ART. 21] DEFECTIVE CONVEYANCES 517

qualified for any county or city in this State, and which deeds, mort-
gages and other conveyances were recorded in the county or city where
the lands or other property, in whole or in part, are situated, shall have
the same effect and operation in law, and be as valid to all intent and
purposes, as if the justice of the peace before whom the same was
acknowledged, was, at the time of such acknowledgment, a justice of the
peace duly commissioned and qualified according to law for the county
or city in which the lands or other property were situated, or in which
the grantors in such deed, mortgage or other conveyance, resided, sav-
ing and reserving the rights of creditors and bona fide purchasers, with-
out notice.

This is a curative statute. The power to pass such laws has been fre-
quently sustained by the court of appeals of Maryland. Wingert v. Zelgler,
91 Md. 326.

1904, art. 21, sec. 81. 1888, art. 21, sec. 80. 1880, ch. 256, sec. 2.
83. All deeds, mortgages and other conveyances, executed and
acknowledged by the grantors since the twenty-second day of March,
in the vear eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, in the county or city in

this State in which the grantors then resided, before any other justice
of the peace of any other county or city in this State, duly commissioned
and qualified, shall be as valid, to all intents and purposes, as if acknowl-
edged in the county or city where the lands or other property, in whole
or in part, are situate, before a justice of the peace of said county or
city, or as if acknowledged before a justice of the peace of the county
or city in which the grantors resided, saving and reserving the rights
of creditors and bona fide purchasers without notice; this section, how-
ever, not to avail, nor to be pleaded, nor given in evidence, nor in any
manner to affect litigation pending on April 10, 1880.

This Is a curative statute. The power to pass such laws has been fre-
quently sustained by the court of appeals of Maryland. Wingert v. Zeigler,
91 Md. 326.

Ibid. sec. 82. 1888, art. 21, sec. 81. 1870, ch. 346. 1878, ch. 116.
84. All deeds of conveyance of property in this State which may
have been recorded without any certificate of the clerk of any of the
courts of this State accompanying the acknowledgment thereof, in
cases in which such certificates are necessary and proper, certifying to
the official character and signature of the justice of the peace taking
the same, and all deeds of conveyance of property in this State which
may have been recorded without the seal of the notary public before
whom the acknowledgment was taken, having been first attached, when
the grantor resided in another State, and the acknowledgment was
made ill that State, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as if such
defect and omission did not exist; provided, that the execution and.
acknowledgment of such deeds in all other respects conformed to the
laws of this State, in such cases made and provided; saving, neverthe-
less, the rights of bona fide purchasers and incumbrancers without