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When over

tween two counties.

counties, as the case shall be, with condition for performing the same, and may be prosecuted at the costs, and for the benefit of the county or counties, or any person sustaining a loss by the breach thereof, as often as it shall happen, until the whole penalty of the bond shall be paid. And all such contracts made by the county courts, or others appointed by them, shall be available and binding upon the justices and their successors, so as to entitle the undertaker to his stipulated reward in the county levy, or to a recovery thereof with costs, by action of debt, against the justices refusing to levy the

same.

VIII. When the justices of one county shall judge a any place be bridge or causey over any place between them and another county to be necessary, they shall notify the same to the justices of such other county, and require them to appoint three persons to meet at the said place on a certain day to be named by the court requiring the same, to confer with three others, to be appointed by the said requiring court, and agree on the manner and condition of executing the same; which six persons, or so many of them as meet, being not fewer than three, shall have power to agree on the manner and conditions of doing the said work, and to see that the same be done: And if the court so required shall fail to appoint persons to act on their behalf, or to do what on their part should be done towards executing and paying for the said work, the justices of the court which made the requisition shall apply to the general court for a writ of mandamus. to be directed to the justices of the other court, commanding them to do, what on their part they ought to have done, and have failed to do, or to signify to them cause to the contrary thereof; upon the return of which writ, the general court, if they shall be of opinion that the work is unnecessary, or that other sufficient cause is returned, shall quash the writ; or if they think otherwise, shall cause such further proceedings to be had as are usual in other cases of mandamus issuing from the said court: And the like method of proceeding by way of mandamus shall be used, where the justices of one county shall think it necessary to open a road to their county line, for the convenience of passing to some public place in another, and the justices of such other shall refuse to continue the road through their county.

Penalty for felling a tree

IX. If any person shall fell a tree into a public road, or into any stream of water, whereon there shall be any into a read public bridge, and shall not remove the same within or killing a forty-eight hours, or shall kill a tree within the distance tree near it. of fifty feet from the road, or shall cut, pull up. destroy,

or deface, any stone, or post, erected for the direction of travellers, or the indexes or inscriptions thereon, it shall be deemed a nuisance.

X. Every free man, of full age, so offending, or the For making a parent, master, or owner. of every child, apprentice, fence across servant, or slave, so offending, with his or her know- a road. ledge, shall forfeit and pay ten pounds for every offence. And where any fence shall be made across a public road, the owner or tenant of the land shall pay ten shillings for every twenty-four hours the same shall be continued.

Roads over

XI. The owner or occupier of every dam over which a public road passes, shall constantly keep such dam mill doms, in repair, at least twelve feet wide at the top, through how to be the whole length thereof, and shall keep and maintain kept. a bridge of like breadth, with strong rails on each side thereof, over the pier-head, flood-gates, or any waste, cut through or round the dam, under the penalty of ten shillings for every twenty-four hours failure; but where a mill-dam shall be carried away or destroyed by tempest, or accident, the owner or occupier thereof shall not be liable to the said penalties from thenceforth, until one month after such mill shall have been so repaired as to have ground one bushel of grain.

XII. All the penalties in this act, not otherwise directed, shall be one moiety to the informer, and the other to the use of the county, recoverable with costs, on warrant, petition, or action, as the case may be. Any justice, who, upon his own view, shall discover a road, bridge, causey, or mill-dam, as aforesaid, out of repair, shall issue a warrant against the surveyor, or. other delinquent, and if no reasonable excuse be made for such default, may give judgment for the penalty and costs, not exceeding twenty-five shillings, or such offenders may be presented by the grand-juries; in all which cases of conviction, on view of a justice, or presentment, or on private informations to justices, where there shall be no evidence to convict the offender but the informer's own oath, the whole penalties shall be to the use of the county, towards lessening the levy there

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Penalties

how rec ver

dard appre priated.

Limitation of

of, and shall be annually collected and accounted for by the sheriff, in the same manner as county levies; and to enable the sheriff to make such collection, every justice, immediately on conviction of any offender, where the penalty is to be to the county, shall certify the same to the clerk of his county court, who shall yearly, before the first day of March, deliver to the sheriff a list of all the offenders so certified, and of all others convicted in court, within one year preceding of any of fence against this act.

XIII. Provided, that prosecutions for any offence prosecution. herein mentioned shall be commenced within six months after the offence committed, and not after.

Commence. ment of act.

XIV. This act shall commence and be in force from and after the first day of January, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven.

From Rev. Bills of 1779. gh. XLIX.

CHAP. LXXVI.

An act for unlading ballast and bu rial of dead bodies from on board ships.

Ballast mas- I. BE it enacted by the General Assembly, That the ters, how ap- court of every county or corporation, adjacent to any pointed. navigable river or creek, shall from time to time, as

vacancies happen, appoint one or more ballast-masters, residing near to the places where vessels usually ride in such river or creek, to be overseers and directors of the delivery and unloading of ballast from on board any ship or vessel within a certain district, to be by them ascertained.

II. Every ballast-master so appointed, upon receivTheir duty. ing notice from the master or chief officer on board of any ship or vessel within his district, that ballast is to be discharged from such vessel, shall go on board the same, and attend until the whole ballast is delivered, which he shall see brought on shore and laid at some convenient place near the vessel, where it may not ob

struct navigation, nor be washed into the channel, shall thereupon give such master or officer a certificate that the ballast hath been duly unladen from on board such vessel; for which service he shall receive five shillings per day, to be paid by the master or chief officer to whom such certificate is granted.

Penalty for

III. Every ballast-master failing to do his duty, according to this act, shall forfeit twenty pounds for each neglect. default, in which case, or if there be no ballast-master, the naval-officer of the district, shall, under the like penalty, perform the same duty.

lade ballast.

IV. Every master or chief officer of a ship or ves- Notice of in. sel, having ballast to unlade, shall give notice in wri- tention to un. ting, of the time he purposes to land the same, to the ballast master of the district; and shall produce to the naval-officer, at the time of his clearing out, a certifi- Certificate. cate of his having unladen his ballast, according to this act. And if any master or chief officer on board of any ship or vessel, shall presume to land or cast overboard any ballast therefrom, without giving such notice, or contrary to the orders he shall receive from the ballast-master of the district, or shall fail to produce a certificate of his having duly landed his ballast, to the naval-officer at the time of his clearing out, he shall forfeit fifty pounds for every offence or fail- Penalties, ure; and, in any suit to be brought for the said penalty, the clerk shall endorse on the writ that bail is to be required, and the court may rule the defendant to give special bail, if they see cause so to do.

V. When any person shall die on board of any ship or vessel, within this state, the master thereof shall cause the dead body to be brought on shore, and there buried, at least four feet deep above high-water mark, or be subject to the penalty of fifty pounds; in any suit for which, the defendant may be ruled to give special bail, and the clerk shall endorse on the writ that bail is required.

Dead bodies

from on board

ships, how to

be buried.

Commence.

VI. This act shall commence and be in force from and after the first day of January, one thousand seven ment of act. hundred and eighty-seven.

From Rev

Bills of 1779, ch. L.I.

Who declar. ed slaves.

CHAP. LXXVII.

An act concerning slaves.

1. BE it enacted by the General Assembly, That ne person shall henceforth be slaves within this commonwealth, except such as were so on the first day of this Slaves here- present session of assembly, and the descendants of the after introdu. females of them. Slaves which shall hereafter be brought into this commonwealth, and kept therein one whole year together, or so long at different times as shall amount to one year, shall be free.`

ced, to be

free.

Negroes and mulattoes,

how far wit

nesses.

Slaves not to

without a

pass.

11. No negro or mulatto shall be a witness, except in pleas of the commonwealth against negroes or mulattoes, or in civil pleas wherein negroes or mulattoes alone shall be parties.

III. No slave shall go from the tenements of his masgo from home ter or other person with whom he lives, without a pass, or some letter or token whereby it may appear that he is proceeding by authority from his master, employer, or overseer: If he does, it shall be lawful for Punishment. any person to apprehend and carry him before a justice of the peace, to be by his order punished with stripes or not, in his discretion.

Slaves not to keep arms.

IV. No slave shall keep any arms whatever, nor pass unless with written orders from his master or employer, or in his company with arms, from one place to another. Arms in possession of a slave contrary to this prohibition, shall be forfeited to him who will seize them. Riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, trespasses, and seditious speeches, by a slave or slaves, blies, c. how shall be punished with stripes, at the discretion of a punishable. justice of the peace, and he who will may apprehend and carry him, her, or them, before such justice.

Riots, unlaw. ful assen

Who may

V. Provided, That nothing in this act contained, bring slaves shall be construed to extend to those who may incline into this com- to remove from any of the United States and become monwealth. citizens of this; if within ten days after such removal he or she shall take the following oath before some justice of the peace of this cominonwealth: "IA B. do swear that my removal into the state of Virginia, was with no intent of evading the laws for preventing the further importation of slaves, nor have I brought

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