ART. 24.] CONVEYANCING. 139

42. No sale of any slave who is entitled to freedom after a
term of years, or after any particular time, or upon any con-
tingency, or in whom the seller is entitled for a term of years or
a limited time with the reversion in some other person, shall be
valid and effectual to transfer any right or title in or to such
slave, unless the same be in writing under the hands and seals
of both the seller or his authorized agent and the purchaser, in
which the period and term of servitude and the interest of the
seller, and the residence of the purchaser, shall be stated, and the
same be acknowledged by said purchaser and seller, or his
authorized agent, before a justice of the peace of the county
or city where such sale shall be made, and recorded in the office
of the clerk of the Circuit Court of the county where such sale
shall be made, or if made in the city of Baltimore, in the office
of the clerk of the Superior Court of said city, within twenty
days after such acknowledgment.

43. If any sale of such slave as is described in the preceding
section shall be made, and such bill of sale as is therein pre-
scribed shall not be so executed, acknowledged and recorded,
or if the true time or condition of the slavery or servitude of
such slave and the residence of said purchaser shall not be
therein stated, the slave named and described therein shall be
free, unless the court or jury who may decide the question in a
trial of a petition for freedom shall be of opinion that no fraud
was intended by the omission of any of the requisites of the pre-
ceding section; and if any other person is entitled to a reversion
or remainder in said slave, then the said slave shall become the
right and property of the said person in the same manner as if
the event or time in which the reversion or remainder was to
accrue had actually occurred, unless the court or jury who may
decide upon the accrual of such remainder or reversion shall be
of opinion that no fraud was intended by the omission of any of
the requisites of the preceding section.

44. A bill of sale, if acknowledged within the State, may be
acknowledged before any one justice of the peace, or judge of the
Orphans' Court of the county or city in which the vendor resides.

45. If acknowledged out of the State, before any officer
authorized to take acknowledgments of deeds.

46. Bills of sale shall be recorded in the county or city where the
vendor or donor resides within twenty days from the date thereof.