county court, where judgment may be given in favour of the plaintiff, and the plaintiff shall appeal to the circuit court, with like effect, a similar judgment shall be rendered by the circuit court.

PRACTICE.-If in a suit in any court of equity, an affidavit shall be made that the residence of such defendant cannot be discovered, the court shall order such defendant to appear at a certain day, which order shall, within sixty days, be inserted in some gazette published in this state; and if the defendant do not appear within the time specified, then the plaintiff's bill shall be taken pro confesso.

In all cases where a bill may be necessary to be filed to divest title to land, and the party or parties against whom said bill is contem. plated to be filed, reside beyond the limits of this state, said bill may be filed in the district or county in which the land lies; and in all cases where such bills have been filed, and before the rendering of the decree, the defendant or defendants were dead, such decree shall not be void, but the heirs of such party may, at any time within five years from said decree, apply and have themselves made parties, and the cause shall be then proceeded in, in the same manner as if said heirs had been originally made parties.

The judges of circuit courts and chancellors are authorized to appoint receivers in vacation.

Where lands or interests in lands are specifically directed to be sold by order of the court of chancery, upon the application of the complainant, the court is empowered to order the property to be sold on a credit of not more than two years nor less than six months; and when the sale is made by the master or commis. sioner, and confirmed by the court,

no right of redemption or repurchase shall exist in the debtor or other creditors, but the title of the purcha. ser shall be absolute.

When any defendant to any bill filed in chancery shall be a nonresident of this state, the complainant may, after filing his bill, have publication against such defendant.

BANKS.-Acts were passed to establish the Planters' Bank of Tennessee, at Nashville, with branches; its capital is to be $2,000,000; and the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank of Memphis, with a capital of $600,000.

A resolution was passed, instructing and requesting the senators and representatives of the state in congress respectively, to vote against a re-charter of the Bank of the United States.

EXECUTION, PROPERTY EXEMPT FROM.-Where any person shall die, leaving a wife, or a wife and children, or absconds and leaves his family, the property now exempt, or which may hereafter be exempt from execution or sale, shall be set apart for the use of the widow or wife.

Sheriffs, &c. are not to levy executions on any crop growing or attached to the freehold, before the 15th day of November next after such crop is matured.

In addition to the property heretofore exempt from execution, there shall also be exempt in like manner, in the hands of a person engaged in agriculture, one plough, one hoe, one set of gears for ploughing, one iron wedge, and one farm horse, mule, or yoke of oxen. There shall also be exempt, one set of mechanical tools, such as is usually employed by and necessary for one workman, at any particular trade, if the defendant in execution shall usually follow such trade as an employment.

All property exempted from execution in the hands of a debtor, shall be exempt in the hands of his widow, executor, administrator or heirs ; such property shall also be exempt from seizure by attachment. The benefits of this act shall extend only to the heads of families.

NEGROES, &C.-No stage contractor, or driver, or owner, or captain of any steam-boat or other water craft, shall receive and carry from any place in this state, to any other place, any coloured person, unless such person shall produce the certificate of the clerk of the court of the county from which the stage-coach, steam-boat, &c. is about to depart, that such coloured person is free, or generally reputed to be so; but if said coloured person is a slave, a verbal or written authority from the owner shall be sufficient; penalty, not less than $200 nor more than $500, and imprisonment not less than three nor more than six months, and liable to an action of trover at the suit of the owner.

Where any slave shall have concealed himself in any steam-boat, stage coach, &c. without the know, ledge or consent of the owner, captain, &c. and the same shall not have been discovered before the departure of the steam-boat, &c.; if the owner, captain, &c. shall imprison such slave in the nearest county jail in the direction they are going at the time of such discovery, and make publicity to the same, in some convenient newspaper, he shall not be subject to the penalties provided by the preceding act.

If any coloured person shall make an assault upon any white woman, with intent to commit a rape, he shall suffer death by hanging.

An act was passed to explain the act concerning free persons of colour,

and for other purposes, passed December 16, 1831.

An act was passed to aid the society for the colonization of the free black population of Tennessee, on the coast of Africa, authorizing the payment of ten dollars to such society for every free black person that shall be removed from the state to the coast of Africa; but the sums so paid are not to exceed $500 in any one year.

HORSE-RACING.-Every person betting on, or running, or aiding in running any horse along any public road, shall be liable to be indicted, as unlawful gambling.

CHEROKEE INDIANS.-An act was passed to extend the laws and jurisdiction of the state to the southern limits thereof, over that tract of country now in the occupancy of the Cherokees. No tax is to be levied upon any native Cherokees residing in the said tract, nor are they to be required to work on roads, or to perform militia duty; they are to be secured in the unmolested enjoyment of their improvements and all personal property, according to their customs and usages, and may enforce their rights before the courts of the state; and nothing in this act shall interfere with or invalidate their marriage customs. Such of the native Cherokees, as have had or shall have the rights of citizenship extended them, shall be subject to the same duties, and liable to the same public dues, as other citizens of the state. The courts of the state are not to take jurisdiction of any criminal offence committed in such territory by Cherokees resident therein, except murder, rape and larceny; and the usages and customs of the Cherokees in all other respects are allowed to them, within the territory,

to

until such time as it may be deemed necessary and proper further to abridge or abrogate them; saving always from the benefits and privileges of this exception, such of the native Cherokee Indians as have had or may have the rights of citizenship extended to them. This act is not to authorize any white man to settle within such territory; and nothing in this act contained shall be construed to invalidate any law or treaty of the United States, made in pursuance of the constitution thereof; nor shall it be construed to authorize any entry, or appropriation, or occupancy of any of the lands in such territory, or to extend our laws for the entry of vacant and unappropriated lands over any part thereof.

RAIL-ROADS.-An act was passed to incorporate the Western Rail-road Company, with a capital of $500,000, for the construction of a rail-road from Jackson to the Mississippi river. The Pulaski and Florence Rail-road Company was incorporated, with a capital of $150,000, for the purpose of constructing a rail-road from Pulaski, to meet a rail-road which it is contemplated will be constructed from Florence in Alabama, to said line.

LIEN.-When any debt shall be contracted by the master, or owner, by and on account of any work done, or materials or articles furnish-" ed for, or towards the building, repairing, fitting, furnishing or equip. ping steam or keel boat, or for wages due to the hands of said steam or keel boat, such debt shall be a lien upon such steam or keel boat, her tackle and furniture, pro. vided that suit, &c. be commenced within three months from the time said work is finished.

INSOLVENT ESTATES.-An act was passed to regulate and simplify the

distribution and division of the estates of persons dying insolvent.

FIRE HUNTING.-If any person shall be guilty of fire hunting in the night time, and thereby kill or injure any stock of any kind, the person so offending shall be guilty of malicious mischief, and tried and punished as other persons guilty of malicious mischief.

INSURANCE COMPANY-The Tennessee Marine and Fire Insurance Company was incorporated, with a capital of $300,000.

POISONING OF FISH.-It shall not be lawful for any person to destroy the fish in any of the waters of this state, by putting any poisonous substance in said waters; offenders are made liable to a fine of ten dollars.

CONVENTION.-An act was passed to provide for the calling of a convention to revise the state constitution.

CLERKS.-If any clerk of a county court shall fail or refuse to furnish the tax list, at the time and in the manner prescribed by law, he shall be liable to indictment, and, upon conviction, he may be removed from office.

RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLIES.-If any person shall prepare any barbacue, or other eatables for sale, or shall sell or offer for sale fruits or bread stuff, confectionaries, fermented liquors, or any other articles of whatever sort, kind or description, within one mile of any worshiping assembly, so as to interrupt said worshiping assembly, they shall be dealt with as rioters at common law, and shall be fined in a sum not less than five dollars; provided that nothing herein contained shall prevent any person authorized by law from selling the articles above mentioned, at the usual places of selling the same. If any person shall maliciously throw down any fence or enclosure of any camp ground, he shall, on convic

ing of a new bank, based on a substantial capital, in which the state funds shall be re-invested.

LOUISVILLE CANAL.-The Louisville and Portland canal is about two miles in length, intended for steam-boats of the largest class, and to overcome a fall of twentyfour feet in the Ohio river, occasioned by an irregular bed of lime stone rock, through which the canal is cut in its whole length, a part to the depth of 12 feet, averaging about 8 feet. The depth of the canal is 42 feet; it is 50 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 feet wide at the top; the width at the water line varies according to the height of water, which varies from 4 to 40 fect. There are one guard and three lift locks all combined; the line of lock wall is upwards of 900 feet; the guard-lock is 10 feet in the clear in length, 42 feet high, and 50 feet wide; the lift locks are each 185 feet long, clear measure, 50 feet wide and 20 feet high, all based on solid rock.

At extreme low water, full 4 feet can be found in the canal, at which time 10 inches only are on the falls, and 18 inches on the bars, above and below Louisville.

LEGISLATION.-At the session of the forty-first general assembly of this state, in 1832-3, two hundred and forty-five acts and eleven resolutions were passed.

LUNATIC ASYLUM.-The committee of any person regularly found to be a lunatic, shall have the privilege of having such lunatic kept in the lunatic asylum, upon the same terms the state is charged. When it shall appear to the satisfaction of the circuit court, that any idiot or lunatic permitted to go at large, and is dangerous to the people of the neighbourhood, the court is re. quired to order said idiot or lunatic to the lunatic asylum; if

any such idiot or lunatic have an estate, the proceeds of which are sufficient to maintain him, it is to be appropriated to that purpose. Where, in the opinion of the physician and trustees of the asylum, any person confined in the asylum ought to perform moderate and necessary labour, it shall be lawful for the trustees and the manager to assign to any such person labour or work to perform; and the said trustees are further authorized to sell or exchange the product of all such labour, or appropriate it for the use of the asylum, and comfort of the subjects of confinement.

BAIL.-It shall not be lawful to require any person to enter into a recognizance or to give surety to keep the peace, or to be of good behaviour for a longer period than one year, at any one time.

In all applications to bind over to keep the peace, or to be of a good behaviour, the court or justice is to hear testimony on the part of the defendant or defendants, if offer. ed, proving or tending to prove, that the application ought not to be sustained, and the applicant may offer countervailing testimony; and the court or justice shall thereupon decide whether the defendant or defendants shall be so bound over.

BANK.-An act was passed to establish the Bank of Louisville, with a capital stock of $2,000,000; the third section of the act provides, that if the bank shall at any time owe an amount exceeding twice the amount of capital stock actually paid in, exclusive of sums due on deposite, the president and directors shall be liable for any debts of the bank in their private capacities, provided the property of the bank be inadequate to satisfy the excess.

COAL COMPANY.--The Louisville