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1 Be it enacted by the People of the state of Illinois represented in the General Assembly. That it shall be the duty of the Clerk of the County Commissioners Court, when the description and valuation of any estray2 horse[,] mare, mule[,] or ass shall be transmitted to him by a Justice of the Peace in accordance to the
provisions of the first section on the act to which this is an amendment, and in ten
days thereafter, to make out a copy thereof, and transmit the same to the publisher
of a newspaper in the county of where said estray is taken up, and endorse on said paper,”Estray papers,” & shall
also forward with said papers the sum of one dollars to pay said printer; which sum then taken up is required to deposite with the Clerk prior to the expiration of the said ten days. In case there is no
newspaper printed in the County where such estray is taken up, then it shall be the
duty of the said Clerk to transmit said papers & money to the publisher of a newspaper
printed in some adjoining county if any there be; and if there be no newspaper printed
in an adjoining County, then to the Publisher of some the nearest newspaper printed in this state. It shall be the duty of the publisher of the pa newspaper to which it
is
directed
to said papers are transmitted, to publish the said advertisement, and transmit one copy of each number of his paper containing
said advertisement to the said Clerk of the County Commissioners Court who transmitted sent him said advertisement, free
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of charge, which shall be regularly filed by said Clerk in their respective
^his^ office for the examination of those who may desire it.
This act to take effect on the first day of March next, and the second section of
the act to which this is an amendment shall be & is hereby declared to be repealed from &
after the said first day of March next.
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Read 1. 2 & referred to Com. Jud. Sel. Com[Select Committee].
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[01]/[03]/[1840]
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laid
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Laid on the table till the 4th day of July next.
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laid on table till 4th July
1John J. Hardin introduced HB 37 in the House of Representatives on December 19, 1839. The House referred the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary,
which reported back on December 30, recommending the bill’s passage. The House then
referred the bill to a select committee, which reported back the bill on January 3,
1840, recommending its rejection. The House then tabled the bill and proposed amendments
by a vote of 64 yeas to 18 yeas, with Abraham Lincoln voting nay.
Illinois House Journal. 1839. 11th G. A., special sess., 63, 103, 123.
2An estray is any domestic animal found wandering, whose ownership is unknown; the
term also applies to water craft found adrift. Settlers only slowly brought the Illinois
prairies stretching through the central third of the state under cultivation, and
the sparse timber made the erection of extensive wooden fences impractical. Farmers
commonly turned livestock loose to graze freely on the prairies in mild weather, thus
requiring rules for how and when loose animals could be claimed and by whom. Open-range
methods of livestock raising were common into the 1850s and in some areas continued
into the 1870s, when the advent of inexpensive, durable barbed wire made possible
the fencing of large tracts of grazing land.
Henry Campbell Black, ed., Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th ed., (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1990), 552; Paul C. Henlein, Cattle Kingdom in the Ohio Valley, 1783-1860 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1959), 19, 62-64; Allan G. Bogue, From Prairie to Corn Belt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 73-79, 140.
Handwritten Document, 2 page(s), Folder 36, HB 37, GA Session 11-S, Illinois State Archives (Springfield, IL) ,