EMERSON C. HARRINGTON, GOVERNOR. 249

quired by law, or when the conveyance has not been witnessed
and sealed, or any mortgage or assignment of mortgage defec-
tively sworn to or not sworn to at all, " be and the same are
hereby repealed and re-enacted so as to read as follows: All
deeds, mortgages, releases, bonds of conveyance, bills of sale,
chattel mortgages and all other conveyances of real and per-
sonal property, or of any interest therein which may have been
executed, acknowledged or recorded in the State subsequent to
the passage of the Act of the General Assembly of Maryland
passed at its January Session, 1858, Chapter 208, which may
not have been acknowledged according to the laws existing at
the time of said acknowledgment, or which may not have been
acknowledged before a proper officer, or when the certificate of
acknowledgment is not in the prescribed form or when the
official character of the officer taking the acknowledgment is
not set out in the body of the certificate, or has not been certi-
fied to as required by law, or where the conveyance has not
been witnessed to or sealed as required by law, shall be and
the same are hereby made valid, to all intents and purposes,
as if the conveyances had been acknowledged, certified to, wit-
nessed and sealed according to law; provided the said deeds,
mortgages, bonds of conveyance, bills of sale and other con-
veyances are in other respects in conformity with the laws;
provided further, that nothing in this section shall affect the
interest of bona fide purchasers or creditors, without notice,
who may have become so previous to the passage of this Act.

SEC. 1A. And be it further enacted, That any assign-
ment of any mortgage, which assignment has been heretofore
executed and recorded, but which has not been sealed and in
which no mention of any seal has been made or in which either
of such defects exist, or any mortgage or assignment of mort-
gage defectively sworn to or not sworn to at all, shall be and
they are hereby made valid to all intents and purposes, as if
said mortgage or assignment of mortgage had been in such
matters in full conformity with the law in force at the time
of such execution; provided, that any such mortgage or assign-
ment of mortgage is in other respects legal and valid; and
provided further, that nothing in this Act shall affect the rights
of any bona fide purchaser or creditor without notice, who
becomes so prior to the passage of this Act.

SEC. 2. And be it enacted, That this Act shall take effect
from and after the first day of June,. 1916.

Approved April 3d, 1916.