The recognizance is of the nature of a conditional judgment and the recorded default makes it absolute subject only to such matters of legal avoidance as may be shown by plea, or to such matters of relief as may induce the court to remit or mitigate the forfeiture. S. v. Mills, 19 N.C. 552. The remedy upon a forfeited bond is summary in nature by forfeiture and the forfeiture creates an absolute debt of record in the nature of a judgment.
S. v. Houston, 74 N.C. 549; S. v. Jones, 88 N.C. 683. There was much said in the discussion here about the technical distinction between the two in respect to the method of their enforcement, but we think it can make little or no practical difference, in the view we take of the case, whether it is a bond or a recognizance, which is a debt of record, and whether, therefore, it was erroneous to enter a judgment nisi instead of issuing a scire facias merely, and requiring the respondents to show cause why an execution should not issue, that being the proper remedy to enforce payment of the amount due on a forfeited recognizance. S. v. Mills, 19 N.C. 552; S. v. Smith, 66 N.C. 620. Whether it is a bond or a recognizance, the entry of the forfeiture became a part of the record, a fact averred in the record, and it cannot be contradicted or traversed by an answer or a plea to the scire facias issued to enforce the forfeiture.