LAWS OF MARYLAND, JANUARY SESSION, 1882.
CHAPTER 138.

AN ACT to provide for the preservation, arrangement, publi-
cation and sale of Ancient Documents pertaining to Mary-
land.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of
Maryland, That the Commissioner of the Land Office be and
he is hereby authorized and directed to deliver at Annapolis,
to the Maryland Historical Society or to its agent, all the

records, archives and ancient documents of the province and
State of Maryland of any date prior to the acknowledgment
of the independence of the United States by Great Britain,
and to keep a list thereof; and that any and all public officers
in whose possession any of such records, archives and docu-
ments aforesaid may be, are hereby authorized and directed to
deliver the same to the said Maryland Historical Society as
aforesaid, and to keep a list thereof; and that the said Mary-

Deliver an-
cient docu-
ments.

land Historical Society is hereby declared to be the custodian
of such records, archives and documents, the State of Mary-
land remaining the owner thereof; provided that the said
Maryland Historical Society shall be understood, by the receiv-
ing and giving receipt for records, archives and documents
aforesaid, to agree that such recoras, archives and documents
shall be safely kept, properly arranged and catalogued, and
that such of them as are of historical importance shall be edited
and published under the supervision of said society ; and pro-
vided that said records shall at all times be accessible to the
inspection of any citizen of this State free of all charges and
fees.
SEC. 2. And be it enacted, For the purpose of properly
arranging, editing and publishing the aforesaid documents as
hereinbefore provided, as well as other documents pertaining

Custodian of
records.

to the history of Maryland, the sum of two thousand dollars is
hereby appropriated and shall be paid to the said Maryland
Historical Society out of any funds in the treasury not other-
wise appropriated, as follows: One thousand dollars thereof
upon demand at any time after the aforesaid records, archives
and documents shall have been removed and placed in the

Appropria-
tion, to whom
paid.