This is the fundamental question upon which decision on this appeal rests: Did the recorder of the recorder’s court of Harnett County have authority on 26 April, 1941, to modify the judgment entered by him on 8 April, 1941, from which defendant had appealed to Superior Court, and to permit defendant to withdraw such appeal? The answer is “No.”
The terms of the recorder’s court of Harnett County, a court of record, presided over by a recorder, are regulated by the statute, under which the court was created and now exists, Public-Local Laws 1913, chapter 602, section 19, as rewritten and re-enacted by Public-Local Laws 1915, chapter 422, section 3, as amended by Public-Local Laws 1921, chapter 616, and as further amended by Public-Local Laws 1939, chapter 482, section 2, and, as so regulated, the term at which the judgment of 8 April, 1941, was entered, had expired long before 26 April, 1941. The statute, as thus amended, now provides that said court “shall be opened at nine o’clock in the morning of each and every Tuesday of each month, at the county seat, and shall continue in session daily until the business before it shall be disposed of: Provided the recorder shall have power to convene his court at any time for the purpose of conducting preliminary examinations of criminal matters wherein said recorder’s court has not final jurisdiction, and for the trial of criminal cases where the defendant is in jail and unable to give bail, provided such prisoner shall demand trial before the regular term of said court.” And to this section, by the amendment in Public-Local Laws 1939, chapter 482, section 2, there is added another sentence which reads: “That said court shall convene on the first and third Wednesdays in each month for the trial of civil eases only, and shall continue in session daily until civil business shall be concluded: Provided, the court, by consent of the parties, may hear civil cases at any sitting of the court, and criminal cases after the civil business shall have been concluded.”
From these provisions of the statute, it is clear that a new term of the recorder’s court of Harnett County opened, that is, began, or commenced, at least, on each Tuesday morning, and while the length of such term is not expressly stated other than that “the court shall continue in session daily until the business before it shall be disposed of” (see Delafield v. Construction Co., 115 N. C., 21, 20 S. E., 161), it is manifest that the term would terminate at the time fixed by the statute for the next succeeding term, 21 C. J. S., 233, Courts, section 151, unless, perhaps, a trial in actual process should extend into the next term.
*145Furthermore, the decisions of this Court are to the effect that when the judge leaves the bench and the term is left to expire by limitation, the term ends then and there, and the judge cannot heár motions or other matters outside the courtroom except by consent, unless they are such matters as are cognizable at chambers. Delafield v. Construction Co., supra; May v. Ins. Co., 172 N. C., 795, 90 S. E., 890; Cogburn v. Henson, 179 N. C., 631, 103 S. E., 377; Dunn v. Taylor, 187 N. C., 385, 121 S. E., 659. This being so, the recorder of the recorder’s court of Harnett County was without authority to enter the judgment of 26 April, 1941, and, by the same token, he was without authority to enter the judgment of 9 December, 1941, in the absence of a valid withdrawal of the original appeal.
Let the cause be remanded for disposition sanctioned by law.
Error.