Morrison Waite

“ It is an elementary rule that a writ of mandamus may be used to require an inferior court to decide a matter within its jurisdiction and pending before it for judicial determination, but not to control the decision. ”

“ If a clerk in performing the ministerial act of recording a judgment has committed an error, the court may on motion at the proper time correct it, or it may do so in a proper case upon its own suggestion without waiting for the parties. Here* the plaintiffs, believing that the judgment as recorded did not conform to the finding, moved the court to amend it in that particular. ”