MARYLAND.

MARYLAND.

Constitution adopted, 1851. Square Miles, 13,959.-Population in 1850, 582,922.

Exemptions.

No real estate hereafter acquired by marriage shall be liable to execution during the life of the wife, for debts due from the husband.

Corn for necessary maintenance, bedding, gun, axe, pot. and laborers' necessary tools, and such like household implements, and ammunition, for subsistence, are also exempt.

Slaves of the wife (acquired either before or after marriage), and also her earnings not exceeding one thousand dollars, may be held for her own use, and exempted from liability for her husband's debts.

Mechanics' Lien.

MECHANICS' liens have been enacted for all the counties on the western shore of the Chesapeake bay, except St. Mary's, Montgomery, and Charles, and for Cecil county on the eastern shore, but they have been altered so often, and the several enactments are so conflicting, that it is impossible to give a reliable abstract of what is required to make them available.

Chattel Mortgages.

CHATTEL mortgages must be in writing, and acknowledged before a justice of the county where the mortgager resides, and the affidavit of the mortgagee or grantee sworn to before the judge, or justice or justices, must be endorsed thereon that the consideration as therein set forth is true and bona fide, and be recorded within twenty days in the records of the county. Where the amount conveyed is over two hundred dollars they must be stamped (fee $1.00) which must be receipted for on the deed.

Limitation of Actions.

ACTIONS of trespass quare clausum fregit, trespass, detinue, sur-trover, replevin for taking away goods or chattels, account, contract, debt, book-debt, or upon the case, other than such accounts as concern the trade or merchandise between merchants, their factors and servants. non-residents, debt for lending, contract without speciality, and debt for arrearages of rent, must be brought within three years.

Actions on the case for words, trespass of assault, battery, wounding, and imprisonment, must be brought within one year.

Actions on administration and testamentary bonds shall be commenced within twelve years after the framing such bonds.

No speciality can be pleadable after the principal debtor and creditor have both been dead twelve years, or the debt is above twelve years standing.

No person absenting himself from the state, or removing from county to county, after any debt contracted, so that his creditors can not with certainty find his person or effects. shall have any benefit of such limitations. No person absent at the time the cause of action accrues shall have any benefit of the law."

Infants, married women, persons non-compos-mentis, imprisoned, or beyond seas, have the same time after their disability is removed.

Collection of Debts.

ATTACHMENT.- Any person, having obtained a judgment, may take out an attachment against the lands, tenements, goods, chattels, and credits, of the defendant.

Any creditor, making affidavit that the debtor is indebted to him in a certain sum named, and producing the evidences thereof or accounts, and that he doth know or is

credibly informed, and verily believes, that the debtor is not a citizen of this state, and doth not reside therein, or that the debtor is actually run away or fled from justice, or removed from his place of abode, with intent to injure and defraud his creditors, an attachment may issue against the lands, tenements, goods, chattels, and credits, of the debtor. No person can be imprisoned for debt.

Deeds.

DEEDS may be acknowledged before any chief or associate judge of a district for lands within the district, or any two justices of the peace within their county.

The officer taking the acknowledgment must be satisfied of the identity of the person making it, and return a certificate thereof.

They may be acknowledged out of the state before any judge of the United States court, or any judge of a court of record, certified by the judge taking the acknowledg ment, under his hand; and the clerk of the court shall certify, under his hand and the seal of the court, that the person taking the acknowledgment is a judge of said court, duly commissioned and qualified, at the time of taking the acknowledgment.

In the case of a married women, her estate will not be conveyed, nor her dower barred, unless the officer taking the acknowledgment shall examine her, out of the pres ence and hearing of her husband, whether she doth execute and acknowledge the same freely and voluntarily, and without being induced to do so by fear or threats of or ill usage by her husband, or by fear of his displeasure; and unless the femme covert shall sign and seal such deed before such officer, out of the presence and hearing of her hus band, and certificate be made upon or annexed to the deed, under his or their hands, of such private examination, execution, and acknowledgment

Consuls and vice-consuls of the United States, duly appointed and recognised, may take acknowledgments of persons being in their consulates, and make certificate under their official seals.

There must be two witnesses to a deed, and a scrawl of the pen may be used as a seal. Deeds must be stamped.

State of Maryland,

Form of Acknowledgment.

Prince George's Co.} sct:

Be it remembered and it is hereby certified, that on this first day of May. in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-one, before the subscribers, two justices of the peace, of the state of Maryland, in and for Prince George's county aforesaid. personally appeared JOHN DOE and SUSAN DOE his wife, they being known to us for "they being satisfactorily proven by oral testimony under oath, received by us." as the case may be], to be the persons who are named and described as, and professing to be, the parties to the forego. ing deed or indenture, and do severally acknowledge the said indenture or instrument of writing, to be the their respective act and deed; the said SUSAN DOE signed and sealed said indenture before us, out of the presence and hearing of her husband: and the said SUSAN DOE being by us examined, out of the presence and hearing of her said husband, whether she doth execute and acknowledge the same. freely and voluntarily, and without being induced to do so by fear or threats of or ill-usage by her husband, or by fear of his displeasure," declareth and saith, that she doth. In testimony whereof, we hereunto subscribe our names, on the day and year aforesaid.

(Seals.)

JOHN JONES, Justice of the Peace.
JAMES SMITH, Justice of the Peace.

Rate of Interest.

THE legal rate is six per cent. In contracts, where more is taken, only the excess of interest over the legal rate is void.

Wills.

WILLS shall be in writing, and signed by the party making them, or by some other person in his presence and by his express directions, and shall be attested and subscribed, in the presence of the testator, by three or four credible witnesses.

A wife may make a will and give all her property on any part thereof, to her husband on any one other person, with the consent of the husband subscribed to said will. Provi ded the wife shall have been privately examined by witnesses to said will, apart and out of the presence and hearing of her husband &c. (in the same manner as provided in deeds), and provided also said will be made sixty days before death of the testatrix.