ELIHU E. JACKSON, ESQUIRE, GOVERNOR.

Chapter 376.

AN ACT to authorize the county commissioners
of Kent county and the county commissioners
of Queen Anne's county to purchase the capi-
tal stock of the Chester River Bridge Com-
pany, and to provide for the payment thereof
by levies on the taxable inhabitants of said
counties, and to make said bridge a free pub-
lic bridge or thoroughfare, and to appoint a
keeper therefor, and to provide for the pay-
ment of the keeper's salary and keeping said
bridge in repair, and to provide for taking the
sense of the people of said counties prelimi-
nary to the exercise of the aforesaid powers.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assem-
bly of Maryland, That the county commissioners
of Kent county and the county commissioners
of Queen Anne's county, or a majority of them

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respectively, are hereby authorized and em-
powered to negotiate with the stockholders of
the Chester River Bridge Company, or their
duly constituted agent, and purchase the capi-
tal stock of said bridge company at a price not
exceeding the par value thereof, and provide
for the payment thereof in one, two and three
annual instalments, as may be agreed on, by
levies on their respective counties in the pro-
portions said respective boards of commis-
sioners may agree upon between themselves as
properly chargeable to their respective counties;
and, upon the purchase and payment thereof,
said commissioners shall have prepared and
executed a deed from said bridge company for
all the property, rights and franchises of said
company to said Kent and Queen Anne's
counties in the proportions of ownership, as
shall be agreed on and established by their
several boards of county commissioners in the
purchase thereof, to be taken, held and per-
petuated as a free bridge and public thorough-
fare between said counties.
SEC. 2. And be it enacted, That there shall be
a keeper of said bridge, who shall be appointed
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Authority to
purchase.