MASTER AND SERVANT.

ARTICLE II.

1851.

Servants to be compelled to ex ecute their con

§ 1. All white persons who shall come to this state under
a contract to serve another in any occupation, shall be com-
pelled to perform the contract specifically during the time tracts.
thereof, or so much of the same as shall not exceed seven
years. Infants under fourteen years, under contract enter.
ed into by their guardian or father, shall serve to the age
of twenty-one years, or such shorter time as the contract
shall fix.

§ 2. A servant bound to service shall be provided, by his
master, with a sufficiency of wholsome food, clothing, and
lodging, and medical attention, and at the end of his ser-
vice, the servant shall receive from the master a good full
new suit of clothes, suited to the season of the year.

§3. The master of such servant may assign the benefit of his contract to any person whom the servant may, in the presence of a judge of a court, consent to serve, the judge attesting such consent, which must be in writing. The right of such service shall, on the death of the master, pass to his personal representative or devisee.

§ 4. If such servant shall abscond, the necessary expenses paid by the master, in apprehending him and bringing him home, shall be repaid by further service, after such rates as the county court of the county shall direct.

§ 5. All contracts entered into between master and servant, during the period of service, shall be void, except such as are clearly beneficial to the servant.

§6. No negro, mulatto, or Indian, shall, at any time, hold or purchase any white servant; if so held or purchased, such servant shall be thenceforth free.

To be clothed.

How servant may be assigned

CHAPTER XXIV.

EVIDENCE.

Of what courts are to take ju-,

§ 1. Acts and resolutions of the general assembly, local or private, may be given in evidence, without being special- dicial notice. ly pleaded; and the appellate court shall take judicial notice of such as appear to have been relied on in the inferior

court.

§ 2. All courts, tribunals, officers, and persons, shall take notice of the official signature of any officer of this state or of the United States.

§ 3. Copies of the journal of either house of the general assembly, printed by the public printer, shall be received as evidence, for any purpose for which the original journal could be received.

Copies of jour. nals to be evidence.

Copies attest

§ 4. A copy of any record or paper, properly filed or ed by the keeper lodged in the clerk's office of any court, or of the secretary

of documents evidence.

1851:

founded on co

of the commonwealth, treasurer, register, or auditor, or of the surveyor of a county, attested by the person having the legal custody thereof, shall, upon proof of the execution of the original, be admitted as evidence in lieu thereof. § 5. A copy of any such writing as is embraced in the Suits may be preceding section may be filed in a suit thereon, and the defendant shall plead thereto, as if the original were filed. § 6. A copy from the mayor's office of any city, or from Copies of or the official books of any town, or religious society, of an ordinance or by-law for the rule of such city, town, or society, attested by the keeper thereof, shall be evidence for any purpose for which the original could be received.

pies.

dinances
towns, &c., evi.
dence.

ecution books.

§ 7. A copy from an entry in a clerk's or justice's execuEntries in ex- tion book, of the date of an execution that issued from such office, and to whom delivered, and when returnable, shall be evidence, in any proceeding against the officer, and his sureties. to whom it shall be entered as delivered.

§8. The certificate of the auditor of public accounts of Auditor's cer- the fact, and of the time of the return of any real estate, as delinquent, or of the sale thereof for taxes, shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated.

tificate evidence

Record books and transcribed.

may be re-bound

to be evidence.

9. Any county court may order any of the hooks or records in the clerk's office of such court, or in the office of the surveyor of the county, to be re-bound; or, when obliterated, torn, or in a ruinous condition, to be transcribed in new books; and shall make a reasonable allowance therefor, which shall be chargeable to the county. The circuit courts shall also have the same power over the books and records of their clerk's offices, and the expense thereof shall be paid out of the treasury.

$10. After any book, that shall be so transcribed, is exSuch transcript amined by the judges of the county or circuit court, and an order shall be made on the records of the court that the same is correct, the same faith and credit shall be given to the transcript that the book or record transcribed was entitled to.

How executions on lost records.

may be issued

Proceedings in case of bonds

destroyed.

§ 11. Where an original judgment or decree, or a delivery, replevin or forthcoming bond taken thereon, has been destroyed, obliterated or lost, upon satisfactory evidence, after reasonable notice to the opposite party, showing that it had existed, its contents, and that it had not been discharged, the court or the justice of the peace that rendered the judgment or decree, or in whose office such bond was filed, may, on the motion of the person, or his representative, in whose favor the judgment, decree or bond was rendered or taken, if it appear proper, order an execution to issue thereon.

§ 12. Where the order of the county court, appointing an administrator or guardian, or any person to any place, station or trust, or the bond executed in the county court by any such person, or any officer, shall be destroyed, oblitera

ted, or lost, the court shall, by the appropriate proceeding,
due notice thereof being given, supply the record, and com-
pel such person to execute a new bond, with good and suf-
ficient sureties; and, on his failure to do so, shall enter up
an order vacating his office or station.

§ 13. Where the records and papers of any court shall
be destroyed, defaced, or obliterated, such court shall ap-
point a commissioner, who shall have power and authori-
ty to fix on a convenient place to meet and sit, from time
to time, giving reasonable public notice thereof.

§ 14. The commissioner may, at the instance of any person, issue a summons and cause the attendance of witnesses, and take evidence, in writing, of such witnesses, relative to any record or paper so destroyed, defaced, or obliterated; which deposition shall be legal evidence, and shall be returned to the clerk of the court, and safely kept by such clerk. The commissioner shall not remain in office longer than one year.

§ 15. The commissioner shall be paid a reasonable compensation for his services, out of the county levy.

1851.

Lost records

§16. When any record book, containing judgments, decrees, orders, executions, or proceedings of a court, shall to be supplied. be lost, destroyed, or become illegible, and the same can be again entered correctly by means of any writing, such court may order its clerk to have the matter re-entered, and the same, when done and approved by the court, shall have the same effect as the original. But any party to be affected thereby, shall first have reasonable notice of such proceeding.

§ 17. When any record book of wills, deeds, and other instruments of writing, or any such instrument, shall be filed in any clerk's office, and shall be lost, destroyed, or become illegible, the clerk in whose office such book or paper was, upon the production to him of any original paper which was recorded in such book, or an attested copy from the record, or of any thing else in said book, or of any paper so filed, shall, on the request of the person interested, record the same anew, and shall certify on the record whether it was recorded from the original or a copy, and how the same was authenticated; and such record shall be prima facie evidence.

$18. The records and judicial proceedings of any court of the United States, or of any state, attested by the clerk thereof, with the seal of the court annexed, if there be a seal, and certified by the judge, chief justice, or presiding magistrate of the court, to be attested in due form,. shall have such faith and credit given to them, in this state, as they would have at the place whence the said records

come.

§ 19. All records and exemplifications of office books, kept in any public office of the United States, or of a sis

How records

of other states cated.

to be authenti

338

1851.

records of other

states.

ter state, not appertaining to a court, shall be evidence in
this state, if attested by the keeper of said records or
books, and the seal of his office, if there be a seal.

§ 20. Exemplifications from the books of the executive Attestation of department of the United States, or any papers filed therein, shall be evidence, when attested by the president or the chief of either of the departments; or from any state or territory, of like books or papers, when attested by the governor or the secretary of state thereof, under his official seal.

Foreign records how to be au thenticated.

shall be presum.

§ 21. A copy from the record books of any court, or of any register of births and marriages, or other instruments of writing, or a copy of any law or ordinance of any state, nation, province, colony, city, or town, in any place out of the United States, if the same shall have been registered in due form, according to the laws of such sovereignty, so certified and attested by the keeper of such record or register, and his attestation shall be certified under his official seal, by any consul, charge d'affaires, or minister of the United States, resident within the sovereignty where the record is kept, shall be evidence in this state.

§ 22. If any person who shall have resided in this state, Where a person go from and do not return to this state for seven successive years, he shall be presumed to be dead, in any case wherein his death shall come in question, unless proof be made that he was alive within that time.

ed dead.

§ 23. The unwritten, or common law, of any other of the United States may be proved as facts by the parol evidence of persons learned in that law. The printed books of cases adjudged in the courts of a sister state, may also be admitted as evidence of such law.

§ 24. The existence, and the tenor or effect, of all foreign laws, beyond the limits of the United States, may be proved by the parol evidence of persons learned in those laws. But if it appear that the law in question is contained in a written statute, the court may reject such parol evidence, unless it be accompanied by a copy of the stat

ute.

§ 25. The printed laws of the United States, or of any state or territory thereof, which have been, or shall be, received in the secretary's office of this state, and which shall have been printed under the authority of the United States, or such state or territory, or a copy thereof, when duly certified by the secretary of state for this commonwealth, shall be admitted and received as evidence of such laws.

1851.

CHAPTER XXV.

DESCENT AND DISTRIBUTION.

§ 1. When a person having right or title to any real estate of inheritance, shall die intestate as to such estate, it shall descend in parcenary to his kindred, male and female, in the following course:

1. To his children and their descendants; if none, then

2. To his father; if none, then

3. To his mother, brothers, and sisters, and their descendants; if none, then

4. One moiety of the estate shall go to the paternal, and the other to the maternal kindred, in the following

course:

5. First, to the grandfather; if none, then

6. To the grandmother, uncles, and aunts, and their descendants; if none, then

7. To the great grandfathers, or great grandfather, if there is but one; if none, then

8. To the great grandmothers, or great grandmother, if there is but one, and the brothers and sisters of the grandfathers and grandmothers, and their descendants; and so on in other cases without end, passing to the nearest lineal male ancestors, and, for the want of them, to the nearest lineal female ancestors in the same degree, and the descendants of such male and female ancestors.

9. If there is no such kindred to one of the parents, the whole shall go the kindred of the other. If there is neither paternal nor maternal kindred, the whole shall go to the husband or wife of the intestate; or, if the husband or wife is dead, to his or her kindred, as if he or she had survived the intestate and died entitled to the estate.

§ 2. When any or all of a class first entitled to inherit are dead, leaving descendants, such descendants shall take, per stirpes, or by stocks-that is to say, by representationthe share of their respective deceased parents.

§ 3. Collaterals of the half-blood shall inherit only half so much as those of the whole-blood; and among collaterals of the half-blood, the ascending kindred shall have double portions.

§ 4. In making title by descent, it shall be no bar to a party, that any ancestor, through whom he derives his descent from the intestate, is or has been an alien.

§ 5. Bastards shall be capable of inheriting and transmitting an inheritance, on the part of or to the mother; and bastards of the same mother shall be capable of inheriting and transmitting an inheritance, on the part of each other, as if such bastards were born in lawful wedlock of the same parents.

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