Lunatic Asylum-continued. For additional bedding.. erecting water closet and removing old building. forage for milch cows and horses. one female night watch..... Any deficiency in an item of appropriation for the benefit of the asylum may be paid out of any other fund appropriated therefor, from which the same can be taken without creating a deficiency therein. Judiciary Department. For fees of sheriffs, clerks, attorneys, etc., in felony cases $600 $600 Department of Insurance, Statistics and History. For additional clerk hire, so as to have one clerk for supreme court and state library... Treasury Department. For increase of salary of porter for treasury and comptroller's departments per year.. Penitentiary. For contingent fund to enable the governor to take charge of the penitentiary at any time prior to February 28, 1881, if necessary.. guard at East Texas Penitentiary (1879).. Agricultural and Mechanical College. For cabinet, library and agricultural implements, to be expended as may be directed by the board to be paid out of interest arising from the university fund ... Prairie View Agricultural College. Additional for the branch agricultural college for colored youths at Prairie View, to be taken from the university fund.......... Sam Houston Normal School. For furniture $500 Miscellaneous. For presidential electors in 1880..... rewards and expenses by the state in recovery of expenses of comptroller in selling bonds..... 10,000 1,500 Miscellaneous-continued. For paying board of veterans provided for in "An act interest on warrants (issued under "An act mak- Sec. 2. The near approach of the close of the present session of the Legislature, and the fact that a portion of the interest provided for in this bill falls due in July, 1879, creates an imperative public necessity and emergency for the suspension of the constitutional rule requiring this bill to be read on three several days and for the immediate passage of this act, said rule is therefore suspended, and this act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage. Approved July 9, A. D. 1879. Takes effect from and after its passage. CHAPTER L.-An act to regulate the advertisement of sales of lands for taxes dues thereon, and of lands that have been sold for taxes and purchased by the state, and to repeal so much of article 4752 of the Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, adopted by the Sixteenth Legislature of the State of Texas at the first session thereof, and so much of section three of "An act to provide for the sale of all real estate bid off to the state by collectors of taxes at tax sales, the owners of which have not redeemed the same," as are or may be in conflict with the provisions of this act. Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, That prior to the sale of any real property for taxes in any county in this state the collector of taxes shall advertise the same by posting a list ot the names of the delinquents for thirty days as follows: One copy at the court house door of the county and a copy at two other public places in the county where the lands or lots are situated. Sec. 2. That so much of the above recited acts, sections and articles and all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions of this act, and all laws requiring collectors of taxes to advertise in newspapers any tax sales, be and the same are hereby repealed. Sec. 3. Whereas, the end of the session is near at hand and the law as it now exists requires impossibilities of collectors of taxes and retards the collection of the state revenues; therefore, an emergency exists, and an imperative public necessity demands that the constitutional rule requiring a bill to be read on three several days be suspended, and that this act take effect and be in force from and after its passage, and it is so enacted. Approved July 9, A. D. 1879. Takes effect from and after its passage. CHAPTER LI.-An act to amend "An act to provide for the incorporation of associations that may be organized for the purpose of constructing railways, maintaining and operating the same, for prescribing and defining the duties and limiting the powers of such corporations when so organized," approved August 15, 1876. Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, That section thirty-one of "An act to provide for the incorporation of associations that may be organized for the purpose of constructing railways, maintaining and operating the same, for prescribing and defining the duties and limiting the powers of such corporations when so organized," approved August 15, 1876, be so amended as to read as follows: "Section 31. If any railway corporation, organized under this act, shall not, within two years after its articles of association shall be filed and recorded as provided in the second section of this act, begin the construction of its road and construct, equip aud put in good running order at least ten miles of its proposed road; and if any such railroad corporation, after the first two years, shall fail to to construct, equip and put in good running order at least twenty additional miles of its road, each and every succeeding year, until the entire completion of its line, such corporation shall, in either of such cases, forfeit its corporate existence, and its powers shall cease as far as relates to that portion of said road then unfinished, and shall be incapable of resumption by any subsequent act of incorporation; provided, that any railroad company heretofore organized under the act to which this is an amendment, which shall, previous to the taking effect of this amendment, have graded as much as ten miles of its road-bed, shall have an additional time of twelve months from the day of the passage of this amended act to construct, equip and put in good running order at least ten miles of its proposed road, as required in the section herein amended; and any such company may then and thereafter proceed to construct twenty miles of its proposed road each and every succeeding year after the lapse of the additional period of twelve months hereby given, and shall not, in such case, forfeit its corporate existence or any of the powers or privileges conferred by said act or any other law of this state." Sec. 2. That article 4278 of chapter thirteen of the Revised Statutes be and the same is hereby repealed, in so far as it conflicts with the provisions of this act. Sec. 3. The fact that the present extra session of the Sixteenth Legislature is limited to thirty days, and a good portion of the same having been exhausted, and the great interests involved in the provisions of this act, create an emergency and necessity for the immediate taking effect of the same; and it is therefore enacted that it be in force from and after its passage. Approved July 14, A. D. 1879. Takes effect from and after its passage. CHAPTER LII.-An act to provide for the sale of a portion of the unappropriated public lands of the State of Texas, and the investment of the proceeds of such sale. Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, That all the vacant and unappropriated land situated in the following named counties, viz: Noland, Mitchell, Howard, Martin, Andrews, Gaines, Davidson [Dawson?], Borden, Scurry, Fisher, Stonewall, Kent, Garza, Lynn, Terry, Yoakum, Cockran, Hockley, Lubbock, Crosby, Dickens, King, Cottle, Motley, Floyd, Hale, Lamb, Bailey, Parmer, Castro, Swisher, Briscoe, Hall, Childress, Collingsworth, Donley, Armstrong, Randall, Deaf Smith, Oldham, Potter, Cordova, Gray, Wheeler, Hemphill, Roberts, Hutchins, Moore, Hartley, Davidson [Dawson?], Sherman, Hansford, Ochiltree and Lipscomb be and the same is hereby appropriated and set, apart for sale, together with all the unappropriated lands situated and being within and included in the Pacific reservation, and together with such separate tracts of unappropriated public lands, situated in organized counties of this state, as contain not more than six hundred and forty acres; provided, that the three million and fifty thousand acres, heretofore appropriated for the building of a state capitol, shall have a preference right of location in the counties heretofore reserved for that purpose. The provisions of this act shall not be so construed as to prohibit the right of pre-empting within the bounds of the reservation here made; but any party shall have the same right of acquiring a homestead, within this reservation, under the pre-emption laws of this state, as he may have had prior to the passage of this act. Sec. 2. That any person, firm or corporation, desiring to purchase any of the unappropriated lands herein set apart and reserved for sale, may do so by causing the tract or tracts which such person, firm or corporation desire to purchase to be surveyed by the authorized public surveyor of the county or district in which said land is situated. Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the surveyor, to whom application is made by responsible parties, to survey the lands designated in said application within three months from the date thereof, and within sixty days after said survey, to certify to, record and map the field-notes of said survey; and he shall also, within the said sixty days, return to and file the same in the general land office, as required by law in other cases. Sec. 4. Surveyors shall be entitled to receive from applicants for the purchase of lands under the authority of this act all legal surveyor's fees for work done by them. Sec. 5. Within sixty days after the return to and filing in the general land office of the surveyor's certificate, map and field notes of the land desired to be purchased, it shall be the right of the person, firm or corporation who has had the same surveyed to pay or cause to be paid into the treasury of the state the purchase money therefor at the rate of fifty cents per acre, and upon the presentation to the commissioner of the general land office of the receipt of the state treasurer for such purchase money, said commissioner shall issue to said person, firm or corporation a patent for the tract or tracts of land so surveyed and paid for. Sec. 6. No tract of land shall be sold under the provisions of this act that contains more than six hundred and forty acres, and no tract shall have a greater frontage on any running stream, or permanent water, than one vara per acre for each survey of three hundred and twenty acres, or less, and three-fourth of one vara per acre for all other surveys. Sec. 7. It shall be the duty of the commissioner of the general land office to give such general and specific instructions to surveyors in relation to the surveying of the public lands, under the provisions of this act, as may best subserve the interests of the state, and carry into force and effect the intent and purposes of this act. Sec. 8. After the survey of any of the public domain authorized by this act, it shall not be lawful for any person to file or locate upon the land so surveyed, and such file or location shall be utterly null and void. Sec. 9. Should any applicant for the purchase of public land fail, refuse or neglect to pay for the same, at the rate of fifty cents per acre within the time prescribed in section 5 of this act, he shall forfeit all right thereto, and shall not thereafter be allowed to purchase the same, but the land so surveyed may be sold by the commissioner of the general land office to any other person, firm or corporation, who shall pay into the treasury the purchase money therefor. Sec. 10. One-half of the net proceeds of sales under the provisions of this act, shall be and are hereby set apart for the benefit of the public free schools of this state, and the comptroller of public accounts shall, under and by direction of the governor, invest the same in interest-bearing bonds of the State of Texas, or if said bonds are not to be obtained, then in interest-bearing bonds of the United States, the interest therefrom to be paid into the treasury as part of the available school fund. The balance of the net proceeds of sales under the provisions of this act shall be applied by the proper authorities to the payment and extinguishment of the bonded debt of the State of Texas as the same becomes due and payable. No surveys shall be made in any of the counties set aside for the state capitol, and in which said lands may be selected, until after the surveys of the three million and fifty thousand acres set aside for the construction of a new state capitol have been surveyed. Sec. 11. Whereas, the close of the present session of the Legislature is near at hand, an imperative public necessity exists that the constitutional rule requiring this bill to be read on three several days be suspended, and it is therefore so enacted; and whereas, the unappropriated lands of the state are being rapidly taken up, a public emergency exists that this act take effect from and after its passage, it is therefore so enacted. Approved July 14, A. D. 1879. Takes effect ninety days after adjournment. CHAPTER LIII.-An act to amend article 3785, chapter three, title seventy-eight of the Revised Civil Statutes, passed at the regular session of the Sixteenth Legislature. Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, That article 3785 of the Revised Civil Statutes of the State of Texas, as mentioned in the caption of this act, be so amended as to hereafter read as follows: "Article 3785. If at an election held for that purpose, at which none but property taxpayers, as shown by the last assessment rolls, who are qualified voters of such city or town, shall vote, two-thirds of those voting shall vote in favor thereof, such an amount shall be raised by taxation not to exceed one-half of one per cent. in addition to the pro rata of the available school fund received from the state, as may be necessary to conduct the schools for ten months in the year." |