lii Introduction.

also upon defaults on execution", made sheriffs responsible to plaintiffs for their
failure to produce in court defendants under arrest. The court was empowered
to order judgment for the amount sued for, against the person previously taken
in execution but not produced in court, the sheriff to be penalized or amerced
for this amount, together with costs (pp. 438-439). The other law involving
legal procedure was that "for amending or declaring the law in the cases therein
mentioned". Passed by the Lower House, it was considerably amended in the
Upper House (pp. 310-311, 403, 317). This act, as finally agreed upon,
changed or amended a number of old laws "in the cases therein mentioned"
in the following respects, (a) The qualification that jurors in the Provincial
and county courts be freeholders, and that no freeholder might serve as a
juror in any case, if at the same court sitting he was himself a party to another
suit, was reaffirmed, the act providing, however, that no verdict heretofore
given shall be set aside on the ground that those qualifications had been dis-
regarded, but did specifically reserve to the defendant thereafter the right to
challenge a juror on the grounds given above. To avoid misunderstandings
which had heretofore arisen a freeholder was defined as a man who held (or
whose wife held) at least 50 acres of land, or an "estate of freehold" of the
value of at least f 50 sterling, (b) Redefined and increased the security required
of bailsmen under former laws, (e) Redefined stays of execution, (d) Re-
quired compliance with awards by arbitration, (e) Added costs to distraints
by sheriffs to enforce the payment of public levies, (f) Provided that appeals
to the Provincial Court found to involve less than £20 Sterling (or 5000 pounds
of tobacco) be set aside by a writ of procedendo (pp. 482-485).

Local laws. Of the thirteen local laws passed at the 1768 session, the most
important was that providing for the removal of the county seat of Baltimore
County from dying Joppa to rapidly growing Baltimore Town. This was
entitled "An Act for erecting a Court House and Public Prison in Baltimore
County in the Town of Baltimore, and for making sale of the old Court House
and Prison". The lengthy petitions presented to the Assembly by those favor-
ing, and by those opposed to, the change, and the hearings before the two houses
show the widespread interest and feeling which the proposal aroused. This
public reaction, the various petitions, pro and con, and the terms of the act
itself, are elsewhere commented upon in the section, Baltimore Town, the New
County Seat (pp. lxxxv-xc, 442-445). As showing the increasing importance
of Baltimore as a trading center and port of export of flour, and the desire
to preserve its good name, was the passage of a law "to prevent the exportation
of flour, staves and shingles not merchantable from the Town of Baltimore—
and to regulate the weight of hay, and the measures of grain, salt, flaxseed, and
firewood, within the said town." The preamble of the act recites that it was
designed to put an end to the deceits of millers and others in the manufacture of
flour for export, the faulty weights and measures for hay, salt and flaxseed, and
the deceitful practices of shippers in the handling of staves and shingles. It
authorized the appointment by the town commissioners of an inspector of
flour, and of cullers, garblers, and counters of staves and shingles, measurers
of grain, salt and flaxseed, weighers of hay, and wood corders. All casks