shall not have, acquire, possess or enjoy any estate, right, title, or interest, either at law or in equity, of, in or to any property, real or personal, of any such married woman, no matter whether such property shall be owned by such married woman at the time of, or acquired before or after such abandonment or desertion, or living separate and apart, or being compelled to support herself, as aforesaid; and it shall not be necessary to vest the title and estate in any such property owned or acquired as aforesaid, in any person to whom in her lifetime any such married woman may convey the same, that her said husband should join in such conveyance, but any such conveyance so made and executed by any such married woman without her husband joining therein, shall be good and effectual, both at law and in equity; provided that nothing in this Chapter contained shall be construed to extend to any property acquired by any married woman from her husband during her marriage, or earned by her during marriage and before desertion and abandonment, or living separate and apart from her husband, or being compelled to support herself, as aforesaid; and provided also, that nothing contained in this Chapter shall affect the rights of married women to dower.

1 & 2 When widow shall be entitled 3 Proviso. to dower.

1. Where a husband shall die beneficially entitled to any lands for an interest which shall not entitle his widow to dower out of the same at law, and such interest, whether wholly equitable, or partly legal and partly equitable, shall be an estate of inheritance in possession (other than an estate in joint tenancy), the widow shall be entitled in equity to dower out of the same land.

2. Where a husband shall have been entitled to a right of entry or action in any land, and his widow would have been entitled to dower out of the same if he had recovered possession thereof, she shall be entitled to dower out of the same although her husband shall not have recovered possession

thereof, if such dower be sued for or obtained within the period during which such right of entry or action might be enforced.

3. Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to preclude the right of the widow to recover dower and arrearages in any estate in which she was heretofore dowable.

CHAPTER 74.

Section.

REGISTRY OF DEEDS AND OTHER INSTRUMENTS.

Section.

1 Establishment of Registry Offices. 14 & 17 Copies of conveyances, &c., 2 Appointment of Registrars; se- when evidence.

curity.

15

3 Duty of Registrar as to books; Deputy, and office hours.

Wills or copies thereof, when admissible as evidence.

16

4 What conveyances shall be registered.

Two last preceding Sectious to apply to suits on behalf of the Crown.

of.

Letter of Attorney to convey pro perty, to be registered. Discharge of mortgages.

Effect of words "grant, bargain, and sell."

Priority of mortgage; effect of.

execution and acknowledgment 22 For what subpoena may issue. 23 Partition decrees, how registered. 10 Conveyances when to be marked 24 When copy of Will may be regis and registered; endorsements thereon.

11 When conveyances to be deemed to have been recorded.

12 Livery of seisin when unnecessary 13 Conveyances proved, &c., to be evidence.

25

tered.

& 26 When probate and copy of Will filed in a foreign Court may be registered; effect of registra tion thereof.

1. In every County there shall be one pub lic office for the registering of all conveyances affecting any lands situated within the County for which such office is established.

2. The Governor in Council, when necessary,shall appoint a Registrar of Deeds for each County, who, before entering upon the duties of his office, shall be sworn faithfully to execute the same, and if guilty of any neglect or fraudulent practice therein, shall be liable for all damages to the party injured, to be recovered with costs of suit in any Court of Record; and every such Registrar at the time of his being sworn shall enter into recognizance to the Queen, with two or more sureties to be approved of by the Justice before whom the Registrar was sworn, in the penalty of twelve hundred dollars, conditioned for his faithful performance of

the duties of his office, which recognizance shall within three weeks after the date thereof be transmitted by such Justice to the office of the Clerk of the Pleas to be filed, and a copy thereof, certified by such Justice, shall also be filed, with the Secretary for the County where such Registrar resides.

3. The Registrar shall provide suitable books for the Records and Indexes, to be pail for by the County, and such books shall be regularly paged throughout and lettered or numbered to mark their succession, and only one such book shall be in course of filling up at the same time; such Indexes to contain the names of the grantors and grantees in alphabetical order. All conveyances required to be registered in the County Registry, shall be numbered in the order they are received, and transcribed into the Registry accordingly; and every Registrar, or in case of his necessary absence or illness, a sworn deputy, approved of by the Governor, shall give attendance at his office daily, from ten o'clock in the morning till four o'clock in the afternoon, for the dispatch of all business belonging to his office, Sundays and holidays excepted

4. All conveyances, memorials of judgments, or other instruments by which any lands may be affected in law or equity, except any lease for a term not exceeding three years, shall be registered at full length in the Registry Office of the County where the lands lie, and if not so registered, shall be fraudulent and void against subsequent purchasers for valu able consideration whose conveyances are previously registered; but where a person in any official capacity shall execute any conveyance of an interest in lands sold at public auction pursuant to law, the same, if registered within six months from the day of such sale, shall be as valid against any subsequent purchaser as if registered at the time of the sale; and all Wills registered within six months after the death of the testator dying within this Province, or within three years after his death if dying without the same, shall be as valid against subsequent purchasers as if the conveyance had been registered immediately after the death of such testator.

5. If the person interested in the lands devised by any Will, by reason of the contesting of such Will or other cause, without his fault, be unable to exhibit the same for

registry within the time before limited, and a memorial of such contest or cause be entered in the Registry Office within the space of six months after the decease of the testator dying within the Province, or within the space of three years next after his decease if dying without the Province, the registry of such Will within the space of six months next after obtaining the Will or Probate thereof or the removal of such cause, shall be a sufficient registry within the meaning of this Chapter; but if there be any concealment or suppression of a Will, no purchaser for a valuable consideration shall be disturbed or defeated by any such Will, unless registered within three years after the testator's death.

6. Before the registry of any conveyance the execution of the same shall either be acknowledged by the person executing the same, or be proved by the oath of a subscribing witness in the manner following, that is to say:-If the execution of such conveyance be acknowledged in this Province, then such acknowledgment may be taken before a Judge of the Supreme or any County Court, or a member of the Executive or Legislative Council, or before any Registrar or Deputy Registrar of Deeds, or any Notary Public appointed and resident in the Province and certified under his hand and official seal, or before any Justice of the Peace of the County in which the conveyance is to be registered. If the execution of such conveyance be proved in the Province, such proof may be taken by and before any of the officials hereinbefore in this Section mentioned, except a Justice of the Peace; provided always,that in cases where the Subscribing witness or witnesses to any such conveyance is dead or without the Province, then the execution thereof may be proved before the Supreme Court or some Circuit or County Court by the ordinary legal proof. If such acknowledgment or proof be taken out of the Province, the same shall be taken by or before some one of the officials following, that is to say -Any Commissioner for taking affidavits and administering oaths under Chapter 36; or before any Commissioner authorized by the Lord Chancellor to administer oaths in Chancery in England; or before any Notary Public certified under his hand and official seal; or before the Mayor or Chief Magistrate of any City, Borough, Municipality or Town Corporate, and certified under the common or corpo

rate seal of such City, Borough, Municipality or Town Corporate, or the seal of such Mayor or Chief Magistrate; or before any Judge of the Court of Queen's Bench, or Common Pleas, or Baron of the Exchequer in Great Britain or Ireland, or Master in Chancery in England or Ireland, or any Judge or Lord of Session in Scotland, the handwritings of any such Judge, Baron, Master or Lord of Session, being authenticated under the seal of a Notary Public; or before a Judge of any Court of supreme jurisdiction in any Colony belonging to the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland or any Dependency thereof; or before any British minister, ambassador, consul, vice-consul, acting-consul, pro-consul or consular agent of Her Majesty, exercising his functions in any foreign place; or before the Governor of a State, and certified under the hand and seal of office of such minister, ambassador, consul, vice-consul, acting-consul, pro-consul, consular agent, or governor. If the conveyance be by a corporation, proof of the corporate seal shall in all cases be sufficient.

7. Any affidavit, oath, declaration or affirmation made without the Province, proving the execution of any power of Attorney, Will, or Probate, copy or memorial thereof, for the purpose of registry in this Province, may be made before any person authorized by Section six to take the acknowledgment or proof of conveyances without the Province.

8. When the execution of any conveyance or instrument, power of Attorney, Will, or Probate, copy or memorial thereof, shall be proved without the Province, such proof shall in all cases be deemed sufficient to entitle the same to registry within this Province, if the same be made before the proper officer, and by declaration or affirmation instead of oath, if by the laws of the place where such proof is made, declaration or affirmation is permitted, allowed, substituted, or used instead of oath; provided always, that where any such power of Attorney, Will or Probate, copy or memorial, shall purport to be so proved by declaration or affirmation as aforesaid, it shall be prima facie evidence that by the laws of the place where such proof was made, declaration or affirmation was permitted, allowed, substituted or used instead of oath.

9. A conveyance, or power of Attorney for the same by a married woman, of all her right and interest in land jointly