154 CORPORATIONS. [ART. 26.

HOMESTEAD OR BUILDING ASSOCIATIONS.

80. Any free white persons in any city or county in this State,
under any name by them assumed, may associate for the purpose
of organizing or establishing Homestead or Building Associa-
tions, and being so associated shall, on complying with the pro-
visions of the next succeeding section, be considered a body
politic and corporate, and as such shall be capable to hold and
dispose of property, both real and personal, and may choose pre-
siding and other officers.

31. Before any such association shall become a corporation,
they shall lodge with the clerk of the Circuit Court for the
county in which such corporation is designed to act, and if
designed to act in the city of Baltimore, with the clerk of the
Superior Court of Baltimore city, a copy of the articles of asso-
ciation of such corporation, signed by at least seven members
and certified by the secretary thereof, to be recorded in the
office of such clerk; and any addition, alteration or amendment
of the articles of association of any such corporation shall be
signed, certified and recorded in the same manner.

32. Any corporation formed under the preceding section shall
have power to declare in their articles of association the number
of shares, not exceeding one thousand, of which its capital stock
shall consist, the par value of the same, not exceeding four hun-
dred dollars per share: to limit the number of shares which each
stockholder may be allowed to hold; to prescribe the entrance
fee to be paid by each stockholder at the time of subscribing;
to regulate the instalments to be paid on each share, provided
the same shall not exceed the sum of one dollar per share per
week, and the times at which the same shall be paid and pay-
able.

33. Any such corporation shall have power to issue to each
member of the corporation a certificate of the shares of stock
held by him, and to enforce the payment of all instalments and
other duek due to the corporation from the members or stock-
holders by such fines and forfeitures as the corporators may from
time to time provide in the by-laws or articles of association of
such corporation.

34. Any person applying for membership or for stock in any
such corporation after the end of one month from the time of