or any instrument relating thereto, executed without the limits of the United States, to which any ambassador, minister, charge des affaires, recognized consul, vice-consul, or commercial agent of the United States, in the country where the deed or instrument shall be executed, shall be grantor, may be executed in the presence of two witnesses; and an official certificate under the hand and official seal of the grantor, that such deed or instrument is his act and deed, shall be equivalent to an acknowledment of such deed or instrument, in the manner required by law. SEC. 8. Whenever any bond of defeasance or other instrument shall be executed, which shall cause any deed or other conveyance of lands, tenements and hereditaments to operate as a mortgage, or to pass an estate redeemable, such bond or other instrument shall be recorded in the office of the town clerk in the town where such lands, tenements and hereditaments shall be, or be there lodged, to be recorded within five days after the execution thereof; and if the person entitled to such bond of defeasance or other instrument, shall neglect to cause the same to be lodged or recorded within five days as aforesaid, the same shall not cause the deed to which it relates to operate as a mortgage against any person who shall bona fide, and without notice of said incumbrance, purchase the real estate conveyed in such deed of the person to whom the same was made; and the person entitled to the same as aforesaid shall be barred of all right of redemption against such second purchaser, his heirs or assigns. SEC. 9. Nothing in this act shall be construed to bar any widow of any grantor of any lands, tenements or other real estate, of her dower therein; but a married woman may bar her right of dower in any estate conveyed by her husband by joining with him in the deed conveying the same, and therein releasing her claim to dower; or by releasing the same by subsequent deed jointly with her husband, or by joining in a deed given by a guardian of her husband: she may also bar her right of dower in any estate in which the interest of her husband has been formally conveyed by a deed thereof, executed by her, in the presence of two witnesses, and acknowledged by her, after a separate examination and an explanation of the deed to her, in the same manner as is required by law for a conveyance of real estate owned by her in her own right. SEC. 10. Where the husband and wife being of lawful age are seized of any lands, tenements or other real estate in the right of the wife, they shall be authorized to convey the same by deed or other instrument in writing, signed, sealed and delivered by them respectively; but in every such case the wife acknowledging such deed or instrument shall be examined privily and apart from her husband; and shall declare to the officer taking such acknowledgment, that the deed or instrument shown and explained to her by such magistrate is her voluntary act, and that she doth not wish to retract the same; and if the wife on such privy examination shall refuse to make such acknowledgment, the deed or other instrument executed by the husband and the wife as aforesaid, shall not operate to convey to the grantee named in such deed or instrument, any other or greater estate in the premises described in such deed than what belongs to the husband; and if such deed be executed by attorney of the wife, or any deed affecting her right of dower in any estate of her husband during his life, the letter of attorney shall be executed and acknowledged with like formalities as are required in the execution and acknowledgment of a deed by a husband and wife of an estate held in the right of the wife. SEC. 11. By deed of bargain and sale, by deeds of lease and release, by covenant to stand seized to use, or by deed operating by way of covenant to stand seized to use, or by any other deed signed, sealed, delivered and acknowledged by the party having good and lawful right and authority thereto, the possession of the bargainor, relessor, grantor or covenantor, shall be transferred to the bargainee, relessee, grantee, or person entitled to the use of the estate or interest which such person hath or shall have in the use, without livery of seizin or any other act or ceremony whatever. SEC. 12. Any mortgagee of lands, tenements or other real estate, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns, having received full satisfaction for the money due on such mortgage, shall at the request of the mortgagor, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns, and at his or their cost, acknowledge and cause satisfaction and payment to be entered on the margin or face of the record of such mortgage, and shall sign and seal the same, which shall forever afterwards discharge, defeat and release such mortgage, and perpetually bar all actions to be brought thereupon in any court. If any mortgagee, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns shall not within ten days after a request made in that behalf, and a tender of all reasonable charges, repair to the clerk's office, and there make, sign and seal an acknowledgment as before directed, or otherwise make and execute a release and quitclaim of the estate so mortgaged, and acknowledge the same before some proper officer, he or they so refusing shall be liable to make good all damages that shall accrue for want of such discarge or release, to be recovered by an action of the case, in a court of record; and in case judgment shall pass against the party sued, he shall pay unto the plaintiff treble costs upon such suit: provided, nevertheless, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to defeat, invalidate, annul, or render ineffectual any other legal discharge, payment, satisfaction or release of any mortgage. SEC. 13. If any person shall be seized of any estate in fee tail, he shall have a right to convey the same in fee simple, by his last will and testament, or by deed duly executed, under his hand and seal, and acknowledged before the supreme court or any court of common pleas in this state; and such conveyance shall vest an estate in fee simple in the grantee, his heirs and assigns, and shall bar the tenant in tail, his heirs and assigns, and all others who may claim the same in remainder or reversion, expectant upon the determination of such estate tail. An Act declaring what is Real and what Personal Estate, in certain cases. SECTION 1. Main wheel-engine, &c. in manufacturing establishment declared to be real estate. SECTION 2. Other machinery, tools, &c., personal estate, except for taxes. 3. Partition may be made of property in section two. It is enacted by the General Assembly as follows: SECTION 1. The main wheel, steam engine, boilers, and shafts, whether upright or horizontal; drums, pullies and wheels, attached to any real estate for the purpose of operating machinery, and all kettles set and used in any manufacturing establishment, are hereby declared to be real estate when the same belong to the owners of the real estate to which they are attached. SEC. 2. All other machinery, tools and apparatus of every description used and employed in any manufacturing establishment, are hereby declared to be personal estate; and as such shall be considered in assignments of dower, in attachments, and in all cases whatever except the assessment and payment of taxes. SEC. 3. Partitions of the property mentioned in the second section of this act may be compelled between the owners thereof, in the same manner as though the same were real estate. It is enacted by the General Assembly as follows: SECTION 1. No man or woman shall intermarry within the degrees herein after named, that is to say: And if any man or woman shall intermarry within the degrees aforesaid, every such marriage shall be null and void; and the issue of any such marriage hereafter to be had and solemnized shall be deemed and adjudged illegitimate, and be subject to all the disabilities of such issue: provided, always, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to extend to or in any way affect any marriage which shall be solemnized among the Jews, within the degrees of affinity or consanguinity allowed by their religion. SEC. 2. All marriages when either of the parties have a former wife or husband living at the time of such marriage, or where either of them shall be an idiot or lunatic at the time of such marriage, shall be absolutely void; and no dower shall be assigned any widow in consequence of such marriage, and the issue shall be deemed, taken and adjudged illegitimate, and be subject to all the disabilities of such issue. SEC. 3. Divorces from the bond of matrimony shall be decreed in case any marriage shall be hereafter had or solemnized, which is declared void as above said; divorces from the bond of matrimony shall also be decreed for impotency, adultery, extreme cruelty, wilful desertion for five years of either of the parties, continued drunkenness, and also for neglect or refusal on the part of the husband, being of sufficient ability, to provide necessaries for the subsistence of his wife; and also for any other gross misbehaviour and wickedness in either of the parties, repugnant to and in violation of the marriage covenant. SEC. 4. When it shall appear that the adultery, cruelty, desertion or other cause of complaint as aforesaid, was committed or occasioned by the collusion of the parties, and done or contrived with an intention to procure a divorce, in such case no divorce shall be decreed. SEC. 5. When a divorce shall be had for the causes of affinity, consanguinity, impotency, idiocy or lunacy of either of the parties, the wife shall have restored to her all her lands, tenements and hereditaments; and a judgment may be passed for a restoration to her of all or such part of the personal estate specifically, or the value thereof, which has come to the husband's hands by virtue of the marriage, as the court from the circumstances of the case shall deem equitable; and when the divorce shall be occasioned by adultery, or other of the causes aforesaid done or committed on the part of the wife, the husband shall hold the personal estate forever, and her real estate during his natural life, in case they have had issue born alive of her body during the marriage, otherwise during www |