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An Act relating to Lists of Jurors.

Be it enacted, &c., as follows:

SECT. 1. The list of jurors, required by law, shall be carefully prepared and revised once in each year and posted up in public places, in the town or city, by the selectmen, or the mayor and aldermen of the several towns or cities for which they are prepared, ten days, at least, before they are to be submitted for revision and acceptance.

SECT. 2. The lists of jurors, now required to be prepared by the mayor and aldermen of cities, shall be submitted to their respective common councils, which councils shall exercise the same power to revise and accept them, that is exercised by towns.

SECT. 3. The one hundred and sixty-seventh chapter of the statutes of the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, is hereby repealed.

SECT. 4. This act shall take effect from and after its passage. [Approved April 21, 1856.]

An Act concerning the Indexing of Deeds.

Be it enacted, &c., as follows:

SECT. 1. Whenever any deeds or other conveyances by executors, administrators, guardians, or persons acting under or by authority of an order of any court of competent jurisdiction, or of a resolve of the general court, shall be left for record at any of the registries of deeds in this Commonwealth, it shall be the duty of the register to enter in the entry books and indexes of the grantors, the names of the testators, intestates, wards

and persons whose estates are conveyed, when the same shall appear by such deeds, and also, the names of such executors, administrators and guardians; and whenever any decree for the partition of land, or commissioner's return thereon, shall be so left for record, it shall be the duty of the register to enter the names of all the persons whose estates shall plainly appear to be affected thereby, in the entry books, and in the indexes of the grantors and of the grantees.

SECT. 2. The county commissioners in each county shall hereafter procure, at the charge of their respective counties, a copy, to be made by some competent person or persons, within the first six months of each and every year, of the indexes in the registries of deeds in their respective counties, for the preceding year, in which the grantors and grantees shall respectively be assorted into distinct lists by their respective surnames, arranged in such lists in the order in which the deeds and other conveyances to which they refer are left for record, and such lists placed in alphabetical order. Such copies shall, in other respects, be in the form now required by law for the indexes to the records. And the county commissioners in each county shall so procure such copies of the indexes in their respective counties for the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, to be made and completed by the first day of January

next.

SECT. 3. The county commissioners of each county, and the mayor and aldermen of the city of Boston, shall have power, whenever they shall deem it expedient, to cause copies of the indexes, or new indexes, to the records now existing in the registries of deeds in

their respective counties, or of any part thereof, to be made by some competent person or persons, at the charge of their respective counties, upon the plan hereinbefore provided, or upon such plan and in such manner, as will, in their judgment, best facilitate references to the records.

SECT. 4. The county commissioners in each county, and the mayor and aldermen of the city of Boston, shall have power, if they shall deem it expedient, to, cause such copies of the indexes, or new indexes herein before provided and authorized to be made, to be printed at the charge of their respective counties, for sale at a price which shall not be less than the cost of printing, and paper, and binding.

SECT. 5. This act shall take effect from and after its passage. [Approved June 6, 1856.]

An Act concerning the Planting of Shade Trees. Be it enacted, &c., as follows:

SECT. 1. The mayor and aldermen of any city, or the selectmen of any town, or any municipal officer, to whom the care of the streets or roads may be intrusted by them, may authorize the planting of shade trees, wherever it may not interfere with the public travel, or with private rights; and such trees, planted pursuant to such license, shall be deemed and taken to be the private property of the person or persons, or corporations, so planting them, or upon whose premises they may be planted, and may be protected as such in the same manner as any other private property; and shall not be deemed a nuisance, or abated as such, except upon

complaint made to the mayor and aldermen or selectmen aforesaid, who shall, in case of complaint, cause such trees to be removed, if the public necessity shall seem to them to require their removal.

SECT. 2. Any person or persons who shall wantonly injure, deface, tear or destroy any ornamental or shade tree or shrub, statue, fountain, vase, or other plant or fixture of ornament or utility, in any street, road, square, court, park, public garden, or other enclosure, shall be liable to a penalty of not less than five, nor more than one hundred dollars, to be recovered, by complaint, in any court of competent jurisdiction; one-half of which penalty shall go to the complainant, and the other half to the person or persons, corporation or corporations, upon whose property, or within whose premises, the trespass may have been committed. [Approved June 4, 1856.]

An Acr to Protect Boston Harbor.

Be it enacted, &c., as follows:

SECT. 1. Any person who shall take, carry away, or remove, by land or water, any stones, gravel or sand, from any of the beaches, head lands or islands, within or bordering upon Boston Harbor, without a license therefor from the mayor and aldermen of the city of Boston, shall, for each offence, forfeit a sum not exceeding twenty dollars, to be recovered by complaint or indictment in any court of competent jurisdiction.

SECT. 2. Boston Harbor, for the purposes of this act, shall be deemed to extend to a line drawn from the outer end of Commercial Point, in the town of Dorchester, direct to the outer end of Point Alderton, in the town of

Hull; thence to the outer end of the outer Brewster Island, and thence direct to the Short Beach, at the division line between the towns of North Chelsea and Winthop.

SECT. 3. All acts and parts of acts, inconsistent with this act, are hereby repealed.

SECT. 4. This act shall take effect from and after its passage. [Approved June 6, 1856.]

An Act concerning the Superior Court of the County of Suffolk, and the Court of Common Pleas.

Be it enacted, &c., as follows:

SECT. 1. The words "three thousand" are hereby substituted for the words "fifteen hundred," wherever the latter occur in the third and fourth sections of the four hundred and forty-ninth chapter of the acts of the year eighteen hundred and fifty-five.

SECT. 2. The fourteenth section of the last mentioned act is so far amended as that the clerk, instead of the salary therein provided, shall retain for his services, from the fees received by him and for which he is to account, the sum of three thousand dollars per annum, if such fees amount to so much, and the balance he shall pay over to the treasurer of the city of Boston, for the use of said city, annually.

SECT. 3. Nothing in this act shall be construed to release said city from its proper contribution to the maintenance of the court of common pleas prior to the establishment of the said superior court. [Approved June 6, 1856.]

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