way,

SEC. 5. The charges for laying out any highway or driftand all such damages as shall be agreed for or adjudged to any person through whose land such highway or driftway is laid, either by the committee, town council or jurors, shall be paid by the town treasurer of the town in which the highway or driftway is laid; and if he shall refuse or neglect to pay the same, an action may be brought and maintained for such money, by the person to whom the same is due and payable.

SEC. 6. The town council of each town shall have full power and authority in manner as aforesaid to lay out new highways instead of any which they shall judge to be inconvenient or useless. And whenever any road shall cease to be useful to the public, the town council of such town shall be authorized so to declare it; and the said road shall revert to its owner; and the said town shall not be liable any longer to repair the same; but no town council shall have power to alter or change any highway which has been or hereafter shall be laid out by the general assembly.

SEC. 7. All lands which have or shall be quietly, peaceably and actually used and improved and considered as public highways or streets, for the space of twenty years, and which shall be declared by the town council of the town wherein they lie to be public highways, shall be taken and considered as public highways to all intents and purposes, as fully and effectually as if the same had been regularly laid out, recorded and opened by the town council of the town where such lands may lie.

SEC. 8. It shall be the duty of every town council, before they proceed to act under the provisions of the next preceding section, to give personal notice of their intention to all persons interested, or who may have any claim to the land over which such highway passes, as described in said section, if known to reside in this state; and if not known, or if known to reside without this state, then by an advertisement to be inserted in one or more public newspapers printed within this state, for the space of three weeks successively, to the intent that all persons interested may have an opportunity to show cause why such proceedings as are authorized as aforesaid should not be had; and in all cases, any person who shall be aggrieved by such proceedings shall have liberty to appeal therefrom to the next court of common pleas within the county in which such highway lies; first giving bond and filing reasons of appeal in the same manner as is provided and required by the fourth section of this act; whereupon an or

der shall be made for such appellant's appearing to prosecute his appeal, and requiring the sheriff of the county to empannel a jury of twelve good men, not being inhabitants of or having any interest in the town where such highway lies; which jury being duly sworn for that purpose, after hearing all parties, shall have power to reverse or affirm the doings of said town council, under the preceding section.

SEC. 9. Whenever the owner of any land shall make a deed thereof to the town wherein such land lies, for the special purpose of being used and improved as a public highway, and the said deed shall have been duly acknowledged and recorded, the said land shall be thenceforward a public highway to all intents and purposes; and be liable to be opened by the town council of the town wherein the same shall lie, in the same way and manner as highways which are laid out by said town council; but no town shall be liable to repair such highway until the town council thereof shall decree and order that the same shall be repaired at the expense of such

town.

An Act for the Mending of Highways and Bridges.

It is enacted by the General Assembly, as follows:

SECTION 1. All highways, townways and causeways, and all bridges, excepting only those referred to in the twentieth section of this act, lying and being within the bounds of any town, shall be kept in repair and amended, from time to time, so that the same may be safe and convenient for travellers with their teams, carts and carriages, at all seasons of the year, at the proper charge and expense of such town, under the care and direction of the surveyor or surveyors of highways appointed by law; and the surveyor or surveyors aforesaid shall have full power and authority to cut down, lop off, dig up and remove all sorts of trees, bushes, stones, fences, rails, gates, bars, enclosures or other matter or thing that shall any way straighten, hurt, hinder or incommode any highway or townway; and also to dig for stone, gravel, clay, marle, sand or earth, in any land adjoining said highway; and the materials thus dug up to remove to such place or places in the highways for the repair and amendment thereof as they shall deem necessary, making compensation therefor; and when the highways are blocked up or encumbered with snow, the surveyor or surveyors shall cause so much thereof to be removed or trod down as will render the road passable.

SEC. 2. No surveyor of highways shall cause any water course in any highway to be so conveyed as to incommode any person's land, house, store, shop or other building, or to obstruct any person in the prosecution of his business, or occupation, without the consent or approbation of the town council of such town, signified in writing to such surveyor; and any person who may consider himself aggrieved by such water course may complain to the said town council; and said council on receiving said complaint and examining into the circumstances of the same shall, if they think reasonable, direct such surveyor or surveyors to alter the said water course in such way and manner as they shall think fit and proper.

SEC. 3. The town council of each town are hereby empowered and directed to assign and appoint, in writing annually, to the surveyors, their several limits and divisions of the highways for repair and amendments, unto which assignments the said surveyors are directed to conform themselves.

SEC. 4. Each town at some public meeting of the electors thereof who are entitled to vote upon any proposition to impose a tax, regularly notified and warned, shall vote and raise such sum of money, to be expended in labor and materials on the highways aforesaid, as they may deem necessary for that

purpose; and either the assessors or the town council, as the town may direct, shall assess the same on the rateable estate of the inhabitants thereof, and all others owning rateable property therein, as other town taxes are by law assessed.

SEC. 5. The town councils shall determine the sum to be expended within the limits of each surveyor, and the persons assessed as aforesaid who shall pay the same, and shall cause to be delivered to each surveyor a list of the said persons whose taxes may be so appropriated for his limits, and the sums at which they are severally assessed.

SEC. 6. Upon the receipt of his bill each surveyor shall give reasonable notice in writing, if desired, to each person in his list of the sum he is assessed to the highways aforesaid, and also to the inhabitants within his district assessed as aforesaid, two days notice, extraordinary casualty excepted, of the times and places he shall appoint for providing materials and laboring; to the end that each person may have opportunity to work on the highways in person or by substitute, or with his oxen, horses, cart and plough, at the rates and prices the town or town council shall affix to such labor, to the full amount of the sum at which he is assessed; or he may pay the surveyor in money the sum he is assessed; in which case the surveyor shall carefully expend the the sums thus paid in labor and materials for repairing the highways in his limits, according to his best discretion. In case of any dispute, the surveyor shall be a competent witness of the notice given.

SEC. 7. Immediately after the expiration of one year from the assessment of any such tax, each surveyor shall render to the assessors for the time being a list of such persons as shall have been deficient, if any there be, in working out their highway rate or otherwise paying him the sum assessed therefor, together with the amount of each person's deficiency; which deficient sums shall, by the assessors, be put in a distinct column in the next assessment for the town tax, and be collected by the collector thereof as other town taxes are collected, and paid into the town treasury for the use of the town, to be specially appropriated in the district wherein the same was collected.

SEC. 8. If any surveyor, at the expiration of the term aforesaid or whenever required by the said town, shall neglect to make to the assessors or unto the office of the town clerk for their use, the returns required by the preceding section, he shall be held accountable for the whole amount of the tax assigned him to be collected; which shall be by the assessors included in the next town tax against him, and col

lected as other town taxes, to be appropriated when collected for the repair of the highways in such surveyor's district: provided, that any town in lieu hereof may impose any other penalty which they may deem sufficient to ensure the making of such returns.

SEC. 9. Whenever any such tax shall remain unpaid for the space of thirty days after notice given by the surveyor to work out or pay the same, the surveyors shall have the same power to collect said taxes as collectors of taxes in ordinary cases; and they may be collected in the same manner as other taxes, and when collected, they shall be expended in the district of the surveyor collecting them.

SEC. 10. When the sum appropriated and assessed for the repair of the highways in the limits of any particular surveyor shall be insufficient for that purpose, it shall be lawful for the surveyor, with the consent of the town council, to employ such of the inhabitants of the town upon the repair of such highway in his limits, as shall make up such deficiency; and the persons thus employed shall be equitably paid out of the town treasury therefor.

SEC. 11. If the authorized electors in any town shall neglect to vote or agree upon a sum to be assessed for the express purpose of repairing and amending the highways aforesaid, or shall not otherwise provide for effectually mending and repairing the same, each surveyor shall assign to the several persons in his limits, liable to the same, their rateable proportion of day's work, and of cart, team and plough, according to his taxable property, as near as he can; and shall assign certain days for mending and repairing the ways aforesaid, and give notice thereof to the persons aforesaid, in his limits, liable by law to be taxed, in writing; to be left at the usual place of abode of each person liable, two days at least before the assignment, except in extraordinary cases when they may be warned to appear forthwith, to attend to the purpose aforesaid, with suitable tools and with carts and teams, if any they have; and if any person being thus notified shall make default of attending and working, by himself or other sufficient person in his stead, or with his cart and team, as he shall be appointed and assigned, he shall forfeit and pay for each day's neglect one dollar, and for default of his cart and team with a driver, for each day three dollars, and in that proportion for a longer or shorter space of time, to the use of the town; to be recovered in an action of debt, in the name of the town treasurer, before any justice of the peace in said

town.