1874. tricts where an election for the purpose and intention of this bill has already been held, no other election shall be ordered until two years from said election. § 10. This act shall take effect from its passage. Approved January 26, 1874. priests, &c., to testify as to cer CHAPTER 123. AN ACT to amend the law of evidence. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: § 1. That no priest, elder, or minister, to whom any comIncompetent for munication, admission, or confession shall be made by any person, under any promise or advice, or expressed conscious belief that the same will redound to the future spiritual benefit of such person, shall be competent to testify to the same, in any court or trial, without the consent of such person in open court. tain communications made to them. Approved January 28, 1874. torney General & Treasurer. CHAPTER 127. AN ACT to amend section two, article six, chapter fifteen, General Statutes. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: § 1. That postage shall be paid, under the provisions of the Postage for At first article of this chapter, upon ali letters, packages, or other communications sent by mail or otherwise, by or from the Attorney General and State Treasurer, upon public business connected with the official duties of each of said officers. § 2. This act shall take effect from its passage. court. CHAPTER 130. AN ACT to change time of holding the September term of Shelby county quarterly court. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: 1. That the September term of the quarterly court of Shelby quarterly Shelby county shall commence on the fourth Monday of said month, instead of the first Monday, as now provided by law. § 2. This act to be in force from and after its passage. Approved January 29, 1874. CHAPTER 134. AN ACT to provide for the registration of marriages, births, and deaths. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: §1. That it shall be the duty of all clergymen or other persons who shall hereafter celebrate or perform the marriage ceremony within this Commonwealth, to keep a registry of all marriages celebrated by them, showing the names, ages, residence, and place of birth of the persons married, whether they were single or widowed, and the time of the marriage. § 2. It shall be the duty of all physicians, surgeons, and midwives, to keep a registry of all births and deaths at which they have professionally attended, showing, in cases of birth, the time and place of birth, name of the father, and maiden name of the mother, and their residence, sex, and color of the child, together with its name, if it shall receive one, and whether it was born alive or dead; and showing, in cases of death, the time, place, and cause of death, the name, age, sex, color, and condition (whether single, married, or widowed), name and surname of parents, occupation, residence, and place of birth of the deceased: Provided jurther, That when two or more physicians, surgeons, or midwives may have attended professionally at any birth or death, that physician, surgeon, or midwife who is oldest in attendance shall make the regis try. §3. It shall be the duty of the clergymen, physicians, &c., above named, to deposit in the county clerk's office of the counties in which such births, &c., occur, on or before the 10th day of January, in every year, the said registry, or a copy thereof, embracing the period of one year, ending on the 31st day of December last preceding the time of deposit; and the clerk shall deliver copies of the same to the assessor. §4. It shall be the duty of the assessors, while making their lists of taxable property, to ascertain and record in a list separate from the list of taxable property, all the births, mar riages, and deaths which shall have occurred within their respective counties in the twelve months ending on the 31st day of December last preceding the time of assessment, with all the items of time, place, &c, herein directed to be inserted in the registries above named; and they shall make strict inquiry of all heads of families, and shall use the registries of clergymen, &c., above named, in order to obtain correctly the information herein required. They shall return said lists of births, &c., with the registries of clergymen, &c., aforesaid, to the clerks of the county courts at the same time they return their lists of taxable property; and the clerks shall copy said lists of births, &c., and transmit the copies to the Auditor of Public Accounts with the lists of taxable property. The clerks shall be paid at the same rates they are paid for copying the lists of taxable property. The assessor shall be allowed two cents for each birth, marriage, or death recorded, as herein directed, to be paid in the same manner as 1874. Clergymen to keep registry of marriages. Physicians, mid wives, &c., to keep registry of births, &c. 1874. tabular state ments; to cause 500 copies to be printed and distributed annualproper blanks ly; also to have printed. for making the lists of taxable property: Provided, That it shall be lawful for any assessor to record, separately, the time, place, &c., of any birth, marriage, or death which may have occurred prior to the time which the list then being made embraces, or which may have occurred within this Commonwealth; for every entry so made, the party causing it to be done shall pay to the assessor five cents. § 5. It shall be the duty of the Auditor to make, from all Auditor to make the lists of births, marriages, and deaths so transmitted to him, tabular statements, showing, in condensed form, the information herein required to be preserved, keeping the statistics of each county separate; and to cause 500 copies of the same to be printed, in pamphlet form, on or before the 1st day of January in every year; to transmit not more than five nor less than two copies to each county court clerk's office in this Commonwealth, one of which shall be forever carefully kept in such office, and the remainder distributed for the use of the citizens of their respective counties. He shall cause to be printed suitable blanks for the use of assessors, clergymen, physicians, &c., with separate columns for each of the items of information herein required, and send a sufficient number of said blanks to the clerks of each county court for distribution. He shall annex to said blanks such instructions as he may deem necessary to secure the faithful execution of this ized to administer oath. act. § 6. To enable the assessors to obtain full and correct inAssessor author formation touching the facts herein required to be ascertained, they shall have full power to swear and interrogate any person in their respective counties for that purpose; and it shall be the duty of all such persons, when thereto required by the assessor, with or without oath, to give him fully and truly all the information he or she may possess touching any of said facts. Penalty. § 7. The several county court clerks shall forever carefully preserve the lists of births, &c., and the registries of clergy. men, &c., herein required to be returned to them, for the use of the public. § 8. The said lists of births, marriages, and deaths returned to the clerks of the county courts by the assessors, as also the original tabular record herein required to be made and kept by the Auditor, or a duly certified copy of any birth, marriage, or death from either of them, given and certified by the keeper of such records, shall hereafter be admitted and received in all courts in this Commonwealth as prima facie evidence of any such birth, marriage, or death therein recorded or so certified. § 9. Any person failing to discharge and perform any of the acts or duties herein imposed and required to be done, shall, for every such failure, be fined in a sum not less than five nor more than twenty dollars, to be recovered by warrant before a justice of the peace or by presentment by the grand jury. 10. This act to take effect from its passage. Approved January 31, 1874. CHAPTER 150. AN ACT to protect the owners of property in this Commonwealth against damages by fire from steam cars. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: 1874. 15 nies required to fix chimneys so as to prevent sparks from flying out. § 1. That it is hereby made the duty of all railroad com- Railroad compapanies or persons, running or operating cars by steam, on any railroad track or tracks in this Commonwealth, to place on or around the tops of the chimneys of such car or locomotive a screen, fender, damper, or other preventive, as will prevent, so far as possible, sparks of fire from escaping from such cars into fields, pastures, or out-lands, or igniting any timber, grass, hay, corn-stalks, house, stable, or any combustible matter whatever. $2. Any person or railroad company failing to comply Penalty. with the provisions of the first section of this act shall, upon conviction, be fined in any sum not exceeding two hundred dollars for each offense, recoverable by indictment, besides being responsible to any person injured by fire escaping from cars run or operated by them; such damages may be recovered in any court having jurisdiction of the same. §3. This act shall take effect and be in force thirty days after its passage. Approved January 30, 1874. CHAPTER 156. AN ACT to ameud section nine of chapter seventy-two of the General Statutes. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: § 1. That section nine of chapter seventy-two of the Gen- General Statutes, eral Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended by insert- page 641. ing after the word "State," in the sixth line of said section, these words: "Or any circuit court of the United States or the Supreme Court thereof." § 2. This act to take effect from its passage. Approved January 31, 1874. CHAPTER 160. AN ACT increasing the jurisdiction of justices of the peace in Crittenden, Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: § 1. That hereafter the courts of justices of the peace in the counties of Butler, Bracken, Barren, Boyd, Crittenden, Calloway, Caldwell, Daviess, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Hen 1874. lated. derson, Henry, McLean, Monroe, Metcalfe, Marshall, MeCracken, Ohio, Pendleton, Pulaski, Todd, Union, Webster, Wayne, Trigg, Owen, Gallatin, Boone, Muhlenburg, Gray. son, Meade, Anderson, Casey, Russell, Marion, Cumberland. Hopkins, Breckinridge, Clinton, Greenup, Campbell, Mason, Mercer, Livingston, Franklin, Garrard, Lawrence, Woodford, and Washington, shall have jurisdiction concurrent with the circuit and quarterly courts of this Commonwealth of all actions and proceedings for the recovery of money or personal property, where the matter in controversy, exclusive of interest and costs, does not exceed one hundred dollars in value. The pleadings therein shall be oral, and without verification; yet before any summons shall issue, the plaintiff shall file with the justice the account or the written contract, or a short written statement of the facts on which the action is founded. In all sums exceeding fifty dollars, a tax of fifty cents shall be paid by the plaintiff; and if the claim of the plaintiff is less than fifty dollars, and the set-off or counter-claim of the defendant is greater than fifty dollars, then a like sum of fifty cents shall be paid by the defendant to the justice, who shall report and account for such sums so paid (by plaintiff or defendant, as case may be) to the trustee of the jury fund, as in cases of fines collected by justices of the peace. § 2. Upon all judgments hereafter rendered in justices' Appeals regu- Courts, by virtue of the provisions of this act, where the amount in controversy is of the value of less than fifty, and as much as ten dollars or more, exclusive of interest and costs, appeals may be had by either party to the quarterly courts of such counties in which the judgment is rendered; and where the matter in controversy is of the value of fifty dollars or more, exclusive of interest and costs, appeals may be had by either party to the circuit court of the county in which the judgment is rendered. The appeals and costs, in all other respects, shall be regulated as now provided by law. § 3. All laws in conflict with this act, as to the counties mentioned in this act, are hereby repealed. 4. The provisions of this act shall not apply to the Carrsville district, in Livingston county. 5. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after the first Monday in May, 1874. [Became a law without the Governor's signature, February 13, 1874.] CHAPTER 162. AN ACT to provide for the improvement of Rockcastle river and its Forks. WHEREAS, The said river has been declared by an act of this Legislature navigable; and whereas, obstructions, such as loose stones, snags, sunken timber, sand-drifts, and leaning trees, now render the navigation of said river hazardous and dangerous, by reason of which heavy losses attend the efforts |