1860.

LAWS OF MARYLAND.

CHAP. 322.

cal laws shall be so altered as to read as follows:
That the county commissioners of Washington shall
levy a tax on the assessable property of said county
sufficient for the use of the public schools of said
county, to be appropriated under the direction of
the board of school commissioners.

Repealed.

SEC. 2. And be it enacted, That section two hun-
dred and seventy-five, of article twenty-one of the
code of public local laws be and the same is hereby
repealed, and that the following be enacted in lieu

Children ad-
mitted to
school free of
charge.

thereof: The children attending public schools in
Washington county shall be admitted free of charge
for nine months in each and every year.

CHAPTER 322.

Passed March
10, 1860.

AN ACT entitled, an act to amend the sixty-fifth
article of the Code of Public General Laws, by
repealing the forty-second, forty-third, forty-
fourth, forty-fifth and forty-sixth sections of
said article and by adding thereto certain new
sections, prohibiting manumission of negro slaves
and authorising free negroes to renounce their
freedom and become slaves.

Manumission
of negroes
prohibited.

SECTION. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly
of Maryland, That the forty-second, forty-third,
forty-fourth, forty-fifth and forty-sixth sections of
the sixty-fifth article of the Code of Public General
Laws, which authorise and regulate the manu-
mission of slaves, be and the same are hereby re-
pealed, and that the following section be inserted
in the said article in lieu of and as a substitute for
he sections so repealed: No slaves shall henceforth
be manumitted by deed or by last will and testa-
ment, nor shall the fact of a negro's going at large
and acting as free or not being claimed by an own-
er, be considered as evidence of the execution here-
tofore of any deed or will manumitting the party

Proviso.

or as a ground for presuming freedom; Provided,
that this section shall not apply to such negroes
as may have been heretofore manumitted by deed