secretary of of whatever nature or kind soever, issued by this state, to any person or persons, company, body politic, or corporation. state. Ib. Sec. 4. Secretary's fee. 44. Any person receiving a grant as aforesaid, shall pay therefor, the receipt thereof, to the secretary of state, the sum of seventyfive cents. upon NOTE.-For other provisions respecting the registration of deeds, &c., See "Frauds and Fraudulent Conveyances." Purchasers of school lands, sold under any of the acts providing for the sale of the 16th sections, are entitled to receive a patent from the governor, on producing a certificate of full payment from the president and cashier of the Bank of the State of Alabama.-See "Schools and School Lands,"—§ 35. 1833-(40) Coroner to hold inquests in certain cases. CORONERS. § 1. Ir shall be the duty of every coroner, whenever any sudden death shall come to his knowledge, whether occurring by violence, casualty, or in prison, to summon forthwith a jury of six householders of the county, of known discretion, and proceed immediately to make diligent inquisition concerning the cause thereof, and all the material circumstances connected with such sudden death; for which purpose the coroner may summon witnesses, who shall attend and give testimony, under all the penalties provided against other witnesses summoned in behalf of the state: which inquisition so taken, shall be committed to writing, and returned to the next circuit court of the county. And if, after hearing the testimony, there shall be probable grounds to suspect any one of unlawfully causing the death in quesTo issue war- tion, or of being concerned therein, the coroner shall issue a warrant for the apprehension of such person; or if he be escaped to another county, shall apply to some justice of the peace to issue the same; and such person, when so apprehended, shall be carried before a justice of the peace of the county where the death occurred, to be dealt To recognize with according to law. It shall also be the duty of the coroner, on the rants, when. witnesses, &c. When coroner shall act jailor. issuance of such warrant by himself, or the justice, to bind over all witnesses who have given material testimony, to attend the next circuit court; and shall return the recognizances of the witnesses, certified, with the inquisition. It shall moreover be lawful for the coroner, and it is made his duty, as often as circumstances may require it, to call to his aid the power of the county. § 2. The coroner shall execute all process when the sheriff is a as sheriff or party in interest, to any suit in the circuit or county court, and perform all the duties of sheriff, whenever from any cause, he may be incompetent to act as such. He shall also be keeper of the jail when Liabilities, the sheriff is imprisoned upon any civil or criminal process; and for failing to perform any of the duties prescribed in this section, shall be liable to all the penalties prescribed against sheriffs and jailors for similar defaults. &c. Additional bond may be required. For failure § 3. Whenever the coroner shall be required to discharge the duties of sheriff, agreeably to the laws now in force, the judge of the county court, may at his discretion, demand of such coroner, such additional bond, as he may deem necessary or advisable. § 4. If any coroner shall fail to perform any of the duties required to do as re- of him in the first section of this act, he shall be liable, together with quired by 1st section, how his securities, to pay such damages, not less than two hundred dollars, responsible. as may be assessed by a jury, to be recovered on his official bond, by any one who will sue for the same; and in addition, shail be liable to be indicted and fined, not exceeding one hundred dollars. coroner, justice to act, § 5. When there is no coroner in the county, or he cannot attend, Where no any justice of the peace may perform his duties in making the inquisition as aforesaid; and for such services, shall receive the fees allow- &c. ed to the coroner. Judges of § 6. The judges of the county courts shall have power to appoint a b. Sec. 7. coroner, in cases where there shall be no coroner in said county, county when it may become necessary for any process to be served on the courts to ap sheriff. NOTE.-For the coroner's appointment and bond,-See "County Officers." point coroners, when. COTTON GINS AND GIN-HOLDERS. Sec. 2. gins to be en § 1. EVERY Owner or possessor of any gin, erected in or within one 1809-(1) quarter of a mile of any city, town, or village, is directed and requi- Seed falling red to enclose, remove, or destroy all the cotton seed which falls from from cotton said gin, so as to prevent the putrefaction thereof; and every person closed, &c. so neglecting, after having five days previous notice thereof, shall forfeit and pay for the use of the territory, twenty dollars, to be reco- Penalty! vered before any justice of the peace, for every day he shall thus neglect to remove the cotton seed as aforesaid. be thrown water course, ex 2. Every owner or holder of any cotton-gin within this territory, b. Sec. 3. is hereby restrained from throwing, or letting the cotton seed fall from Seed not to their gins into any stream of water, or watercourse whatever, except into any the Tombeckbee and Alabama rivers, and the waters of Bayou Sara: and every person failing to comply with the requisitions of this sec- cept Tomtion, shall forfeit and pay the sum of two hundred dollars, recoverable before any court having jurisdiction thereof, one moiety to the use of the person suing for the same, and the other to the person or persons injured. beck bee and Alabama. Sec. 1. § 3. Every gin-holder within this territory, shall enclose his or her 1810 (1) cotton-gin with a good and sufficient fence, five feet high, and so close Gins to be that no hog of any size can get through the same; and every such enclosed. gin shall be enclosed so as to include all the cotton seed which may fall from, or in anywise appertain to said gin: and every person or persons failing to comply with the requisitions of this act, shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty dollars for every day they shall neglect or fail so to comply; to be sued for and recovered by the party injured, before any justice of the peace, and applied to his own use: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall prevent any person or persons from recovering any special damages, he, she, or they may sustain, in consequence of any gin-holder negligently keeping his or her gin.(1) Sec. 2. § 4. All owners of cotton-gins within this state, shall mark on each 1832 (16) bale of cotton by them ginned and baled, the initial letters of their Initials of proper names, together with such initials as will designate the county owner's of their residence. name and of county to be bale. § 5. If any person or persons shall violate the provisions of the marked on foregoing section, he, she, or they shall be liable to a penalty of five Ib. Sec. 3. dollars, to be recovered before any court having competent jurisdic- Penalty. (1) An action for the forfeiture, for failing to keep a cotton-gin enclosed, is barred if not instituted within one year after the forfeiture accrued. Johnson v. A. & J. E. Hughes, 1 Stewt. Rep. 263. tion, one-half to be paid into the county treasury, and the other half to the person suing for the same. NOTE. For the penalty for exhibiting a false sample of cotton, or for plating or other fraud in the packing thereof-See "Crimes and Misdemeanors,"§ 68, 69. For the law respecting cotton receipts-See "Notes, Bills, and Bonds,"-§ 1, 2. Con. Ala. New coun- Ib. Sec. 17. 1828. COUNTIES. § 1. No new county shall be established by the general assembly, which shall reduce the county or counties, or either of them, from which it shall be taken, to a less content than nine hundred square miles; nor shall any county be laid off of less contents. Every new county, as to the right of suffrage and representation, shall be considered as a part of the county or counties from which it was taken, until entitled by numbers to the right of separate representation. § 2. The general assembly shall, at their first session which may to be fixed in be holden in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-eight, or at the next succeeding session, arrange and designate boundaries for the several counties within the limits of this state, to which the Indian title shall have been extinguished, in such manner as they may deem expedient, which boundaries shall not be afterward altered, unless by the agreement of two-thirds of both branches of the general assembly; and, in all cases of ceded territory, acquired by the state, the general assembly may make such arrangements and designations of the boundaries of counties within such ceded territory, as they may deem expedient, which shall only be altered in like manner: Provided, That no county hereafter to be formed shall be of less extent than nine hundred square miles. Proviso. 1807-(25) Court-house, post, and erected in COUNTY BUILDINGS. § 1. There shall be erected and established in every county, in which jail, pillory, public buildings are not already provided, a good and sufficient courtwhipping- house, for the legal adjudication of causes; and a strong and efficient stocks, to be jail or prison, for the reception and confinement of debtors and criminals, well secured by timber, iron grates, bolts, and locks; and also a pillory, whipping-posts, and so many stocks as may be convenient for the punishment of offenders. And every jail so to be erected, shall consist of three apartments at least, one of which shall be appropriated to the reception of debtors. each county. Court-house be built un tion of the justices of § 2. Every court-house and jail to be erected as aforesaid, shall be and jail to formed of such materials, and of such dimensions, and on such plans der the direc- as shall be directed by the justices of the county court, or a majority of them, in each county, who are hereby authorized to plan and project the same; and to accept as a gift, or to purchase for the use of the county, so much ground in the towns where the courts may be ordered to sit, as they may judge convenient and necessary, whereon to build all or any of the structures aforesaid. Which purchase-money shall be defrayed by the proper county, and laid in the county esti the county court. Justices of the county mates. § 3. The said justices, or a majority of them in every county, shall court to ap appoint two commissioners, of industry and knowledge sufficient to 99 commission ers. into bond. plan and carry into effect, by drawing the draft, superintending the point two ers may be buildings to § 4. Every county, now or hereafter to be erected and laid off within Erection and the territory, shall defray all expenses that may attend the building, repair of and keeping in good repair, within itself, of the court-house, jail, pillory, be at county whipping-posts, and stocks, hereby ordered; and to this purpose, for charge. the greater forwarding the business, the justices aforesaid are hereby authorized, to draw out of the hands of the treasurer of the county, any sums of money which he may have received, belonging to the county, not otherwise appropriated; and the said justices are hereby But in every Jail to be directed, to apply the same wholly to the purposes of building a jail and court-house, pillory, whipping-posts, and stocks. county, a jail shall be first erected; and the treasurer and justices are erected first. to govern themselves accordingly. Sec. 3. lowance for to make al § 5. The justices of the county courts are hereby authorized to 1815—(13) make all necessary allowances, for repairs done to the court-houses and jails of their respective counties, and the claims of persons summoned to guard criminals, on the sheriff's certificate, which shall be paid out of the county treasuries respectively: Provided, The sum so allowed by the county court shall not exceed one hundred dollars in any one year. Sec. 1. of court § 6. The sheriff of every county within this state, shall take charge 1822—(25) of the court-house of his county; keep out intruders; have it cleaned; be- house. and observe the decays or any other injury that may be done to said take charge court-house, or any other property attached to or near it, that may long to said county, and make a report, at least once a year, to the county court: and the judge and commissioners of roads and revenue, Judge, &c. are hereby empowered to make such appropriations out of the county appropriatreasury, as are necessary to be by the sheriff incurred, to carry this tions for his act into effect. may make expenses. COUNTY OFFICERS. Sec. 2. Allowance court, to § 1. Ir shall be the duty of the county courts in each county, to 1815—(5) make such allowance to the clerks and sheriffs of their several counties, for their public services rendered either in the superior or county by county court, as to said county court shall seem reasonable and just: Provi- clerks, sherded, The sum allowed shall not exceed fifty dollars per annum to any if, and conclerk or sheriff; also to allow to all constables the sum of one dollar and fifty cents for each day they shall be necessarily attending the (a 1820-(2) stables. Sec. 3.] 1819-(6) Sec. 36. Clerks and superior court; which sums of money shall be paid out of the county treasury; and no clerk, sheriff, or constable, shall be entitled to receive any sum or sums of money out of the territorial treasury under any pretext whatever, for public services rendered after the passage of this act. § 2. The clerks of the circuit and county courts, and sheriffs of the different counties in this state, shall keep their offices at the several sheriff's shall court-houses or places of holding courts therein, or within one mile keep their of thereof. fices at the court-house. 1819-(14) Sec. 4. to recommend coroners, auctioneers, and § 3. The justices of the county courts, or a majority of them, shall recommend to the governor a fit person to act as coroner, and also a County court proper number to act as auctioneers and notaries public: [and it shall be the duty of the governor to commission the persons so recommended:1] and the officers so commissioned shall respectively hold their notaries pub- Offices for the term of three years from the dates of their commissions." § 4. The coroner, auctioneers, and notaries public respectively, Coroners, &c. shall, before they enter on the duties of their several offices, give bond to give bond. with sufficient security, to be approved of by the chairman of the county court in the sum of two thousand dollars, payable to the governor and his successors in office, for the faithful performance of their respective duties.3 lic. П. Sec. 6. County surveyor and treasurer. Ib. Sec. 7. surer to give bond. § 5. There shall be appointed in each county in this state, by the county courts thereof, a county surveyor and treasurer, who shall hold their offices for the term of three years. § 6. The county treasurer shall, before he enters on the duties of County trea- his office, enter into bond with good and sufficient security to the county court of the county for which he may be so appointed, in such sum as said court may direct, for the faithful accounting for and paying over the moneys which may come into his hands as county 1820-(26) Sec. 1. Repealing treasurer. § 7. So much of an act providing for the appointment of county officers passed on the seventeenth day of December, eighteen hundred foregoing act and nineteen, as directs that county treasurers, county surveyors, coroners, auctioneers, assessors and tax-collectors, shall be commissioned by the governor, is hereby repealed.a as to commission from the go vernor. a See § 3. Ib. Sec. 2. § 8. The certificate of the chief justice of the county court, that the treasurer, surveyor, coroner, auctioneer, assessor or tax-collector (as tice's certifi-the case may be) who may have been elected, has given bond and security as such, agreeably to law, shall be sufficient evidence of such officer's right and authority to exercise and perform the duties of the office to which he may have been appointed. cate suffi cient evi. dence. 1823-(33) Sec. 1. § 9. If any clerk, sheriff or other county officer, shall absent himself from the county he resides in, for the term of four months, the absence va office he may hold shall be vacated. Four months cates office of clerk, sheriff, &c. Ib. Sec. 2. Judge of § 10. Should any of the vacancies above contemplated occur, it is hereby made the duty of the judge of the county court, of the county in which such vacancy may occur, if within his knowledge, immediCounty court ately to certify the same under his hand and seal to the person, officer, shall certify vacancy, or tribunal appointed by law to fill the same; and if complaint shall at any time be made to him of any such vacancy, it is hereby made the 1 Repealed in part-See 1st section of the following act. By an act passed January 14, 1821, the appointment of county officers was transferred from the county court to the judge of that court, together with the "Commissioners of Revenue and Roads,"-See 1st section under that head. 3 For the amount of auctioneers' bonds in the several counties,-See "Auctioneers." |
