Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/490

Rh corporal punishment on all of eighteen years of age, or more, who had not left the territory within two years after the passage of the act. But finding this law to conflict with the spirit of free institutions in too great a degree, it was amended at the December session by repealing the sections making whipping the punishment for remaining in the country, and susbtitutingsubstituting [sic] one requiring the arrest of such contumacious negroes, their trial before a justice of the peace, and if convicted, the hiring of the offenders to the person who should give bond to remove them out of the territory within the shortest space of time, paying himself out of their services. The law was in any case inoperative for two years, during which time such changes had occurred in the territory as to do away with the motive for enforcing it.

At the December session an act was passed for erecting a jail at Oregon City with money from the estate of Ewing Young; the executive committee being required to appoint an administrator to close up the business of the estate, and collect debts due to it; and the government being pledged to pay all money so received to the lawful heirs of Young whenever