soever, granted to or in aid of any person, association, or corporation; nor shall the State, or any county, city, or town subscribe to or become interested in the stock or obligations of any company, association, or corporation, for the purpose of aiding in the construction or maintenance of its work; nor shall the State become a party to or become interested in any work of internal improvement, except public roads, or engaged in carrying on any such work; nor assume any indebtedness of any county, city, or town, nor lend its credit to the same; but this sec tion shall not prevent a county, city or town from perfecting a subscription to the capital stock of a railroad company authorized by existing charter conditioned upon the affirmative vote of the voters and freeholders of such county, city or town in favor of such subscription: provided, that such vote be had prior to July first, nineteen hundred and three.

Sec. 186. All taxes, licenses, and other revenue of the State, shall be collected by its proper officers and paid into the state treasury. No money shall be paid out of the state treasury except in pursuance of appropriations made by law; and no such appropriation shall be made which is payable more than two years after the end of the session of the General Assembly, at which the law is enacted authorizing the same; and no appropriation shall be made for the payment of any debt or obligation created in the name of the State during the war between the Confederate States and the United States. Nor shall any county, city, or town pay any debt or obligation created by such county, city, or town in aid of said war.

Sec. 187. The General Assembly shall provide and maintain a sinking fund in accordance with the provisions of section Ten of the act, approved February the twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, entitled "an act to provide for the settlement of the public debt of Virginia not funded under the provisions of an act entitled an act to ascertain and declare Virginia's equitable share of the debt created before, and actually existing at the time of the partition of her territory and resources, and to provide for the issuance of bonds covering the same, and the regular and prompt payment of the interest thereon, approved February the fourteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty-two." Every law hereafter enacted by the General Assembly, creating a debt or authorizing a loan, shall provide for the creation and maintenance of a sinking fund for the payment or redemption of the same.

Sec. 188. No other or greater amount of tax or revenue shall, at any time, be levied than may be required for the necessary expenses of the government, or to pay the indebtedness of the State.

Sec. 189. On all lands and the improvements thereon, and on all tangible personal property, not exempt from taxation by the provisions of this article, the rate of state taxation shall be twenty cents on every hundred dollars of the assessed value thereof, the proceeds of which shall be applied to the expenses of the government and the indebtedness of the State, and a further tax of ten cents on every hundred dollars of the assessed value thereof, which shall be applied to the support of the public free schools of the State: provided, that after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and seven, the tax rate upon said real and personal property, for such purposes shall be prescribed by law. But the General Assembly during such period of four years, in addition to making annually an appropriation for pensions not to exceed the last appropriation made for such purpose prior to September the thirtieth, nineteen hundred and one, may levy annually, a special tax for pensions, on such real and personal property of not exceeding five cents on the hundred dollars of the assessed value thereof.

5¢ per 100

357 per 10

ARTICLE XIV.

MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS.

HOMESTEAD AND OTHER EXEMPTIONS.

Sec. 190. Every householder or head of a family shall be entitled, in addition to the articles now exempt from levy or distress for rent, to hold exempt from levy, seizure, garnishment, or sale under any execution, order, or other process issued on any demand for a debt hereafter contracted, his real and personal property, or either, including money and debts due him, to the value of not exceeding two thousand dollars, to be selected by him: provided, that such exemption shall not extend to any execution, order, or other process issued on any demand in the following

cases:

First. For the purchase price of said property, or any part thereof. If the property purchased, and not paid for, be exchanged for, or converted into, other property by the debtor, such last-named property shall not be exempted from the payment of such unpaid purchase money under the provisions of this article;

Second. For services rendered by a laboring person or mechanic;

Third. For liabilities incurred by any public officer, or officer of a court, or any fiduciary, or any attorney-at-law for money collected;

Fourth. For a lawful claim for any taxes, levies, or assessments accruing after the first day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-six;

Fifth. For rent;

Sixth. For the legal or taxable fees of any public officer or officer of a court.

Sec. 191. The said exemption shall not be claimed or held in a shifting stock of merchandise, or in any property, the conveyance of which by the homestead claimant has been set aside on the ground of fraud or want of consideration.

Sec. 192. The General Assembly shall prescribe the manner and the conditions on which a householder or head of a family shall set apart and hold for himself and family a homestead in any of the property hereinbefore mentioned. But this section shall not be construed as authorizing the General Assembly to defeat or impair the benefits intended to be conferred by the provisions of this article.

Sec. 193. Nothing contained in this article shall invalidate any homestead exemption heretofore claimed under the provisions of the former Constitution; or impair in any manner the right of any householder or head of a family existing at the time that this Constitution goes into effect, to select the exemption, or any part thereof, to which he was entitled under the former Constitution; provided that such right, if hereafter exercised, be not in conflict with the exemptions set forth in sections One Hundred and Ninety and One Hundred and Ninety-one. But no person who has selected and received the full exemption allowed by the former Constitution shall be entitled to select an additional exemption under this Constitution; and no person who has selected and received part of the exemption allowed by the former Constitution shall be entitled to select an additional exemption beyond the difference between the value of such part and a total valuation of two thousand dollars. So far as necessary to accomplish the purposes of this section the provisions of chapter One Hundred and Seventy-eight of the Code of Virginia, and the acts amendatory thereof, shall remain in force until repealed by the General Assembly. The provisions of this article shall be liberally construed.

Sec. 194. The General Assembly is hereby prohibited from passing any law staying the collection of debis, commonly known as "stay laws"; but this section shall not be construed as prohibiting any legislation which the General Assembly may deem necessary to fully carry out the provisions of this article.

HEIRS OF PROPERTY.

Sec. 195. The children of parents, one or both of whom were slaves at and during the period of cohabitation, and who were recognized by the father as his children, and whose mother was recognized by such father as his wife, and was cohabited with as such, shall be as capable of inheriting any estate whereof such father may have died seised, or possessed, or to which he was entitled, as though they had been born in lawful wedlock.

ARTICLE XV.

FUTURE CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION.

Sec. 196. Any amendment or amendments to the Constitution may be proposed in the Senate or House of Delegates, and if the same shall be agreed to by a majority of the members elected to each of the two houses, such proposed amendment or amendments shall be entered on their journals, with the ayes and noes taken thereon, and referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates, and shall be published for three months previous to the time of such election. If, at such regular session the proposed amendment or amendments shall be agreed to by a majority of all the members elected to each house, then it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to submit such proposed amendment or amendments to the people, in such manner and at such times as it shall prescribe; and if the people shall approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of the electors, qualified to vote for members of the General Assembly, voting thereon, such amendment or amendments shall become part of the Constitution.

Sec. 197. At such time as the General Assembly may provide, a majority of the members elected to each house being recorded in the affirmative, the question, "shall there be a convention to revise the Constitution and amend the same ?" shall be submitted to the electors qualified to vote for members of the General Assembly; and in case a majority of the electors so qualified, voting thereon, shall vote in favor of a convention for such purpose, the General Assembly, at its next session, shall provide for the election of delegates to such convention; and no convention for such purpose shall be otherwise called.

5

SCHEDULE.

That no inconvenience may arise from the adoption of this Constitution, and in order to provide for carrying it into complete operation, it is hereby ordained that:

Section 1. The common law and the statute laws in force at the time this Constitution goes into effect, so far as not repugnant thereto or repealed thereby, shall remain in force until they expire by their own limitation, or are altered or repealed by the General Assembly.

Sec. 2. All ordinances adopted by this Convention, and appended to the official original draft of the Constitution delivered to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, shall have the same force and effect, as if they were parts of this Constitution.

Sec. 3. Except as modified by this Constitution, all writs, actions and causes of action, prosecutions, rights of individuals, of bodies corporate or politic, and of the State, shall continue. All legal proceedings, civil and criminal, pending at the time this Constitution goes into effect, or instituted prior to the first day of February, nineteen hundred and four, in any county or circuit court as now existing, shall be prosecuted .therein provided, that all such matters, which are not finally terminated before the day last above mentioned, shall, on that date, by operation of this Constitution and Schedule, be transferred to the circuit court of the county or city created under this Constitution, and shall be proceeded with therein. All such matters pending in the city courts, preserved by this Constitution, when the same goes into effect, or thereafter instituted therein, shall continue in said courts, and be therein proceeded with, until otherwise provided by law. All matters before justices of the peace or police justices at the time this Constitution goes into effect, shall be proceeded with before them, until otherwise provided by law. All legal proceedings prosecuted after this Constitution goes into effect, whether in any of the courts now existing, or in those created by this Constitution, shall be proceeded with in the manner now or hereafter provided by law, except as otherwise required by this Constitution.

Sec. 4. All taxes, fines, penalties, forfeitures and escheats, accrued or accruing to the Commonwealth, or to any political subdivision