LLOYD LOWNDES, ESQUIRE, GOVERNOR. 575

age of fourteen years, or for any shorter period, and at or before
said age to bind out any and every one of said foundlings and
infants for a term of time not exceeding the age of twenty-one
years, if the child be a male, or of eighteen years, if the child be
a female, as an apprentice to learn any trade or business suit-
able to the sex of the child, or to learn to be useful in house-
wifery, or to place them for adoption or as inmates with any
families or persons, or transfer them to the custody, charge,
care and training of any corporate or other home, asylum or
other association authorized by law to receive such children,
and retain or bind them out in this State; provided, that all such
acts of binding, placing or transferring shall be evidenced by
instrument of writing, signed by the president of said Protest-
ant Infant Asylum of Baltimore City, and by the person or cor-
poration taking such child as apprentice, or for adoption, or
for subsequent custody, care and rearing, and by such signers
acknowledged before a Justice of the Peace of this State, and
within one month from the date thereof recorded in the office
of the Register of Wills of Baltimore City, at the expense of
the party so taking, receiving or adopting; and provided, also,
that the said Protestant Infant Asylum of Baltimore City shall
keep a fair record, in a suitable book, of the admission of all
children so received into its custody and care, in which shall
be stated the date of admission, the name and age of the child
at the time of admission, the name of the person or Justice by
whom or the Court by which committed, and the name of the
nearest relatives when known to the corporation or its officer
charged with the admission of inmates.

St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum.

896. Any Justice of the Peace of the City of Baltimore may
commit to, or the Supervisors of City Charities may place
in the care of the St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum of the City
of Baltimore, foundlings and all children who may be desti-
tute or suffering for want of support, either as orphan chil-
dren or because of the extreme indigence or vagrancy, or bad
habits or neglect of parents, or who may be found begging