578 REVENUE AND TAXES. [ART. 81

if the highest price or prices shall in their judgment be insuffi-
cient they shall have power and it shall be their duty to reject
said bid or bids.

1892. ch. 310. 1896, ch. 172.

215. The board of public works are hereby authorized and
directed, whenever they shall determine it to be for the best
interest of the State to sell the whole or any part of the follow-
ing State stocks and securities, to wit: Fifty-five hundred shares

of the capital stock of the Washington Branch of the Baltimore

and Ohio Railroad Company; six hundred shares of the capital
stock of the Annapolis Water Company; fifteen hundred and
iorty-nine shares of the capital stock of the Farmers' National
Bank of Annapolis; mortgage of the Northern Central Railway

Company to the State of Maryland, securing an annuity of ninety
thousand dollars to the said State of Maryland, all now held and
'Owned by the State of Maryland. And in making sale of such
stock or securities the said board of public works are directed to
proceed as directed in the preceding section. But the said board
of public works may exchange any of the said State securities
at their actual market value, for an equal amount of the out-
standing bonds or certificates of indebtedness of the State of
Maryland, and full authority is hereby given them to execute and
deliver such transfers or assignments as may be necessary to effect
such sale, exchange or transfer. And whenever there shall be
any sale or transfer of such State securities by the board of public
works, the proceeds thereof shall be applied to the payment and
cancellation of a like amount of the outstanding bonds or cer-
tificates of debt of the State of Maryland. And whenever any
of the outstanding bonds or certificates of debt of the State shall
"be paid, the same shall be cancelled and entered by designation
and number by the treasurer, in the book in his office known as
the " treasurer's record of bonds paid and cancelled. " And the
treasurer and comptroller are hereby directed, during the month
of September, and prior to the close of the fiscal year next pre-
ceding the meeting of the General Assembly, to charge off on
their books of account, all such State bonds and certificates of
debt which have been paid or redeemed, so as to reduce the
accounts of such bonds and certificates of debt to the amounts
then actually outstanding and unpaid, so that the said books, at