fore directed, such sums of money or tobacco as shall hands. VII. All the proceedings and accounts of the overProceedings, seers of the poor shall be regularly entered in a book, how entered. and shall be signed by the members present at each Rules, in vo ting. Power of ad annual meeting, and for this purpose the said overseers of the poor of each county, or a majority of them, shall be and are hereby empowered to appoint a clerk, and at any time upon his misbehaviour or neglect of duty to remove him and appoint another in his stead, and to make such clerk an allowance, not ex ceeding the sum of five pounds annually, for his ser. vices. VIII. At the said annual meeting each of the overseers of the poor in the county who are present shall have a vote, and if upon any such vote they be equally divided, the question shall be decided in favor of that side on which the president shall have voted. IX. If on the first day of the before mentioned anjournment. nual meeting there shall not appear a sufficient majority of the overseers of the poor for the county to proceed to business, any one or more of such as shall have attended, shall be and are hereby empowered to adjourn, from, day to day, until such a majority shall meet, who may afterwards adjourn from day to day until their business shall be finished. Allowance to X. And be it further enacted, That the overseers of the poor shall, if they demand the same, be allowed the sum of six shillings each, to be charged in their account of other expenditures, for every day they shall attend the before mentioned annual meeting, and shall be subject to a penalty of the like sum for every day each of them respectively shall fail to attend the same, to be computed in both cases from the first day of such annual meeting during the continuance thereof, and their clerk shall in like manner be subject to the penalty of twelve shillings for every day he shall fail to attend such annual meeting, unless such overseers of the poor, or their clerk, respectively, shall be prevented from at tendance by sickness or other unavoidable accident; to be recovered with costs by warrant before any justice of the peace for the county. XI. And any person being duly elected who shall Penalty for refuse or neglect to serve as an overseer of the poor in refusing to the county of which he is an inhabitant unless disqual- serve. ified by age or other infirmity (such disqualification to be judged of by the county court) shall forfeit and pay the sum of ten pounds to be recovered with costs by action of debt or information in any court of record within the commonwealth: Provided that no person shall be compelled to serve more than three years nor be subject to the penalty for refuse more than once in any term of nine years. XII. Upon the death, refusal, removal or disability Vacancies, of any overseer or overseers of the poor some other how supperson or persons shall be elected in the stead of the plied. person or persons so dying, refusing, removing, or disabled, to serve for the same time, such person or persons should otherwise have remained in office. XIII. And be it further enacted, That the overseers Vagrants, of the poor, or any one of them, shall be and are here- how dealt by empowered upon discovering any vagrant or va- with. grants within their respective districts to make information thereof to any justice of the peace for the county, and to require a warrant for apprehending such vagrant or vagrants to be brought before him or some other justice of the peace for the county; and if upon due examination it shall appear to such justice that such person or persons are within the true description of a vagrant as herein after mentioned, such justice shall, by warrant under his hand, order such vagrant or vagrants to be delivered to some one of the overseers of the poor in the district, in which such vagrant or vagrants shall have been apprehended, to be employed in labor for any term not exceeding three months, and by the said overseer of the poor hired out for the best wages that can be procured to be applied to the use of the poor. And if any such vagrant or vagrants shall, during such term of service, run away from the person so employing or hiring him or them, he or they shall be dealt with in the same manner as other run away servants. Power of con XIV. And be it further enacted, That the corpora- porations to tion courts of the several corporate towns within this poor. Уов, ж. X 2 Right of voting. commonwealth, shall be and they are hereby respettively empowered and required to provide for and maintain the poor within the limits of their respective towns, separately and distinctly from the poor of the county, and any two magistrates of any such corporation court shall be and are hereby empowered by warrant under their hands, to cause to be removed any poor person to the last place of his or her legal residence, who hath not been resident within the limits of such town for one year last past before such removal. And in like manner the overseers of the poor in the county, shall be and they are hereby empowered by warrant, under the hands of any two of them, to cause to be removed into any corporate town any poor person whose residence shall have been within the limits of such town for one year last past before such removal, except in both cases such poor persons only as have been lodged in any poor house at any time during the last two years, who shall be respectively returned to and maintained by the county or the town according to their former respective usual residence in either. The said corporation courts shall be and they are hereby respectively empowered, whenever they shall judge it necessary to provide or build a poor house and work house for the reception of their poor, and for the reformation of vagrants, and to employ a proper person or persons as stewards or managers thereof, subject to the direction and controul of such corporation court; and the said corporation courts shall be and they are hereby respectively empowered and required to levy and assess, annually, upon their respective towns, either by way of poll tax upon the inhabitants, or by a tax upon houses or other property within the limits of the town, as they shall judge best, all charges incurred for the support and maintenance of their poor, and also all the charges which may be incurred in providing or building a poor house and work house, and in the government and management of the same. XV. And be it further enacted, That the inhabitants of any such corporate town, not having a freehold estate in the county without the limits of the town, shall be disabled from voting in any election of the overseers of the poor in the respective counties, nor shall any inhabitant of any such corporate town be capable of serving as an overseer of the poor in any county. Bemoval of XVI. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for any magistrate of any such corpo- vagrants. ration-court, upon discovering any vagrant or vagrants within the limits of the town, to issue his warrant for apprehending such vagrant or vagrants for examination, and if, upon such examination before two magistrates of the corporation court, it shall appear that the person or persons so apprehended are within the true description of a vagrant, as herein after mentioned, the said two magistrates shall be, and they are hereby empowered by warrant under their hands to commit such vagrant or vagrants to the work-house, there to be employed in labour for any term not exceeding three months, and if there be no work house in such town, the said two magistrates may, and they are hereby empowered to proceed with such vagrant or vagrants, in the same manner as the overseers of the poor in the counties are herein before directed to proceed, upon any vagrant or vagrants being delivered to them. XVII. And be it further enacted, That any able bodied man, who not having wherewithall to maintain himself shall be found loitering, and shall have a wife or children without means for their subsistance, whereby they may become burthensome to their county or town, and any able bodied man without a wife or children, who, not having wherewithall to maintain himself, shall wander abroad, or be found loitering without betaking himself to some honest employment, or shall go about begging, or shall not pay his legal taxes, shall be deemed and treated as a vagrant. Who deemed vagrants. Keepers of XVIII. All and every keeper or keepers, exhibiter or exhibiters, of either of the gaming-tables commonly A B C. or called A. B. C. or E. O. tables, or of a Pharoah bauk, E O. tables, or of any other gaming-table or bank of the same, or or Pharoah the like kind, under any denomination whatever, shall bank, treated be deemed and treated as vagrants. And moreover it as vagrants. shall and may be lawful for any justice of the peace, or magistrate of any corporation-court, by warrant under his hand to order any such gaming-table to be seized, and publicly burnt or destroyed. XIX. All the forfeitures and penalties inflicted by this act, shall be, one half to the informer, and the other half to the use of the overseers of the poor for the county, to be by them applied towards the support and Maintenance of such poor. XX. And be it further enacted, That the clause respecting vagrants or idle persons not having wherewithall to maintain themselves in the act, intituled "An act concerning seamen," and so much of all the acts concerning the poor as is contrary to this act, shall be, and is hereby repealed. CHAP. XLIX. An act for establishing several new inspections of tobacco, and reviving and establishing others. [Passed December 24th, 1787 } 1. BE it enacted by the General Assembly, That New inspec the warehouses for the reception and inspection of totions of to- bacco shall be and the same are hereby established on lished and o. the lands of Walter Beall, on Kentucky river near Harthers revived rod's landing in the county of Mercer, to be called and hacco estab known by the name of Harrod's landing; on the lands of James Hogan; at the mouth of Hickman's creek, on the north side of Kentucky river in the county of Fayette, to be called and known by the name of Hogan's; on the lands of Walter Beall, at the mouth of Beachfork on Salt river in the county of Nelson, to be called and known by the name of Beall's; on the lands of general Charles Scott, near the mouth of Craig's creek on Kentucky river in the county of Fayette, to be called and known by the name of Scott's; in the town of Boonsborough on Kentucky river in the county of Madison, to be called and known by the name of Boon's; on the lands of John Collier on the Kentucky river, in the county of Madison, to be called and known by the name Collier's; on the lands of John May and Simon Canton on the lower side of Limestone creek in the county of Bourbon, to be called and known by the name of Limestone; on the lands of William Thornton Alexander, in the town of Alexandria, to be called and known by the name of Thorn |