ART. 20.] TALBOT COUNTY. 859

122. The supervisor of any district (or his deputies) in which
any free negro may reside, may call on such negro not being
under the age of eighteen nor over forty-five years and not
employed by the year by any taxable inhabitant, to labor for
one day in each year upon the public roads.

123. If any free negro, called upon by a supervisor or his
deputy, shall refuse or neglect to attend at the time and place
appointed, or upon attending shall neglect to perform the duties
required of him, he shall pay a fine not exceeding fifty cents, to
be recovered at the instance of such supervisor in the name of
the State before a justice of the peace, and paid to the county
commissioners for the use of the public roads in said county.

1.24. If any person shall alter or change any public road in
said county, or cut down, destroy or injure any of the bridges,
causeways, boundaries, marks or directions therein or thereon,
he shall, on conviction thereof in the Circuit Court for said
county, be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, according to
the nature and degree of the offence.

125. Any citizen of Talbot county, or any person owning land
therein, may keep gates on the public roads in said county, (ex-
cept those roads that the United States Mail passes over,) for
his own private use and convenience.

126. Every owner of a gate kept upon the public road shall
have the same hung on good and substantial posts, with good
and sufficient iron hinges, and shall keep the same in good
repair, so as to impede as little as possible persons travelling
with carriages or burthen.

127. If any person shall cut down, destroy, take away or
remove any of the said gates, he shall, upon conviction thereof
before a justice of the peace, forfeit and pay the owner of such
gate a sum not less than one nor more than ten dollars.

128. If any slave shall cut down, destroy, injure or wilfully
leave open any gate on the public roads, he shall, on conviction
before a justice, be-whipped in the discretion of the justice not
exceeding ten lashes; but no person shall be fined or punished in
any case where such gates shall be found carelessly open, not
hung upon iron hinges, or otherwise in bad order or repair.