quested to cause the principal engineer to ascertain by surveys, the most eligible route for a railroad from Lynchburg to New River, and for a turnpike road from the last point, by Wythe court-house and Abingdon, to the Tennessee line, and the probable cost of each; or if other public duties engage the attention of the principal engineer, that they cause said surveys and estimates to be made by the assistant engineer authorized to be employed for the survey of the most eligible route of connecting the eastern and western waters.' [Besides these surveys, provision is also made for examinations and surveys for various public roads.]

LOUISIANA.

Acts passed at the session at Donaldsonville commencing Jan. 4th 1830. The acts are not distinguished by chapters or numbers. Guardians.-Any parent, being the natural tutor of his or her minor children, may, by giving a special mortgage, (approved of at a family meeting called for the purpose) of immoveable property, to secure the property of such children, discharge all his or her other property acquired, or to be acquired, from any mortgage or lien whatever, arising from said tutorship.

Such parent must produce at such family meeting, a certificate from the register of mortgages specifying the mortgages, if any, existing on the property offered by him or her to be so specially mortgaged. s. 4.

Insolvent Debtors to the State.—Any person sentenced to imprisonment for a given time, and to pay a fine and costs, may, after having served out the time for which he was sentenced to imprisonment, take the benefit of the insolvent laws for the fine and costs, in the same manner as common debtors.

Hawkers and Pedlers.-Any individual trading as a pedler or hawker without license, shall be liable to a fine of not less than fifty, nor more than one hundred dollars.

Teaching Slaves, or exciting them to discontent.-Any person writing, printing, publishing, or distributing, any thing having a tendency to produce discontent among the free colored population, or insubordination among the slaves, shall, on conviction thereof, be punished with imprisonment at hard labor for life, or with death, at the discretion of the court. s. 1.

Any person using language in any public discourse from the bar, bench, stage, or pulpit, or any other place whatsover, or in any private discourse or conversation, or making use of any signs or actions having such tendency as aforesaid, or being knowingly instrumental in bringing into the state any paper, book, or pamphlet,

having like tendency, shall, on conviction thereof, be punished with imprisonment for not less than three, nor more than twenty-one years, or with death, at the discretion of the court. s. 2.

Any person teaching, or permitting, or causing to be taught, any slave in the state, to read or to write, shall, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned for not less than one, nor more than twelve months. s. 3.

Internal Improvement.-Railroads. The Ponchartrain railroad company is incorporated for the purpose of constructing a railroad from the city of New Orleans to Lake Ponchartrain, with exclusive privileges for the term of twenty-five years.

Canals.-The Bellanger Canal Company was incorporated. The legislature of this state at their session begun in Donaldsonville on the third of January, A. D. 1831, and adjourned to, and continued in, New Orleans, passed fifty-five acts.

No. 1.-Seat of Government changed from Donaldsonville to New Orleans after the eighth of January, A. D. 1831.

No. 5.-Mississippi River. The delegation of the state in Congress were instructed to endeavor to procure from the General Government an appropriation for the purpose of deepening the mouth of the Mississippi, as being an object of importance to the commerce of the United States.

No. 15.-Navy Yard or Depot. The delegation in Congress is instructed to urge and promote the establishment, by the General Government, of a navy yard or depot, on some of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and to recommend Pensacola as a suitable site for the same. s. 1.

No. 15.-Canal between the Bay of Pensacola and Mobile. The delegation in Congress is also instructed to urge upon the General Government the expediency and necessity of cutting a canal, fit for steam navigation, to unite the waters of the bay of Pensacola and Mobile, as affording the means of assistance for defence to New Orleans in case of invasion. s. 2.

No. 16.-College of Jefferson is incorporated with liberty to the subscribers to the institution to locate it in any part of the state. No. 18. The 'New Orleans Canal and Banking Company,' incorporated with a capital of four millions of dollars, is authorized to construct a canal from the city of New Orleans to the Lake Pontchartrain. The charter is to continue until the year 1870. s. 4. The canal is to be commenced within one year after the choice of directors, and finished within three years from the time of its being commenced, or the charter is to be forfeited. It is to

be sixty feet wide at the surface of the water, and of sufficient depth to admit of the passage of vessels drawing six feet of water. s. 8. The toll on vessels is not to exceed 37 cents per ton measurement. s. 10. In all hypothecary contracts entered into by any individual with the company 'it shall be lawful for the wife of such individual to bind herself jointly and in solido with him,' and her separate property is to be bound by such contract. s. 23. The canal is to revert to the state at the expiration of thirtyfive years from the passage of the act; and in consideration of this reservation, the capital of the bank is to be exempt from tax during that time.

No. 17.-The Bank of New Orleans is incorporated with a capital of $2,000,000, with a branch at Natchitoches, having a capital of $200,000, and another at East Baton Rouge, with a like capital. And said corporation shall, on pain of the forfeiture of its charter, allow to all persons and corporations keeping an account with said bank, upon the balance of deposits, from day to day or time to time, an interest of one cent per day on $100.' s. 6. The bills are not to be of a denomination less than five dollars. s. 13. The legislature may appoint a committee to examine the state of the bank. s. 16. The bank is to pay to the state a tax of $3000 a year. s. 19.

No. 19.-The College of Franklin is incorporated, of which the governor of the state and judges of the supreme court are made trustees ex officio.

No. 44.-Education. The legislature appropriate the sum of fifteen thousand dollars annually, for the period of four years, for the benefit of the Colleges of Louisiana, Jefferson and Franklin, to be equally divided between them.

The College of Louisiana is required to educate and board gratis, fifteen students, to be sent by the Governor of the State. Not more than one to be sent from the same senatorial district. s. 2.

No. 37.--Legitimation. So much of the article 217 of the civil code, as abolishes all other modes of legitimation except that by marriage, is repealed, and fathers or mothers may legitimate their natural children by acts, declaratory of their intention, made before a notary and two witnesses-provided, that this is not to be construed to enable a white parent to legitimate a colored child, nor to prevent a free person of color from legitimating his colored child– and provided the natural children are the issue of parents, who might, at the time of conception, have contracted marriage -and provided, that there do not exist, on the parent legitimating his natural offspring, ascendants, or legitimate descendants.

ren

No. 55.-Railroad. The West Feliciana Railroad Company is incorporated for the purpose of constructing a railroad from the river Mississippi, near St. Francisville, to the boundary line dividing the state of Louisiana from the state of Mississippi, running on the route deemed most practicable, towards Woodville, in the state of Mississippi.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

At the session in December, 1829, the General Assembly of South Carolina passed twenty-eight acts public and private, those of both descriptions being published indiscriminately. Numerous reports of committees and resolutions are also published with the statutes, the most important of which we shall notice.

Ch. 1.-Taxes. On lands generally, and lots and houses in towns, the tax is thirty cents on the value of $100; slaves, sixty cents cach; free negroes, mulattoes, and mustizoes, between fifteen and fifty years of age, (excepting such as are incapable of gaining a livelihood) $2; on factorage, employment, faculties, and professions, whether in the profession of the law, the profits be derived from costs of suit, fees, or other sources of professional income, and on the amount of commissions received by venduemasters and commission merchants,' (clergymen, schoolmasters, schoolmistresses, and mechanics, excepted) sixty cents on $100. s. 1. Persons residing out of the state to be taxed in a double proportion for any property held by them in the state. s. 2. On public shows and exhibitions in any place not within a borough, town, or city, $5 per day, to be paid to the clerks of the courts, and in case of non-payment the clerk of the court, or any justice of the peace, is authorized to issue execution for double the amount of the tax against the body or goods of the person liable to pay it ;' stock in trade, excepting articles of domestic growth or production, sixty cents on $100; license to sell lottery tickets of lotteries not authorized by the laws of the state, $100; on the Phoenix Insurance Company, $4,000; ten per cent. on the amount of premiums of insurance by policies in which companies or individuals out of the state are underwriters. s. 3. Transient persons to pay their tax within five days after the first of January. s. 13.

Ch. 2.-Salaries. Governor, $3,500; judges of the court of appeals, $3,500 each; one judge of the common pleas, $2,572, the others $2,500 each; attorney-general, $1,200; controllergeneral, $1,500; circuit solicitors, $700; clerks of the two houses of assembly, $1,230 each; messengers, door-keepers of the assembly, $250 each; president of South Carolina College,

$3,000; four professors, $2,000 each; president's assistant, and two tutors, $1,000 each. s. 1.

Ch. 2.-Free Schools. $37,000 is appropriated for this object. s. 2.

Ch. 2.-Loan for a Canal and Railroad. $100,000 is voted to be loaned by the state to the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company, at an interest of five per cent. per annum, the whole to be repaid within seven years. s. 15.

Ch. 3.-Broad Tires. Carts and waggons drawn by one or two horses, mules, or oxen, and stage-coaches, having wheel-tires of four inches or more in breadth, are exempted from tolls on the public turnpikes. s. 7.

Ch. 24.-Stealing fish from fish traps is punished by a fine not exceeding 200 dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding six months. s. 1.

In the reports and resolves annexed to the laws we notice the following.

Revenues and Expenditure. The controller-general estimates the amount of revenue requisite to meet the expenditures for 1830, to be 230,382 dollars, and he makes the following estimate of the amounts likely to accrue from the different subjects of taxation. viz.

Schools. The number of schools, to the support of which the state contributed, was 513, number of scholars 5,361, the amount paid for this purpose by the state, 35,309 dollars.

Public Debt. The debt of South Carolina is stated by the committee on that subject to be 670,000 dollars; to the extinguishment of the interest on which the committee say that the sums accruing to the state from the bank will be fully adequate, besides leaving a surplus of 25,000 dollars per annum to be carried to the credit of the sinking fund, which now amounts to 363,000 dollars,

These were taxed $2 each.