T. HOLLIDAY HICKS, ESQ., GOVERNOR.

1880.

respective districts, on the first day of December,
eighteen hundred and sixty, and the same day and
month in every year thereafter, and adjourn from
day to day, or to any named day, for the purpose
of discharging the duties imposed by this act.

CHAP. 232.

SEC. 3. And be it enacted, That the said board
of commissioners shall under their hands and seals,
issue summons to be directed to one or more con-
stables, as they may see fit, of their respective dis-
tricts, whose duty it is hereby made to serve the
same upon every free negro of all ages and sexes in
said districts, and by virtue of which it shall be
the duty of said constable to have said free negroes
so summoned before the said board of commissioners
at the time and place specified in said summons.

Negroes to
appear before
commission-
ers.

SEC. 4. And be it enacted, That it shall be the
duty of said board of commissioners to duly notify
all said free negroes when brought before them,
except such as shall be otherwise provided for in
the subsequent sections, that unless they shall pro-
vide homes by hiring themselves to some indus-
trious and respectable citizen, as hereafter pro-
vided, to labor and service by the year, they the
said commissioners will expose said free negroes at
public sale to the highest bidder for the term of one
year.

Notice given.

SEC. 5. And be it enacted, That it shall be the duty
of said board of commissioners, after having given
the aforesaid notice to expose at public sale to the
highest bidder for the term of twelve months, all
such free negroes who shall fail to produce before
said commissioners on or before the first day of
January, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, and on
or before the first day of January of every succeed-
ing year, the note or bond of some respectable and
worthy citizen, with security thereon, to be approved
by the same, for the hired services of said negro

Free negroes
failing to pro-
duce note, as
evidence of
their having
hired out, to
be sold.

or negroes for the term of twelve months, which
said note or bond shall contain the stipulations of
the parties, and shall be subject to suit as other
notes or bonds are, before a justice of the peace, or
the Circuit courts for Saint Mary's Calvert, Howard,
Kent, Baltimore, Worcester, Somerset, Talbot,
Queen Anne's, Prince George's and Charles coun-
ties, as may be required by the amount of consid-
eration in said bond.

Stipulations.