ART. 43] DEATHS AND BIRTHS. 1081

1904, art. 45, sec. 17. 1898, ch. 312, sec. 6L.

18. The state registrar shall receive the certificates returned under
this sub-title, permanently bind and preserve them, make indexes
thereto, and issue certified statements of the facts relating to any birth
or death. For each such certified statement he shall receive a fee of
twenty-five cents, together with a payment for the time of search, if
over half an hour, at the rate of fifty cents an hour, to be paid by the
person asking such certified statement.

Ibid sec. 18. 1898, ch. 312, sec. 6 M.

19. Any physician or mid-wife, coroner or undertaker, whose duty
it is, who fails to report a birth as provided by section 14, shall be
liable to a fine of not less than five nor more than twenty-five dollars,
or be imprisoned, not less than thirty days, or be both fined and impris-
oned, in the discretion of the court. Any undertaker, express agent,
railroad official or employe, or other person controlling, direct-
ing or in charge of the interment, entombment, removal or other dispo-
sition of the body of a deceased person before the record shall be
made as required by section 10 shall be liable to a fine of not less than
ten nor more than five hundred dollars, or to be imprisoned not to
exceed thirty days, or to both fine and imprisonment. Any physician
who shall refuse or fail to make a proper and correct certificate of the
cause of death of any person upon whom he or she was the last medical
attendant, to the best of his knowledge or belief, shall be liable to a
fine of not less than five nor more than fifty dollars, or to be imprisoned
not to exceed thirty days, or to both fine and imprisonment. Any
registrar who shall, without justifiable cause, neglect or refuse to per-
form any of the duties enjoined on him by this sub-title, or who shall
communicate to any person not authorized to receive the same, any
of the personal or. statistical facts recorded on his register, shall be
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction thereof, shall be
fined not exceeding three hundred dollars.

1906, ch. 124.

20. Whenever the state board of health shall have reason to believe
that any local registrar of vital statistics does not make full and com-
plete records as required by the provisions of this section, the state
board of health shall take charge of and shall operate the local registra-
tion office for a period of three months, after having given to the local
board of health not less than thirty days' previous notice in writing,
and the state board of health shall pay the expenses incurred on account
of the local registration office for the time being; provided, that the
registration during that period shall be less than 10 per cent, in excess
of that recorded by the local registrar in the corresponding three months

of the year next preceding; and provided, further, that in case the
registration by the state board of health shall exceed by 10 per cent.,

or more, the registration of the local registrar in the corresponding