¶1 The first exception taken by the defendant to the ruling of His Honor was to the admission of evidence to prove the time when the debts were contracted, upon which the Freeman judgments were rendered, without producing the evidences of debt. This evidence was competent. It was not offered to prove the contents of the notes, but to establish the fact of the time of their execution. It was an independent fact and collateral to the enforcement of tho contract, which was between other persons than those who were parties to this action. Oates v. Kendall, 67 N. C., 241; Brem v. Allison, 68 N. C., 412; Starkie on Ev., 726; 1 Greenl. Ev. §§ 90 and 285.
¶2 The second exception was to the admission of the judgment docket showing the entry of execution issued and the return of the sheriff setting out the levy and sale, <fcc. The objection to the reception of the judgment docket came too *107 late, for it had been"offered in an early stage of the trial’ without objection; but the defendant still objected to the-enti-ies there made because they were not in the handwriting of the clerk. This objection was fully answered by the testimony of one Sugg who was examined as a witness for the plaintiff and testified that he was deputy clerk of the-superior court of Greene county, and although he had no distinct recollection of making the entry, it was in his handwriting, and was made in the course of the business of his-office. The entries were such as the law required to be noted in the judgment docket. C. C. P., § 144 (2). They were made by a proper officer in the discharge of his duty and are presumed to-have been entered under the direction of the court, whose province it is to make its own record,, and no other court can- indirectly examine into the manner in which it is made. State v. Corpening, 10 Ired., 58. It was shown by the entries on the judgment docket that an execution had issued and that there was a levy and sale.. These recorded facts establish the existence of the execution and its return to court when it became a record, and when it was shown that it had been lost or destroyed, it was competent to prove its contents by secondary evidence. 1 Starkie on Ev., 272 and notes 1 and 2. This evidence was furnished by the sheriff’s deed, to the introduction of which objection was made by the defendant, but upon what ground it is not made to appear by the statement of the case, and this objection forms the fourth exception of the defendant-The exception was properly overruled by His Honor and the deed allowed to be read. It recited with the utmost particularity the issuing of the execution to him from the superior court of Greene county in the case of Freeman v. Josiah Sugg, its date, its exigence, the levy, advertisement,, sale, the purchaser and the price paid. The court house having been burned and the execution which constituted a. part of the records of said court having been destroyed, the- *108 -recital -in .the sheriff’s deed of the execution is made prima, Jacte evidence of the existence and validity of the execution, .and is made to all intents and purposes binding and valid .against all persons who were parties to the execution, and ■against all persons claiming -by, through or under them-; and it is declared that said deed may be read in any suit as ¡prima Jacú evidence of its existence and validity. Bat. Rev., •ch. .14, §§ 19, 20 and 21 as amended by the act of 1874-75, ■ch. 254.
¶3 The defendant for a further ground of exception contended that the sheriff’s deed to Dail was void on account of the uncertainty of the description,' but this objection was abandoned in this court. There is no error. The judgment of the superior court of Greene county must be affirmed.
¶4 No error. Affirmed.