tained under the direction of the court, and adjudged against any party or parties in the cause, or divide among them, as the court may in its discretion determine to be equitable; and so, also, where new pleadings are ordered.

6. Any person desirous of proving the contents of any paper filed in a clerk's or recorder's office, or any thing which was of record in any book containing judgments, decrees, orders or proceedings of a court, or proceedings at rules, or the record of wills, deeds or other papers, may, if such paper or book be lost within the meaning of this act, file with a commissioner holding his office under the appointment of the circuit court for the county where such paper or book was filed or kept, a petition stating the nature of the paper or record the contents of which he desires to prove, and what persons may be effected by such proof. Whereupon the commissioner shall appoint a time and place for proceeding on such petition, and cause a reasonable notice thereof to be given to the parties interested. If any person who may be affected by the proof be an infant, married woman or insane, the commissioner shall appoint a guardian ad litem to attend to the case on his or her behalf.

7. The commissioner shall, at the instance of any party interested, take in writing the evidence of the witnesses. He may adjourn from time to time, and shall keep a journal of his proceedings. He shall return the said journal, with all the evidence taken by or filed with him, to the clerk's or recorder's office in which the book or paper was that is mentioned in the petition, there to remain as evidence of rights against the parties so notified, and those claiming under them, when better evidence cannot be had.

8. Chapter one hundred and eighty of the Code of Virginia, second edition, and the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth sections of chapter one hundred and seventy-six of the said Code, are hereby repealed.

9. This act shall be in force from its passage.

CHAP. 38.-An ACT for Districting the State for Representatives in the Congress of the United States.

Passed September 10, 1863..

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

1. The number of members to which this state is entitled in the House of Representatives of the United States shall be apportioned amongst the several counties of the State, arranged into three districts, numbered as follows, that is to say:

Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Tyler, Pleasants, Doddridge, Harrison, Ritchie, Wood, Wirt, Gilmer, Calhoun, and Lewis, shall form the first district;

And the counties of Taylor, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Tucker, Barbour, Upshur, Webster, Pocahontas, Randolph, Pendleton, Har

dy, Hampshire, Berkeley, and Morgaa, shall form the second congressional district;

And the counties of Kanawha, Jackson, Mason, Putnam, Cabell, Clay, Wayne, Logan, Boone, Braxton, Nicholas, Roane, McDowell, Wyoming, Raleigh, Fayette, Mercer, Monroe, and Greenbrier, shall form the third congressional district.

2. This act shall be in force from its passage.

CHAP. 39.-An ACT providing for the construction of a Road in the county of Hardy.

Passed September 10, 1863.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia :

1. Abijah Dolly, Alfred Zoakum, and William Lantz are hereby appointed commissioners to open a wagon road, with a grade not exceeding five degrees of elevation from Greenland Gap Turnpike to North Fork Turnpike, in the county of Hardy. The sum of one thousand dollars as hereby appropriated for the construction of said road out of the treasury of the State, to be paid upon the order of the said commicsioners, in the same manner as other appropriations from the treasury are paid.

2. Said commissioners shall not draw any money out of said appropriation until the part of the work is completed for which such draft may be drawn, and then only upon their written statement on oath that work equal to the amount drawn is performed and the money due for the same.

3. The said commissioners shall superintend the construction of said road without compensation, and may receive gratuitous labor from the citizens, to aid in the construction of said road. The commissioners shall cause the road to be well made, and with as little expense as practicable, so that loaded wagons may conveniently pass the same.

4. This act shall be in force from the passage thereof.

CHAP. 40.-An ACT making appropriations for the Contingent Expenses of the Public Offices.

Passed September 11, 1863.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

1. There is hereby appropriated for the contingent expenses of the offices of the auditor, three hundred dollars; treasurer, two hundred dollars; secretary of the state, two hundred dollars; and adjutant general, three hundred dollars.

2. This act shall be in force from its passage.

CHAP. 41. An ACT to authorize certain officers to use their private seals until provided with official seals.

Passed September 12, 1863.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

1. It shall be lawful for every recorder, clerk of the circuit court, clerk of the board of supervisors and clerk of a township, in the several counties of the state, until provided with an official seal, to use his private seal, (or scroll by way of seal,) in all cases where the use of a seal is required by law or usage; and wherever the same is so used, his attestation of the instrument, record or copy to which it is annexed shall set forth the fact that he is not provided with an official seal; in which case, and in every case in which his private seal, (or scroll by way of seal,) or the seal of the late county court of his county, has been so used since the nineteenth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, every such instrument, record or copy shall have the same force and effect as if an official seal had been used.' 2. This act shall be in force from its passage.

CHAP. 42.-An ACT to prescribe when Acts of the Legislature shall take effect.

Passed September 14, 1863.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

1. Every act of the Legislature hereafter passed shall take effect and be in force from its passage, unless it be otherwise expressly provided in the act itself, or be manifestly inconsistent with the intention of the legislature; and the day when any act is passed shall be noted in the enrollment and printed copies thereof, next after its title.

2. The third section of chapter sixteen of the Code of Virginia, second edition, is hereby repealed.

5. This act shall be in force from its passage.

CHAP. 43.-An ACT creating a Board of Public Works, and vesting it with rights, powers and duties.

Passed September 24, 1863.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

1. The governor, auditor and treasurer shall be a corporation under the style of the "Board of Public Works," and be vested with all the rights, powers and duties vested in the board of public works of the commonwealth of Virginia, on the nineteenth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-three.

2. The secretary of the state shall be secretary of the board. He shall keep a record of the official acts of the board, and shall discharge such other duties as may be prescribed by the board. The proceedings of each day shall be signed by the person presiding on

that day. The said proceedings shall be, at all times, open to in spection.

3. The act passed August 5, 1863, entitled "an act conferring on the governor, auditor, treasurer, and secretary of the state the powers and duties of the board of public works," and the tenth section of chapter sixty-six of the Code of Virginia, second edition, are hereby repealed

CHAP. 44.-An ACT to provide for the Election to be held on the fourth Thursday of October, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-three.

Passed September 24, 1863.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:

1. An election shall be held on the fourth Thursday of October, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-three, for the election of delegates to the legislature for the several counties and delegate districts, One or more assessors for every county; a senator for each senatorial district; and a representative in the Congress of the United States for each congressional district; and to fill any vacancies in state or county Offices which may have theretofore occurred.

2. If, owing to the occupation of any county by persons in rebellion or any other cause, the said election is not held in any county on the day herein appointed, the same shall be held for county officers and delegates to the legislature, on such day as may be designated by the superintendents appointed by this act to hold the election for their said county, who shall cause notice to be given of the time of holding such election, by notices posted at three public places within such county, at least ten days before the day so designated.

3. The said election shall be held at the several places of voting established in each county by the laws in force on the nineteenth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, notwithstanding any act passed at the present session abolishing the former election precincts and the places for holding elections therein.

4. The persons named in the schedule hereto annexed, being three for each county, shall act as superintendents of the said election for their respective counties. Any two of the superintendents for a county may act, and they may fill vacancies in their own body; but if there be no superintendents for any county or not more than one willing to act, the sheriff of such county shall appoint the number necessary to fill the vacancies.

5. The superintendents for the county shall, for every place of yoting therein, appoint three commissioners, any two of whom may act, and a conductor, to superintend and conduct the election at the place for which they are appointed, and shall procure and furnish to them proper ballot-boxes, poll books and forms.

6. If at the time the polls should be opened, there be, at any place F

of voting, but one commissioner willing to act, he shall associate with himself as a commissioner some freeholder of the county then present; and if there be no commissioner willing to act, any two freeholders of the county may act as commissioners. If there be no conductor present willing to act, the commissioners may appoint one. The commissioners may appoint the necessary clerks or writers.

7. Every superintendent, commissioner, conductor, and clerk, before entering on the discharge of his duties, shall make oath that he will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of this State, and that in the election about to be held, he will faithfully and impartilly discharge the duties of his office according to law. The commissioners may administer the oath to each other and any one of them may administer it to the conductor and clerks."

8. The polls shall not be opened before sunrise and shall be closed at sunset.

9. The commissioners shall admit all persons to vote who are entitled to vote under the first section of the third article of the constitution; but each person present and offering to vote, shall, if required by any voter, produce to the commissioner the certificate of an officer authorized to administer oaths, that he has taken and subscribed before him the oath to support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of West Virginia. And any person so entitled, who is necessarily absent from the county on the day of the election, by reason of his duties in the service of the United States or of this state, may within twenty-five days preceding the day of the election, enclose his ballot in an envelope, which he shall seal up, and write his signature in his own proper hand on the outside of the said envelope, and address the same to the superintendents of the election for the county of which he is a resident, either by their names or official designation, and transmit the same to them or one of them by mail or otherwise. And if such envelope or enclosure be received by the said superintendents or any one of them, on or before the day of the election, it shall be produced at the polls held at the court house of the county, and delivered unopened to the commissioners acting at the said court house, if a poll be held at the court house, or if not so held, then at any precinct holding the same, who, if satisfied that the signature on the outside of the envelope is genuine, and that the person whose signature is so endorsed thereon would be, if present, entitled to vote at the said polls, shall open the envelope, and if the ballot found therein be single, shall deposit the same without unfolding or unrolling it so as to disclose its contents, in the ballot-box in like manner as if the person so transmitting his vote, were personally present and offering to vote. And if such ballot be so received and deposited in the box, the clerks shall record the name of the voter on the poll book adding thereto the word "absent." The envelopes in such cases shall be preserved by the commissioners, and be filed by them as soon as possible after the close of the election, in the office of the recorder of the county for public inspection.