"If any negro who shall be taken up as a runaway, and brought before any justice of the peace, will not declare the name of his or her owner, such justice shall in such case, and he is hereby required, by a warrant under his hand, to commit the said negro-slave to the jail of the county wherein he or she shall be taken up; and the sheriff or undersheriff of the county into whose custody the said runaway shall be committed, shall forthwith cause notice in writing of such commitment to be set up on the Court-house door of the said county, and there continued during the space of two months; in which notice a full description of the said runaway and his clothing shall be particularly set down."--When the owner is supposed to be a resident in another State, the jailer is obliged by sec. 15, "by the first opportunity after such commitment, to send a description of such negro or runaway, together with the account of the time of commitment, and the county where such runaway is committed, to the press, to be advertised in the State Gazette."--Sec. 16 provides, that, "whenever any negro-slave shall be taken up in this State as a runaway, and confined in any jail for the space of twelve months, and the apprehension and confinement of said slave have been advertised in the State Gazette at least six months, and the owner does not apply to prove property in said time, then it shall be lawful for the court of pleas and quarter sessions of the county in which said runaway is confined, to command their sheriff to expose said negro-slave to public sale for ready money, giving three months' notice in some public newspaper in this State, at the Court-house door, and at two other public places in the said county, of the time and place of sale, and of the circumstances under which the said slave is to be sold."--Sect. 17 gives the sheriff "two and a half per centum on the amount of sale."--Sect. 18 declares that "the bill of sale of the sheriff shall vest in the purchaser an absolute right to the said slave." The residue of the amount of sales, after deducting commissions and prison charges, is directed to be paid to the county trustee for the use of the county. Similar laws, authorizing the sale into slavery of negroes taken up as runaway slaves, who cannot from any cause prove their freedom, are found in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. A similar law has always existed in the District of Columbia, originally enacted, and since supported, by Northern freemen. _Our_ law, however, differs from the others in offering to the marshal a high bribe to induce him to sell _free_ negroes, by providing that the _proceeds of the persons sold may remain in his own pocket_, unless after the sale the master shall be discovered, and shall claim the balance.