Ixiv PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY

passable. Justices were also to enumerate in their records each year the public roads,
to make diligent inquiry as to whether the overseers discharged their several
duties and to make due presentment and prosecute for failure properly to discharge
such duties, and to give in charge to the overseers from time to time the rules and
methods prescribed for marking certain roads leading to ferries, courthouses,
churches, etc. In May 1697 the justices of the several counties were cautioned by
order of the Council to send in to the Governor and Council an account of the pub-
lic roads ascertained in each county, pursuant to the directions of an act of As-
sembly. 2

The justices were to appoint from time to time as required some able or discreet
resident conveniently located to take care of and preserve existing standard weights
and measures or to procure the necessary weights and measures. They were also to
nominate and appoint each year two honest and substantial men as press-masters
in each hundred in the county. They were also authorized to issue certificates to
disabled soldiers or to widows and children of soldiers killed in service, who were
applicants for pensions or allowances, that such persons were objects of charity
and deserving of such pensions or allowances to be issued out of the public levy
of the province. 3

The commissioners were authorized to grant licenses for the keeping of ordi-
naries to such persons for such times and in such places as to them seemed fitting.
They were also in January and August of each year to summon all the ordinary
keepers in their county and thereupon set and assess the rates and prices of all
liquors for which rates were not fixed by statute. In case of an ordinary keeper mis-
behaving or "keeping evil rule in his house", the justices upon complaint were
authorized to suppress the ordinary and call in the license. 4

Any person receiving into his custody a servant transported into the province
without indenture was obliged, within six months (unless only five years sendee
was claimed), to bring such servant before the county court in which he lived to
have his age judged and determined and entered of record. If such servant was
adjudged above twenty-two years of age, he was obliged to serve five years. If be-
tween eighteen and twenty-two, six years; if between fifteen and eighteen, seven
years; if under fifteen years, then to serve until he attained twenty-two years. 5
Many instances of such adjudgment appear in the Liber.

The justices of the county courts were also authorized to make allowances in the
county levy of 200 pounds of tobacco for each wolf's head brought in to any justice
(such allowances appear in the Liber) and for the purchase of matchcoats to be de-
livered to Indians as wolf bounties. 6 The commissioners were given power, upon
examination of the public charges of the county and of the allowances made by
them of such charges, to levy and raise tobacco for payment of the allowed county
charges, and the sheriff's salary for collection thereof, by an equal assessment upon
the goods and chattels of the freemen and inhabitants of the county. These accounts
were required to be signed by the commissioners and kept in a book by the clerk of
the court. Complaints that charges were not allowable or of overcharges were to
be examined in the Provincial Court. Three such accounts are entered in the
Liber. 7

2. 13 id. 486; 38 id. 95; 22, id. 475; 23 id. 105.

3. 13 id. 491, 554; 22 id. 562.

4. 38 id. 44; 22 id. 518.

5. 13 id. 451; 22 id. 546.

6. 13 id. 520; 22 id. 479.

7. 13 id. 470; 38 id. 112; 22 id. 474; infra 52-53, 278-80, 614-15.