450 NEGROES. [ART. 66.

person shall apply to bodies politic and corporate, and all cor-
porations shall be responsible under this article for the wrongful
acts, neglect or default of all agents employed by them.

ARTICLE LXVI.
Negroes.

SEC. 1. Negroes have been held in slavery in this State as the
property of their owners from the earliest settlement thereof,
and are and may be hereafter held in slavery as the property of
their owners; and every owner of such negro is entitled to his
service and labor for the life of such negro, except in cases
where such negro can show that, by the grant or devise of the
owner, or some former owner of such negro, or his or her mater-
nal ancestor, a shorter period of service has been prescribed.

2. Any person may bring into this State any negro slaves for
life, from any other of the United States, or from any district or
territory thereof; Provided, they have not been guilty of any
crime, or previously banished from this State.

RUNAWAYS.

3. Any person may arrest any runaway negro, and carry him
before a judge or justice, and have him committed to the jail of
the county.

4. Any judge or justice before whom any negro shall be
brought as a runaway, shall commit him to the jail of the
county, unless he be satisfied by competent testimony that said
negro is free.

5. The owner of a negro slave who is not engaged in the
traffic of buying and selling slaves, may have such slave com-
mitted to jail, and supported there at his expense.

6. The sheriff shall, within fifteen days after a negro is com-
mitted as a runaway, advertise the same in some daily news-
paper published in the city of Baltimore, and in such other