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same in the court of common pleas in the county where such offence shall be committed; and all justices are hereby empowered and required upon information given them, to seize and secure all such goods, wares and merchandise in their respective jurisdictions until legal trial.

SEC. 7. The town councils of the respective towns are hereby empowered and directed to fix, settle and adjust all wages and charges demanded by persons employed by them, to secure such vessel, or to air and cleanse such goods, or to attend upon and nurse such persons as aforesaid; and if any owner, freighter, mariner or passenger as aforesaid, shall refuse to pay such wages and charges so settled, adjusted and fixed, then the town treasurer of such town is hereby empowered and required to sue for and recover such wages and charges, if above twenty dollars, in the court of common pleas in the county where such charges shall be adjusted and settled; and if twenty dollars or under, then before any one justice, as in the case of other actions; and the court where such action is brought are hereby empowered to tax double costs for the plaintiff if he recover in his said action.

SEC. 8. For the better securing of the payment of what charges may arise on the nursing or attending upon any sailor or mariner belonging to such vessel as aforesaid, the master thereof is hereby required to stop payment of the wages due to such mariner, until certified from the town council that such charges are fully satisfied and paid, on penalty of paying the same so far as the amount of the wages so paid by him; and no court shall make up judgment for any such wages until satisfaction be made as aforesaid.

SEC. 9. When the small-pox or any other infectious or contagious distemper shall be prevalent in any place or town, all persons who shall come from any such infected place or town into this state by land, before the expiration of ten days after they shall have left such infected place or town, shall forfeit and pay as a fine a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars, nor less than ten dollars, to and for the use of the state and the town council in any town are hereby empowered to appoint proper persons at all ferries or places that to them may seem necessary, to examine on oath all persons suspected to transgress this law, and on reasonable cause of suspicion, to bring such offenders before some justice of the peace, that they may be dealt with according to law.

SEC. 10. The several boards of health in this state shall have power to order and enact such rules and regulations as they may deem expedient to prevent any person who shall

have come from any town or place out of this state in which any infectious or contagious disease shall be prevalent, and who shall have come on shore or entered this state by land in any other town in this state, from entering the town where such rules and regulations shall be made before the expiration of such time after such person shall have left such infected town or place, as by such rules and regulations may be prescribed; and shall affix such penalties for the breach of such rules and regulations as to them shall seem necessary, not exceeding the sum of one hundred dollars; which shall be recovered by action of the case to be brought in the name of the town treasurer of the town where the offence shall be committed, in any court of competent jurisdiction.

SEC. 11. All persons who keep public houses or boarders in their houses shall immediately acquaint the town council of the town wherein they dwell, when any person boarding or lodging in their house is taken sick of the small-pox or any other contagious or infectious distemper, or suspected to be so, on the penalty of forfeiting twenty dollars to and for the use of the town; to be recovered by the town treasurer before any justice of the peace of said town; and the town council so notified are hereby empowered and directed to make proper examination by some physician or other skilful person; and if it be the small-pox or other contagious or infectious distemper wherewith such sick person is visited, then immediately to set a proper guard to prevent the spreading of the contagion or infection, and to remove said person to any such place in said town as they shall think the most proper to prevent the spreading of the infection or contagion, or to continue the said guard as aforesaid, according as to them shall seem necessary; and likewise to confine all such persons as may be by them suspected to have taken the distemper, in some proper place, until they are recovered and cleansed from the said distemper, or have performed a suitable quarantine.

SEC. 12. When the small pox or other contagious or infectious distemper shall break out in any house, and the infected persons be confined to such house, the town shall be at the expense of guarding the same, and the owner at the charge of cleansing the same, to be settled by the town council, which charges of cleansing, upon refusal to pay the same, shall be recovered by the town treasurer.

SEC. 13. In case the small-pox or other contagious or infectious distemper shall break out in any house or family in any town, the town council thereof are fully empowered to

remove any inhabitants of said town visited with the smallpox or other contagious or infectious distemper, to the hospital in said town or other convenient place, in order to prevent the spreading of the infection; or otherwise at their discretion to place a guard round the dwelling-house of the infected person, as to them shall seem necessary.

SEC. 14. So long as the town council of any town shall endeavor to prevent the spreading of the small-pox, no persons whatsoever shall visit any person suspected to have the small-pox, or to go into the house where suspected persons are confined, without a license first had from the town council of the town or of the attending physician, on the penalty of forfeiting for every such offence twenty dollars; one half to and for the use of the town where such offence is committed, and the other half to him who shall inform and sue for the same, to be recovered before any court of competent jurisdiction; and such persons, on information of their offence shall be liable to be confined until they are suitably aired and cleansed or have performed suitable quarantine, at the discretion of the town council to whom complaint of the same shall be made.

SEC. 15. When any person shall be found to be infected with the small-pox, it shall be the duty of the householder in whose house such infected person may be or reside, within twenty-four hours thereafter, to place a white flag not less than three feet in length and two in breadth, with the words "small-pox," in large black letters on both sides thereof, and so suspended as to be easily read, at or near the front door or principal entrance to such house on the outside thereof, and to keep said flag up so long as there shall be any danger of taking the infection from said house.

SEC. 16. Any person who shall be convicted of wilfully and purposely spreading the small-pox or other contagious or infectious distemper within this state, shall be imprisoned for one year; and if any person shall die in consequence of spreading of the small-pox or other contagious or infectious distemper as aforesaid, the person who shall be convicted of wilfully and purposely spreading the same as aforesaid, shall be fined a sum not exceeding five thousand dollars and be imprisoned not more than five years nor less than one year : provided, nothing in this section shall be construed or understood to extend to such practitioners in physic as shall be allowed by the town council to inoculate for the small-pox, after the said town council have thought fit to desist from their endeavors to prevent the further spreading of the same.

SEC. 17. If any physician, surgeon, or any other person lawfully required by any town council to do any duty relating to the preventing of the spreading of the small-pox, or executing any part of this act, shall refuse or neglect to perform the same, the performance whereof being in his power, such physician, surgeon and other person, shall for every offence pay as a fine to and for the use of the state the sum of forty dollars.

SEC. 18. The town councils are hereby fully authorized and empowered to grant permission for inoculation for the small-pox in their respective towns, under such conditions and regulations as they shall direct.

SEC. 19. The town councils of the respective towns are hereby fully authorized to make and prescribe such orders and regulations as they may deem prudent and advisable for the preservation of the health of the inhabitants, by the prevention and removal of nuisances injurious thereto, or any other causes which in their judgment may originate or conduce to the spreading of any infectious or contagious disease; they are authorized to annex such pecuniary penalties for the breach of the orders and regulations which they shall make and prescribe relative to the object aforesaid as they shall adjudge adequate and necessary to effect the same; said penalties may be prosecuted for and recovered by action of debt before any court proper to try the same; one moiety whereof shall be for the use of the town wherein the offence shall be committed, and the other moiety for the use of him who shall sue for the same; and if such nuisances or other causes injurious to the health of the inhabitants as aforesaid shall not be removed by the person permitting or erecting the same, pursuant to any order or regulation of the town council for the town, it shall be the duty of the town council thereupon to adopt such measures as they shall deem effectual for the removal of such nuisances, or other causes injurious to the health of the inhabitants as aforesaid, at the proper charge and expense of the person erecting or permitting the same; and the sheriff, his deputies and the town sergeants and constables of the several towns, shall execute all such precepts and orders as shall be to them directed by said town councils for carrying this act into execution.

SEC. 20. In case any person shall hereafter be sick of any malignant, pestilential or infectious disease in any town, so as to endanger his life by being removed, or in case it shall appear that the disease be so spread that the atmosphere in the judgment of the town council has become so contamina

ted as to endanger the lives of those persons who reside or go into the neighborhood of the sick, then and in such case it shall be lawful for the town council of such town to cause all such persons within such neighborhood to be notified to remove and go therefrom within three days; and if after that time any person shall remain there, the said town council is hereby authorized to cause him to be forthwith removed at his own expense: provided, nevertheless, that the expense of the removal of the poor or such as are unable, in the judgment of the town council, to remove themselves, shall be paid out of the town treasury.

SEC. 21. The town councils in the several towns shall, in the month of June one thousand eight hundred and forty-five, or before that time, and once in five years thereafter, provide for the gratuitous vaccination of the inhabitants thereof.

SEC. 22. The said councils shall contract with and provide a suitable number of vaccinators to vaccinate as aforesaid; and order the treasurer of the several towns respectively to pay them such compensation as may be previously agreed upon; and the said vaccinators shall give due and reasonable notice of the time and place of meeting for the purpose of vaccination.

SEC. 23. The said vaccinators shall place in the several town clerks' offices a blank book, and shall severally record in a fair and legible hand therein, the name and age of every patient by them vaccinated as aforesaid: and also such other remarks and observations as they may deem useful, and as soon after fulfilling said contract as may be convenient.

SEC. 24. The said clerks shall safely keep said books for the accommodation of said vaccinators and others, without any compensation, and deliver the same over to their successors. But they may charge lawful fees for searching the same or for any copies.

SECTION

An Act for laying out Highways.

1. Proprietors shall lay out highways.
2. Town council may lay out highways-

manner of proceeding therein-parties
interested to be notified.

3. Town council may lay out driftways-proceedings therein.

4. Persons aggrieved may appeal to court of common pleas-proceedings on appeal-jury may affirm or reverse proceedings.

5. Damages allowed, to be paid by town

treasurer.

SECTION

6. Town council may lay out new high-
ways in lieu of any which they shall
judge useless.

7. Land used as public highway, &c., for
twenty years shall be deemed such.
8. Town council to give notice to all per-
sons interested, before proceeding un-
der foregoing section-appeal allowed.
9. If owner of land deeds it for a high-
way, it may be opened and repaired by
the town.

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