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LAWS OF MARYLAND.

Repeal

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Mary-
land, That chapter 457 of the Acts of the General Assembly
of Maryland, Session of 1896, be and the same is hereby
repealed and re enacted so as to read as follows :

SEC. 2. And tie it enacted, That John Walter Smith, Oliver

Body
corporate.

D. Collins, Calvin B. Taylor, J. Edward White, Thomas M.
Purnell, Zadok P. Wharton, Oscar M. Purnell and Edward
White, and whosoever may be now or hereafter associated with
them and their successors, shall be and are hereby made a body
politic and corporate by the name and style of the Equitable
Fire Insurance Company of Snow Hill, Maryland, and as such
shall be capable in law to insure real and personal property,
and effects against loss or damage by fire, under such condi-
tions as may be by said body corporate adopted, and shall be
embodied in the contract or policy of insurance, also to pur-
chase, improve, lease, mortgage, hold and dispose of property,
real, personal or mixed, to borrow or loan money on mortgage,
to make advance upon buildings and lands, to loan on collateral
or private securities, and to do all other acts that may be pro-
motive of the interests of the said body corporate in so far as
the same shall not be in conflict with the laws of the United
States or the State of Maryland. And the said body corporate
shall have power to make and use a common seal, the same to
change, alter and renew at pleasure, to sue and be sued, to
plead and be impleaded, to answer and be answered in any
court of law or equity or elsewhere, to make all deeds, trans-
fers, contracts, conveyances and grants whatsoever, and
generally to possess and exercise all and singular the powers
incident to bodies politic and corporate.

Board of
directors.

SEC. 3. And be it enacted, That the affairs of the company
shall be managed by a board of directors composed of not less
than nine or more than eighteen, and that John Walter Smith,
Calvin B. Taylor, Oliver D. Collins, Thomas M. Purnell, J.
Edward White, Zadok P. Wharton, Oscar M. Purnell and
Edward White, the above-mentioned incorporators, shall con-
stitute the board of directors of the said company for the first
year or until their successors are elected and duly qualified, .and
that John Walter Smith shall be president and J. Edward
White secretary of the said company for the first year, and in
case of the failure or refusal of any of the above-mentioned
directors or officers to serve as such directors or officers of said
company, then the vacancy may be filled by the remaining
directors, and others added if deemed advisable. After the
first year the directors shall be elected by the shareholders com-