AN ACT to provide for, and regulate the rates of charges, for the publication of legal documents.

Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Montana :

SEC. 1. Publishers of newspapers in this Territory shall be entitled to the following fees for the publication of all legal advertisements: For the first insertion of each folio of one hundred words, five dollars; for each subsequent insertion. two dollars and fifty cents.

SEC. 2. When any notice or advertisement shall be required by law, or the order of any court, to be published in any newspaper, the certificate of the printer or publisher, under oath, with a printed copy of such notice or advertisement annexed, stating the number of times which the same shall have been published, and the dates of the first and last paper containing the same shall be sufficient evidence of the publication, therein set forth. Notices, when thus certified, shall be part of the records of the court.

SEC. 3. The printer of such legal advertisement shall be entitled to payment of his full fees before being required to furnish a certificate of publication.

SEC. 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

[Approved January 9, 1865.] ✔

AN ACT declaratory of the rights of occupants of the public domain, except as against the United States.

Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Montana:

SEC. 1. Conceding to the United States of America the primary and paramount right to dispose of the soil of this Territory, according to the laws existing or to be enacted by Congress, and

full and complete exemption from every form of taxation of their property, it is hereby declared that as between all citizens now residing in, or who shall hereafter come to reside in this Territory, and as between them, or any of them, and others having or claiming now, or hereafter pretending to have or claim, any right to occupy, possess or enjoy any portion of the public domain, situate within the boundaries of this Territory, and as between each and every one of them, and all other persons, associations, corporations, and powers, except the Government of the United States of America, the right as the same may exist under the local laws, to occupy, possess and enjoy any tract or portion thereof, not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres, in such form as may be prescribed by the laws of the United States, shall be respected in law and in equity in all the courts and tribunals of this Territory, as a chattel real, possessing the character of real estate.

SEC. 2. All rights of occupancy, possession and enjoyment of any tract or portion of the said public domain, except mining claims, shall be expressed and described in a declaration, in cases of original occupation, and by deed in cases of purchase, duly acknowledged by some officer authorized to take acknowledgments of deeds, and recorded in the office of the recorder of the county in which the land is situated.

SEC. 3. The owner of every claim or improvement on any tract or parcel of land, has transferable interest therein, which may be sold by execution or otherwise, and any sale of such improvement is a sufficient consideration to sustain a promise.

SEC. 4. All rights of occupancy, possession and enjoyment of any tract or portion of the said public domain acquired before the passage of this act, shall be ascertained, adjudged and determined by the local law of the district or precinct, in which such tract is situated, as it existed on the day when such rights were acquired, or as it thereafter may have existed, then by the common custom then prevailing, in respect to such property, in the district or precinct in which it existed.

SEC. 5. The declaration of an occupant of a tract or portion of the public domain, required by the second section of this act, shall be substantially in the following form:

To all whom these presents may concern: A. B. of in the County of

Know ye, that I,

in the Territory of

Montana, do hereby declare and publish as a legal notice to all the world, that I have a valid right to the occupation, possession and enjoyment of all and singular that tract or parcel of land not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres, situate, lying and being in the Township of in the County of in the Territory of Montana, bounded and described as follows: [here insert the description;] together with all and singular the hereditaments and appurtenances, thereunto belonging or in anywise appertaining. Witness my hand and seal, this thousand eight hundred and sixty

day of

one

To be subscribed with the full christian name and surname of the person making the application; acknowledged in the same manner as a deed of real estate.

SEC. 6. All persons, associations, and companies, now claiming individually and collectively, the right to the occupancy, possession and enjoyment of any tract or parcel of the said public domains, except mining claims, under or by virtue of the terms expressed in the fourth section of this act, and other muniments of title, for record, with the recorder of the county in which the lands shall be situated, within three months from the time a duly elected recorder shall enter upon his duties, unless within that time the books of record in which they may have been recorded according to the local law or custom shall have been deposited in said office for the public use.

SEC. 7. In all legal or equitable proceedings hereafter instituted in any court in this Territory, the record of any declaration deed or mortgage, or any other muniments of right referred to in the third and fifth sections of this act, shall be received except as against the United States, and all other persons claiming under the United States, as presumptive evidence of the regularity of the paper itself, under the local law or custom existing at the true time of its execution, and if the regularity thereof shall be challenged, the burden of proving the alleged irregularity shall be upon the party making the challenge.

SEC. 8. The declaration of every occupant of any tract or portion of the public domain mentioned in section five of this act, shall not be construed to include any gold-bearing quartz lodes, silver lodes, or gold diggings, but said lodes or diggings shall be excepted from the tract of said occupant, and shall be subject to be

occupied, possessed and enjoyed, according to the local laws or customs of the district in which the same may be situated, and if there shall be no local law or custom on said district, then by the custom prevailing in the nearest mining district thereto.

SEC. 9. This act shall take effect, and be in full force, from and after its passage.

[Approved January 9, 1865.]

AN ACT to prevent the trespassing of animals upon private property.

Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Montana:

SEC. 1. If any horse, mule, jack, jennie, hog, sheep, or any kind of neat cattle, shall break into any ground inclosed by a lawful fence, the owner or manager of such animal, shall be liable to the owner of such inclosed premises for all damages sustained by such trespass; and if the trespass be repeated, by the neglect of the owner or manager of such animals, he or she or they shall, for the second or every subsequent offence or trespass, be subject to double the damages of such trespass to the owner of said premises.

SEC. 2. If any owner or occupier of any grounds or crops trespassed upon, by animals entering upon or breaking into his or her or their inclosure, whether the same be inclosed by a lawful fence or not, shall maim or materially injure the animal or animals so trespassing, he, she, or they, shall be liable to the owner or owners of such stock for all damages and for the costs accruing from a suit for damages, when necessarily resorted to for their recovery: Provided, the owner or occupier of such grounds or crops so damaged and so trespassed upon may take up and safely keep, at the expense of the owner or owners thereof, after due notice to said owners of such animals, or as many of them as may be necessary to cover the damages he may have sustained, for ten days; the same may be posted under the estray laws of the Territory, and before restitution shall be had by the owner or owners of such animals, all damages done by them, as well as the expense of posting and keeping them, shall be paid. Any justice of the peace in the township

or precinct shall have jurisdiction of all such reclamation of animals, together with the damages, expenses of keeping and posting the same, when the amount claimed does not exceed one hundred dollars.

SEC. 3. When two or more persons shall cultivate lands under one inclosure, neither of them shall place or cause to be placed any animal on his, her, or their, ground, to the injury or damage of the other or others, but shall be liable for all damages thus sustained by the other or others, and if repeated after due notice is given, and for every subsequent repetition, double damages, to be recovered in any court having jurisdiction.

SEC. 4. This act shall be in force from and after its passage. [Approved January 9, 1865.]

AN ACT creating the office of District Attorney, in each of the organized judicial districts of Montana Territory.

Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Montana:

. SEC. 1. There shall be a district attorney for each of the organized districts as now established by law. They shall hold their offices for the term of two years, and until their successors are elected or appointed as required by law.

SEC. 2. They shall each, before entering upon the duties of their offices, execute and file with the judge of their respective districts, a bond, to be approved by said judge, with one or more sureties, in the sum of five thousand dollars, conditioned that they will well and truly pay over all moneys collected by them as such district attorneys, and for the faithful performance of their duties; which bond shall be forwarded, by said judge, and filed in the office of the secretary of the Territory.

SEC. 3. They shall be public prosecutors in their respective districts, and shall sign all bills and indictments that may be found by the grand jury, and prosecute, on behalf of the people, all public prosecutions, wherein the people of this Territory are a party.

SEC. 4. They shall, when required by any member of the grand