Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 2.djvu/613



sufficient to reimburse the capital which shall be expended in the purchase of such land and making said roads, and twelve per cent. interest per annum thereon, to be ascertained by the circuit court of the United States, in and for the district of Columbia, the same shall become free roads, and tolls shall be no longer collected thereon; and said company shall annually make returns to said circuit court of the amount of the tolls collected, and of their necessary expenses, so as to enable said circuit court to determine when said tolls shall cease.

. And be it further enacted, That if any person or persons, riding in or driving any carriage of any kind, or leading, riding, or driving any horses, sheep, hogs, or any kind of cattle whatever, on said road, shall pass through any private gate, bars or fence, or over any private way or passage, or pass through any toll gate under any pretended privilege or exemption, to which he or she, or they may not be entitled, or do any act or thing with intent to lessen or evade the tolls for passing through the gates established under this act, such person or persons, for every such offence, shall forfeit to the said president and directors, not less than three, nor more than ten dollars, to be recovered before any justice of the peace, with costs, in the same manner that small debts are recoverable: Provided, that it shall not be lawful for the company to ask, demand or receive from or for persons living on or adjacent to the said roads, who may have occasion to pass by said road upon the ordinary business relating to their farms, so far as the limits of the same may extend on the roads respectively, who shall not have any other convenient road or way, by which they may pass, from one part to another part thereof, any toll for passing on, or by either of the said turnpikes.

, April 25, 1810.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall and may be lawful to and for the president and directors of the Washington and Alexandria turnpike company, in all cases where stone, gravel, earth or sand, may be necessary for making or repairing the Washington and Alexandria turnpike road, and the president and directors of the Washington and Alexandria turnpike company cannot agree for the same with the owners thereof, it shall and may be lawful for any one of the judges of the circuit court of the district of Columbia, upon application by the said president and directors, or any person authorized by them, by warrant under his hand and seal, to command the marshal of the said district to summon a jury of thirteen disinterested persons, qualified to serve as petit jurors in the said circuit court, to meet at the place where such materials may be, on some day not more than ten after the date of such warrant, and to give the other party five days’ notice of the time and place, if such party be found within the district of Columbia, and if any of the said jurors should fail to attend at the said time and place, the marshal may immediately summon talesmen in the place of those who are absent, and shall administer an oath to the said jurors or talesmen as the case may be, justly and impartially to value the said materials, and to assess the damage which the owner thereof shall sustain by the taking thereof by the said president and directors, which valuation and assessment of damages made by the said jurors or a majority of them, shall be signed by the said marshal and the jurors, or so many of them, as shall agree thereto, and be returned to the clerk of the said court for the county of Alexandria, to be by him recorded, and shall be conclusive between the parties; and a copy thereof shall be delivered to each of the