458 NEGEOES. [ART. 66.
Free Negroes.

MANUMISSION.

42*. No slave shall henceforth be manumitted by deed or by
last will and testament, nor shall the fact of a negro's going at
large and acting as free, or not being claimed by an owner, be
considered as evidence of the execution heretofore of any deed or
will manumitting the party, or as a ground for presuming
freedom; Provided, that this section shall not apply to such
negroes as may have been heretofore manumitted by deed or
by the last will and testament of a deceased person to become
free at a period which has not arrived, and who are now in ser-
vice as slaves for a term of years.

43*. Any free negro above the age of eighteen years may go
before the Circuit Court for the county in which such free negro
has resided for three years next preceding such application, or
before the Superior Court of Baltimore city if such negro has
resided in said city, and after a full examination in open court,
by said court, so as to ascertain whether force, fraud, imposition
or undue persuasion has been used to induce such application,
and upon being perfectly satisfied by such examination, and by
any other evidence which the said court may think it proper to
inquire, that such application has not been induced by force,
fraud, imposition or undue persuasion, the said court may permit
such negro to select a master or mistress and become a slave for
life to such master or mistress, and shall cause such order to be
recorded in perpetual proof of the fact. If such negro shall be
a female, her children, if any, under five years of age, shall be
included in such order and become slaves, and those above five

shall be bound out.

IMMIGRATION OF FREE NEGROES.

44. No free negro belonging to, or residing in any other
State, district or territory, shall come into this State, whether
such free negro intends settling in this State or not, under the
penalty of twenty dollars for the first offence; and no free
negro shall come into this State a second time, where he has
been arrested and convicted under the provisions of this sec-
tion, under the penalty of five hundred dollars, the one-half
of said sum of five hundred dollars to the informer, and the