ART. 16.] CHANCERY.

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States, or any territory thereof, or where application
is made by the guardian or prochein ami of any non-
resident infant to sell, lease, mortgage or exchange the
real or personal property of such infants on the prayer
or petition of the complainant or petitioner, a commis-
sion may be issued, without any previous process or
notice, to any two persons, in the discretion of the
judge of the court in which said suit is brought, who
reside near such infants, authorizing them, or either of
them, to appoint a guardian to answer for such infant
or infants, and take the answer of such infants by their
said guardian, and the said judge may prescribe the
mode of authenticating the execution of such commis-
sion, and the answer of every infant so taken in any
case, when returned to the court issuing the commis-
sion, shall be as effectual as if taken under a commis-
sion duly executed within the jurisdiction of such court;

provided, that if in any such suit the party or parties
complainant shall allege, and prove by oath or affir-
mation, that the whereabouts of the infant defendants
is unknown to him, her or them, and that he, she or
they have made diligent inquiry to ascertain the same,
(the said oath or affirmation, where there is more than
one complainant, to be made by any one, any number,
or all of such parties, in the discretion of the court,) or
when a commission may have been issued, as herein
provided, and the party or parties to whom such com-
mission may have been issued, shall refuse or neglect to
execute or return the same according to the exigency
thereof, beyond a reasonable length of time, to be
judged of by the court issuing such commission, then
the said infant defendants, being non-residents, may be
proceeded against by notice given, as provided for in
the preceding section of this article, for other non-resi-
dents, but in no case shall a bill or petition be taken
pro confesso against an absent infant defendant.

In force and approved March 28, 1868.

Proviso.