any writing or statement.

A judgment is a sentence or decision pronounced by a court, or a judge of a court, on any matter tried before it.  A deed is a written paper containing the terms of a contract, or the transfer of real estate by the owner to a purchaser.  Devolved means transferred from one person to another.