MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS. SECT. 20. Senators and representatives acting as members of a com- Members of mittee of the legislature may administer oaths to persons examined committees may administer before the committee. oaths. R. S. 2, § 10. SECT. 21. The journals, files, papers, and documents, appertaining to Journals of the the senate and house of representatives and their proceedings, shall be two houses to be in the custody of their respective clerks; and copies certified by them of the clerks. shall be evidence in like manner as the originals. in the custody 1844, 153. cause bills and parchment; bound, &c. SECT. 22. All bills and resolves passed to be engrossed shall, under Secretary to the direction of the secretary of the commonwealth, be fairly engrossed resolves to be on parchment in a plain and legible hand-writing without interlineation, engrossed on and with a margin of not less than one and a half inches wide on each -acts and reside; each sheet on which bills are engrossed to be twenty-two inches solves to be long and sixteen inches wide; and each sheet on which resolves are R. S. 13, § 6. engrossed to be sixteen inches long and eleven inches wide. every session of the general court the secretary shall cause the acts and resolves of the session to be neatly and strongly bound, in separate volumes of convenient size, lettered on the back, with a designation of the contents and legislative year. After 1836, 24. 1857, 191. SECT. 23. No senator or representative shall, during the term for Members of which he is elected, be eligible to any office under the authority of this legislature not eligible to cercommonwealth, created during such term, except an office to be filled tain offices. by vote of the people. SECT. 24. The general court shall hold no session for the transaction General court of ordinary business on Thanksgiving, Fast, or Christmas days, the to suspend twenty-second day of February, the fourth day of July, nor on the fol- tain days. lowing day when either of the two days last mentioned occurs on Sun- 1856, 113, § 1. day, and the public offices shall be closed on said days. business on cer SECTION 1. The secretary of the commonwealth at the close of each session of the general court shall collate and cause to be printed in one Laws, how pro- Const. ch. 6, volume, in style and arrangement as heretofore, all the acts and resolves passed during such session, with the governor's address and messages, the constitution of the commonwealth, a list of names changed and returned during the preceding year by the probate courts, and a list of the officers of the civil government, with an index. SECT. 2. The secretary shall deposit in his office one copy of the volumes so published; and immediately after their publication, distribute copies as follows: To the clerk of the senate, for the use of the senate, twelve copies: To the clerk of the house of representatives, for the use of the house, twenty-four copies : To the librarian of the state library, for the use of the library, five copies : To the following officers and persons, one copy each: The governor; the lieutenant-governor; each member of the council, senate, and house of representatives; the attorney-general; the auditor of accounts; the treasurer and receiver-general; the adjutant-general; the masters in chancery; the judges, clerks, and registers, of the judicial courts; the district-attorneys; the county commissioners; the sheriffs and keepers of jails; the registers of deeds; the keepers of the houses of correction; the warden of the state prison; the county treasurers; the several clerks of cities and towns, for the use of such places; Harvard University, for the law library; Harvard University; Williams College; Amherst College; Tufts College; Historic-Genealogical Society; trustees of the Museum of Comparative Zoology; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Massachusetts Historical Society; the Boston Athenæum; the American Antiquarian Society, in Worcester; the Pilgrim Society, in Plymouth; the Old Colony Historical Society, in Taunton; the Law Library Societies in each county; the judges of the supreme court of the United States; the judge of the district court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts; the clerk of the courts of the United States for the district of Massachusetts: The secretary of state of the United States, four copies: The secretary of each state of the Union, for the use of the state, three copies : To the library of congress, three copies. SECT. 3. The secretary shall immediately after the close of each! session cause to be published in a pamphlet form such number of copies of the general laws and resolves as will supply each family in the commonwealth with one copy, or one copy to each eight inhabitants, and the secretary shall cause the same to be apportioned according to the census and sent to the clerks of the several cities and towns for distribution. SECT. 4. The secretary shall publish the general laws and other official information intended for the public in such newspaper in the commonwealth as he may select, but the annual expense thereof shall not exceed three hundred dollars. SECT. 5. All acts of incorporation shall be deemed public acts, and, as such, may be declared on and given in evidence. SECT. 6. Every statute shall take effect at the same time throughout the state, and, if it does not expressly prescribe the time when it shall go into operation, shall take effect on the thirtieth day next after the day on which it is approved by the governor, or otherwise passed and approved conformably to the provisions of the constitution. CONSTRUCTION OF STATUTES. SECT. 7. In the construction of statutes the following rules shall be observed, unless such construction would be inconsistent with the mani Effect of a relval de 4410 1869 fest intent of the legislature or repugnant to the context of the same statute, that is to say: construed ao First. Words and phrases shall be construed according to the com- Words and mon and approved usage of the language; but technical words and phrases to be phrases, and such others as may have acquired a peculiar and appro- cording to priate meaning in the law, shall be construed and understood according technical, &c. to such peculiar and appropriate meaning. usage, unless masculine gen . Second. Words importing the singular number may extend and be Singular and applied to several persons or things; words importing the plural number plural number, may include the singular, and words importing the masculine gender der, &c. may be applied to females. how exercised. 5 Cush. 272. 7 Gray, 131. Third. Words purporting to give a joint authority to three or more Joint authority, public officers or other persons shall be construed as giving such authority Met. 33. to a majority of such officers or persons. Fourth. The words "annual meeting," when applied to towns, shall «Annual meetmean the annual meeting required by law to be held in the months of ing." February, March, or April. 1837, 52. "grantee." Fifth. The word "grantor" may include every person from or by "Grantor" and whom a freehold estate or interest passes in or by any deed; and the R. S. 60, 32. word "grantee" may include every person to whom such estate or interest passes in like manner. Sixth. The word "highway" may include county bridges; and shall "Highway." be equivalent to the words "county way," "county road," and "common road." Seventh. The word "inhabitant" may be construed to mean a resi- “Inhabitant.” dent in any city or town. "Insane person," "luna Eighth. The words "insane person" and "lunatic shall include every idiot, non compos, lunatic, insane, and distracted person; and the tic," and word "spendthrift" shall include every one who is liable to be put under "spendthrift." guardianship on account of excessive drinking, gaming, idleness, or debauchery. R. S. 79, § 34. Ninth. The word "issue," as applied to the descent of estates, shall "Issue." include all the lawful lineal descendants of the ancestor. R. S. 61, § 13. ""Land," "lands," and Tenth. The words "land" or "lands" and the words "real estate shall include lands, tenements, hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein. "real estate." R. S. 60, § 32. “Month" and Eleventh. The word "month" shall mean a calendar month; and the word "year" a calendar year, unless otherwise expressed; and the "year." word "year" alone shall be equivalent to the expression "year of our Lord." "sworn." Twelfth. The word "oath" shall include "affirmations" in cases "Oath" and where by law an affirmation may be substituted for an oath, and in like cases the word "sworn" shall include the word "affirm." Thirteenth. The word "person" may extend and be applied to "Person." bodies politic and corporate. 3 Cush. 45. 4 Cush. 589. ing." Fourteenth. The words "preceding" and "following," when used “Preceding " by way of reference to any section of these statutes, shall mean the and "followsection next preceding or next following; unless some other section is expressly designated in such reference. Fifteenth. When the seal of a court, public office, or corporation, is "Seal." required by law to be affixed to any paper, the word "seal" shall include 1865, 223. an impression of the official seal made upon the paper alone as well as an impression made by means of a wafer or of wax affixed thereto. Sixteenth. The word "state," when applied to the different parts of "State" and the United States, shall extend to and include the district of Columbia and the several territories so called; and the words "United States" shall be construed to include said district and territories. "United States." Seventeenth. The word "town" may be construed to include cities «Town." and districts, unless such construction would be repugnant to the provision of any statute specially relating to such cities or districts. "Place." "Will." "Written" and "By-law" and "ordinance." "Sworn," as lic officers. Const., ch. 6, Eighteenth. The word "place" may mean city and town unless some other meaning is implied by the context. Nineteenth. The term "will" shall include codicils. Twentieth. The words "written" and "in writing," may include printing, engraving, lithographing, and any other mode of representing words and letters; but when the written signature of a person is required by law, it shall always be the proper hand-writing of such person or, in case he is unable to write, his proper mark. Twenty-first. The word "ordinance," as applied to cities, is synonymous with the word "by-law." Twenty-second. The word "sworn" when applied to public officers applied to pub- who are required by the constitution to take the oaths therein prescribed, shall be construed as referring to those oaths; and when applied Amend. const. to other officers it shall be construed to mean sworn to the faithful discharge of the duties of their offices, before a justice of the peace, unless other provision is specially made. art. 1. art. 6. Annual reports of public offi cers, &c., when made. 4, 5, 8. 3, 1857, 40, §§ 1, 1858, 46, §§ 1, 2. Certain reports SECTION 1. The annual reports of public officers, boards, and institutions, which are required by law or custom to be made to the governor and council, the legislature, the secretary of the commonwealth, or to the governor to be by him transmitted to the legislature, (except the address of the governor, the annual reports of the treasurer, auditor, attorney-general, adjutant-general, board of education, board of agriculture, board of insurance commissioners, railroad corporations, the annual statement of the expenses of the offices of the secretary, treasurer, auditor, and adjutant-general, and the returns relating to births, marriages, and deaths,) shall include the year ending on the thirtieth day of September, and shall be submitted to the secretary of the commonwealth on or before the fifteenth day of October annually; and all commissions shall make reports at the same time and in the same manner. SECT. 2. The secretary shall cause such reports and the reports of the auditor of accounts, the boards of education and agriculture, and other reports which the senate and house by concurrent order direct, 1857, 40, §§ 1,2,5. and the annual abstracts prepared in the secretary's office, to be laid 1858, 46, §§ 3, 8. before the legislature in a printed form on the first Wednesday of January annually; but he shall with the advice and consent of the governor and council omit all unnecessary and improper portions of such reports, so as to reduce the printed report to a reasonable length and proper form. Such documents shall be styled the "public" series of documents, and be numbered separately from the "senate" and "house" series. Special reports. 1857, 40, § 11. SECT. 3. Public officers and boards and managers of public institutions shall in addition to their annual reports make special reports when the public interest requires. printed. SECT. 4. There shall be printed eight thousand copies of the report Number to be of the board of education, ten thousand copies of the report of the 1858, 46, §§ 4, 6. board of agriculture, and two thousand copies of each of the other docu- 1859, 22. ments of such public series. If the public interest requires a larger number of any document, the secretary may by special order direct additional copies to the number of one thousand; and he shall include in the annual statement of the expenses of his office a list of the documents thus ordered. reports. SECT. 5. Twelve hundred copies of the reports of the boards of edu- Distribution of cation and agriculture shall be delivered to the secretary of the com- 1858, 46, §§ 4,5,6. monwealth, and the remainder distributed as said boards respectively shall direct; and not more than three hundred copies of a public document shall be placed by the secretary at the disposal of the officer, board, or institution, whose report it is. furnished. SECT. 6. The annual reports of railroad corporations shall be filed in Railroad reseparate complete sets, and a complete set, thus filed, shall be furnished ports, to whom to each member of the legislature within ten days after the beginning 1858, 7. of the session; and one copy of each of said reports shall be furnished 1858, 46, § 8. by the secretary of the commonwealth to every, railroad corporation established in this state. under certain SECT. 7. Documents to be furnished to any person, library, associa- “Public series" tion, or corporation, under any act or resolve passed previous to the to be furnished second day of May one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, shall acts, &c. include only the "public series." All other documents printed by order 1858, 46, § 7. of either or both branches of the legislature shall be distributed as prescribed by their rules and orders. nished to SECT. 8. The secretary shall furnish annually a complete set of the to be furpublic series in a bound volume to each city and town in the common- towns. wealth, to be preserved in some public place therein, which volume shall 1857, 40, § 9. have a title page bearing the date of the year, and a brief index to the 1858, 46, § 10. titles of the several documents. lect. Treasurer, au- ditor, &c., may SECT. 9. Whoever wilfully neglects any duty required by this chap- Penalty for negter shall forfeit ten dollars for each day such neglect continues. SECT. 10. The treasurer, auditor, attorney-general, adjutant-general, board of education, and board of agriculture, may require any portion of their reports to be put in type previous to the first Wednesday in January annually, when the same can be done consistently with the public advantage. The governor may also require his annual address so to be put in type. in type. |