1654 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [CH. 706

road and to provide for the construction of said road, by the
State of Maryland, providing for the repair and up-keep of
said road after its construction, and to be known as the
National Defense Highway, together with a similar amount
called for in a Bill appropriating money by Act of Con-
gress, that is to say, that the State of Maryland shall appro-
priate one hundred and twenty-five thousand ($125, 000. 00)
dollars and Congress shall appropriate one hundred and
twenty-five thousand ($125, 000. 00) dollars to construct said
National Defense Highway.

WHEREAS, By Act of the General Assembly of Maryland,
1796, Commissioners were appointed from Anne Arundel and
Prince George's Counties to lay out a public road from Annap-
olis to the City of Washington who reported progress from
time to time to the Legislature, until the road was finally
located and plats of the same were returned as a part of the
report to the Legislature and to the Clerk's Office of said
Counties to be recorded. And, whereas, the work of the Com-
missioners was duly ratified by the Legislature and said road
has ever since been a highway between the two cities.

AND WHEREAS, Under the Act of 1908, Chapter 141, the
State Roads Commission was authorized to lay out and adopt
such roads for all the Counties of the State and City of Bal-
timore as would make a system of public roads for the whole
State, and the Old Stage Road was adopted by said Commis-
sion among others in said Anne Arundel and Prince George's
Counties as part of the system.

AND WHEREAS, In said Counties, others of the adopted
roads have been completed by the said State Roads Commis-
sion, when, no work has been done on the Old Stage Road to
subserve the public travel and convenience between the said
two cities.

AND WHEREAS, The Commission has erected a State High-
way from Baltimore City to Washington City and from Bal-
timore City to Annapolis, and no just reason exists why the
Commission should not erect the Old Stage Road into a State
Road which would complete the line of the triangle to run
from the Capitol of the State in which is located the Nation's
Naval Academy, at one end of the line and the capital of the
United States, at the other and which line of road would be
of inestimable value to both State and Nation in time of war
as well as peace.