Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 2.djvu/608



such delinquency has taken place may be sold at public auction, and transferred by them to any person or persons, willing to purchase for such price as can be obtained; or in case any proprietor shall fail to pay any instalment which shall be duly assessed, such instalment or any part thereof that shall remain deficient or unpaid, may be recovered of the person or persons, so failing to pay, by warrant from a justice of the peace, if the amount shall not exceed twenty dollars, and if the sum so due shall exceed twenty dollars, the same may be recovered by motion, in the name of the said company, on ten days’ notice, in any court of record in the county or district where the debtor may be found; or by action at law in the usual course of judicial proceedings, at the option of the said president and directors; and in all such warrants, motions or actions, the certificate of the clerk or recording officer of the said company shall be conclusive evidence of the defendant’s being a member of the company, and prima facie evidence of the amount due on the share or shares held by such defendant.

. And be it further enacted, That the said president and directors shall meet at such times and places as shall be agreed upon for transacting their business; at which meetings any three members shall form a quorum, who, in the absence of the president, may choose a chairman, and shall keep minutes of all their transactions, fairly entered in a book; and a quorum being met, they shall have full power and authority to appoint a treasurer and all other officers necessary or convenient, and agree with and appoint all such surveyors, intendants, artists, or other agents as they shall judge necessary to carry on the intended works, and to fix their salaries, wages or compensation; to direct and order the times, manner and proportions, when and in which the stockholders shall pay monies due on their respective shares; to draw orders on the treasurer for all monies due from the said company, and generally to do and transact all such other matters, acts and things as by the by-laws, rules and regulations of said company, shall be required or permitted.

. And be it further enacted, That upon application of the said president and directors of the said company to the circuit court of the district of Columbia, or to the judges thereof out of court, the said court or the judges, or any two of the judges thereof out of court, shall appoint three commissioners not interested in any of the lands through which either of the said roads may be laid out, nor interested in the stock of the company hereby created, nor in the stock of any other turnpike company, who shall each receive from the said president, directors and company, two dollars for every day they shall respectively be actually necessarily employed in or about the affairs of the said company. And each of the said commissioners, before he proceeds to act as such, shall take and subscribe an oath or solemn affirmation, in the presence of a justice of the peace, “that he will well, faithfully and impartially, according to the best [of] his skill and judgment, and without unnecessary delay, execute and perform all the duties required of him as a commissioner, under the sixth section of the act of Congress, entituled “An act to incorporate a company for making certain turnpike roads in the district of Columbia,” which oaths or affirmations so subscribed and certified by the justice in whose presence they shall be severally taken and subscribed, shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the said circuit court, and enrolled among the land records of the county of Washington. And the said commissioners or any two of them, being qualified as aforesaid, shall, upon the request of the said president and directors cause to be surveyed, laid out, ascertained, described and marked, by certain metes and bounds, each of the aforesaid turnpike roads, described in the first section of this act, not less than sixty-six feet in breadth, in such routes, tracts, or courses for the same respectively as in the best of their