Circuit Courts have jurisdiction, general and original, with the District Courts, in all civil actions and special proceedings, and exclusive jurisdiction in all appeals and writs of error from inferior courts, in civil matters. And exclusive jurisdiction in matters of estates and general probate business.

Justices of the Peace have jurisdiction in civil matters where $100 or less is involved. By consent of parties, the jurisdiction may be extended to an amount not exceeding $300. They have jurisdiction to try and determine all public offense less than felony, committed within their respective counties, in which the fine, by law, does not exceed $100 or the imprisonment thirty days.

LIMITATION OF ACTIONS.

Action for injuries to the person or reputation; for a statute penalty; and to enforce a mechanics' lien, must be brought in two (2) years. Those against a public officer within three (3) years.

Those founded on unwritten contracts; for injuries to property; for relief on the ground of fraud; and all other actions not provided for, within five (5) years.

Those founded on written contracts; on judgments of any court (except those provided for in next section), and for the recovery of real property, within ten (10) years.

Those founded on judgment of any court of record in the United States, within twenty (20) years.

All above limits, except those for penalties and forfeitures, are extended in favor of minors and insane persons, until one year after the disability is removed-time during which defendant is a non-resident of the State shall not be included in computing any of the above periods.

Actions for the recovery of real property, sold for non-payment of taxes, must be brought within five years after the Treasurer's Deed is executed and recorded, except where a minor or convict or insane person is the owner, and they shall be allowed five years after disability is removed, in which to bring action.

JURORS.

All qualified electors of the State, of good moral character, sound judgment, and in full possession of the senses of hearing and seeing, are competent jurors in their respective counties.

United States officers, practicing attorneys, physicians and clergymen, acting professors or teachers in institutions of learning, and persons disabled by bodily infirmity or over sixty-five years of age, are exempt from liability to act as jurors.

Any person may be excused from serving on a jury when his own interests or the public's will be materially injured by his attendance, or when the state of his health or the death, or sickness of his family requires his ab

sence.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

was restored by the Seventeenth General Assembly, making it optional with the jury to inflict it or not.

A MARRIED WOMAN

may convey or incumber real estate, or interest therein, belonging to her; may control the same or contract with reference thereto, as other persons may convey, encumber, control or contract.

She may own, acquire, hold, convey and devise property, as her husband

may.

Her husband is not liable for civil injuries committed by her.

She may convey property to her husband, and he may convey to her.
She may constitute her husband her attorney in fact.

EXEMPTIONS FROM EXECUTION.

A resident of the State and head of a family may hold the following property exempt from execution: All wearing apparel of himself and family kept for actual use and suitable to the condition, and the trunks or other receptacles necessary to contain the same; one musket or rifle and shot-gun; all private libraries, family Bibles, portraits, pictures, musical instruments, and paintings not kept for the purpose of sale; a seat or pew occupied by the debtor or his family in any house of public worship; an interest in a public or private burying ground not exceeding one acre; two cows and a calf; one horse, unless a horse is exempt as hereinafter provided; fifty sheep and the wool therefrom, and the materials manufactured from said wool; six stands of bees; five hogs and all pigs under six months; the necessary food for exempted animals for six months; all flax raised from one acre of ground, and manufactures therefrom; one bedstead and necessary bedding for every two in the family; all cloth manufactured by the defendant not exceeding one hundred yards; household and kitchen furniture not exceeding two hundred dollars in value; all spinning wheels and looms; one sewing machine and other instruments of domestic labor kept for actual use; the necessary provisions and fuel for the use of the family for six months; the proper tools, instruments, or books of the debtor, if a farmer, mechanic, surveyor, clergyman, lawyer, physician, teacher or professor; the horse or the team, consisting of not more than two horses or mules, or two yokes of cattle, and the wagon or other vehicle, with the proper harness or tackle, by the use of which the debtor, if a physician, public officer, farmer, teamster or other laborer, habitually earns his living; and to the debtor, if a printer, there shall also be exempt a printing press and the types, furniture and material necessary for the use of such printing press, and a newspaper office to the value of twelve hundred dollars; the earnings of such debtor, or those of his family, at any time within ninety days next preceding the levy.

Persons unmarried and not the head of a family, and non-residents, have exempt their own ordinary wearing apparel and trunks to contain the same. There is also exempt, to a head of a family, a homestead, not exceeding forty acres; or, if inside city limits, one-half acre with improvements, value not limited. The homestead is liable for all debts contracted prior to its acquisition as such, and is subject to mechanics' liens for work or material furnished for the same.

An article, otherwise exempt, is liable, on execution, for the purchase money thereof.

Where a debtor, if a head of a family, has started to leave the State, he

shall have exempt only the ordinary wearing apparel of himself and family, and other property in addition, as he may select, in all not exceeding seventyfive dollars in value.

A policy of life insurance shall inure to the separate usc of the husband or wife and children, entirely independent of his or her creditors.

WOLF SCALPS.

A bounty of one dollar is paid for wolf scalps.

MARKS AND BRANDS.

Any person may adopt his own mark or brand for his domestic animals, or have a description thereof recorded by the township clerk.

No person shall adopt the recorded mark or brand of any person residing in his township.

DAMAGES FROM TRESPASS.

When any person's lands are enclosed by a lawful fence, the owner of any domestic animal injuring said lands is liable for the damages, and the damages may be recovered by suit against the owner, or may be made by distraining the animals doing the damage; and if the party injured elect to recover by action against the owner, no appraisement need be made by the trustees, as in case of distraint.

When trespassing animals are distrained within twenty-four hours, Sunday not included, the party injured shall notify the owner of said animals, if known; and if the owner fails to satisfy the party within twenty-four hours thereafter, the party shall have the township trustees assess the damages, and notice shall be posted up in three conspicuous places in the township, that the stock, or part thereof, shall, on the tenth day after posting the notice, between the honrs of 1 and 3 P. M., be sold to the highest bidder, to satisfy said damages, with costs.

Appeal lies, within twenty days, from the action of the trustees to the circuit court.

Where stock is restrained, by police regulation or by law, from running at large, any person injured in his improved or cultivated lands by any do mestic animal, may, by action against the owner of such animal, or by distraining such animal, recover his damages, whether the lands whereon the injury was done were inclosed by a lawful fence or not.

ESTRAYS.

An unbroken animal shall not be taken up as an estray between May 1st and November 1st, of each year, unless the same be found within the lawful enclosure of a householder, who alone can take up such animal, unless some other person gives him notice of the fact of such animal coming on his place; and if he fails, within five days thereafter, to take up such estray, any other householder of the township may take up such estray and proceed with it as if taken on his own premises, provided he shall prove to the Justice of the Peace such notice, and shall make affidavit where such estray was taken up.

Any swine, sheep, goat, horse, neat cattle or other animal distrained (for damage done to one's enclosure), when the owner is not known, shall be treated as an estray.

Within five days after taking up an estray, notice containing a full description thereof, shall be posted up in three of the most public places in the township; and in ten days, the person taking up such estray shall go before a Justice of the Peace in the township and make oath as to where such estray was taken up, and that the marks or brands have not been altered, to his knowledge. The estray shall then be appraised, by order of the Justice, and the appraisement, description of the size, age, color, sex, marks and brands of the estray shall be entered by the Justice in a book kept for that purpose, and he shall, within ten days thereafter, send a certified copy thereof to the County Auditor.

When the appraised value of an estray does not exceed five dollars, the Justice need not proceed further than to enter the description of the estray on his book, and if no owner appears within six months, the property shall vest in the finder, if he has complied with the law and paid all costs.

Where appraised value of estray exceeds five and is less than ten dollars, if no owner appears in nine months, the finder has the property, if he has complied with the law and paid costs.

An estray, legally taken up, may be used or worked with care and mod

eration.

If any person unlawfully take up an estray, or take up an estray and fail to comply with the law regarding estrays, or use or work it contrary to above, or work it before having it appraised, or keep such estray out of the county more than five days at one time, before acquiring ownership, such offender shall forfeit to the county twenty dollars, and the owner may recover double damages with costs.

If the owner of any estray fail to claim and prove his title for one year after the taking up, and the finder shall have complied with the law, a complete title vests in the finder.

But if the owner appear within eighteen months from the taking up, prove his ownership and pay all costs and expenses, the finder shall pay him the appraised value of such estray, or may, at his option, deliver up the estray.

FENCES.

A lawful fence is fifty-four inches high, made of rails, wire or boards, with posts not more than ten feet apart where rails are used, and eight feet where boards are used, substantially built and kept in good repair; or any other fence, in the opinion of the fence viewers, shall be declared a lawful fence provided the lower rail, wire or board be not more than twenty nor less than sixteen inches from the ground.

The respective owners of lands enclosed with fences shall maintain partition fences between their own and next adjoining enclosure so long as they improve them in equal shares, unless otherwise agreed between them.

If any party neglect to maintain such partition fence as he should maintain, the fence viewers (the township trustees), upon complaint of aggrieved party, may, upon due notice to both parties, examine the fence, and, if found insufficient, notify the delinquent party, in writing, to repair or rebuild the same within such time as they judge reasonable.

If the fence be not repaired or rebuilt accordingly, the complainant may

do so, and the same being adjudged sufficient by the fence viewers, and the value thereof, with their fees, being ascertained and certified under their hands, the complainant may demand of the delinquent the sum so ascertained, and if the same be not paid in one month after demand, may recover it with one per cent a month interest, by action.

In case of disputes, the fence viewers may decide as to who shall erect or maintain partition fences, and in what time the same shall be done; and in case any party neglect to maintain or erect such part as may be assigned to him, the aggrieved party may erect and maintain the same, and recover double damages.

No person, not wishing his land enlosed, and not using it otherwise than in common, shall be compelled to maintain any partition fence; but when he uses or incloses his land otherwise than in common, he shall contribute to the partition fences.

Where parties have had their lands inclosed in common, and one of the owners desire to occupy his separate and apart from the other, and the other refuses to divide the line or build a sufficient fence on the line when divided, the fence viewers may divide and assign, and upon neglect of the other to build as ordered by the viewers, the one may build the other's part and recover as above.

And when one incloses land which has lain uninclosed, he must pay for one-half of each partition fence between himself and his neighbors.

Where one desires to lay not less than twenty feet of his lands, adjoining his neighbor, out to the public to be used in common, he must give his neighbor six months' notice thereof.

Where a fence has been built on the land of another through mistake, the owner may enter upon such premises and remove his fence and material within six months after the division line has been ascertained. Where the material to build such a fence has been taken from the land on which it was built, then, before it can be removed, the person claiming must first pay for such material to the owner of the land from which it was taken, nor shall such a fence be removed at a time when the removal will throw open or expose the crops of the other party; a reasonable time must be given beyond the six months to remove crops.

ADOPTION OF CHILDREN.

Any person competent to make a will can adopt as his own the minor child of another. The consent of both parents, if living and not divorced or separated, and if divorced or separated, or if unmarried, the consent of the parent lawfully having the custody of the child; or if either parent is dead, then the consent of the survivor, or if both parents be dead, or the child have been and remain abandoned by them, then the consent of the Mayor of the city where the child is living, or if not in the city, then of the Clerk of the Circuit Court of the county shall be given to such adoption by an instrument in writing, signed by parties consenting, and stating the names of the parties, if known, the name of the child, if known, the name of the person adopting such child, and the residence of all, if known, and declaring the name by which the child is thereafter to be called and known, and stating, also, that such child is given to the person adopting, for the purpose of adoption as his own child.

The person adopting shall also sign said instrument, and all the parties