Chap. 651.—An ACT to amend and re-enact section 1145 of the Code of Virginia,
so as to provide additional requirements where charters are granted to engage
in the business of taking or catching fish for the purpose of converting the
same into oil or manure in this State.

Approved April 2, 1902.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section
eleven hundred and forty-five of the Code of Virginia be amended and re-
enacted so as to read as follows:

§ 1145. How charters of incorporations granted, altered, or amended
by circuit courts; where to be recorded.—Any five or more persons who
shall desire to form a joint-stock company for the conduct of any enter-
prise or business which may be lawfully conducted by an individual or
by a body politic or corporate, except to construct a turnpike to be con-
structed beyond the limits of the county, or a railroad or canal, or to es-
tablish a bank of circulation, may make, sign, and acknowledge before
any justice or notary, or county or corporation judge, or clerk of a county,
corporation, or circuit court, a certificate in writing, setting forth the
name of the company, the purposes for which it is formed, the capital
stock, and its division into shares, the amount of real estate proposed to
be held by it, the place at which its principal office is to be kept, the chief
business to be transacted, and the names and residences of the officers who
for the first year are to manage the affairs of the company: provided, that
no charter shall be granted to any persons to engage in the business of
taking or catching fish for the purpose of converting the same into oil
or manure, unless said certificate shall state, in addition to the require-
ments above, that the incorporators are citizens of this State, and have
been for the twelve months preceding the application for said charter,
and that said incorporators are not engaged, and will not be engaged, and
interested, nor will they share the profits of said business with any non-
resident of the State of Virginia, nor shall the stock of said company be
sold to, or be owned by, any person not a resident of the State of Vir-
ginia.

This certificate may be presentcd to the circuit court of the county or
the circuit or corporation court of the corporation wherein the principal
office of the company is to be located, or to the judge thereof in vacation.
The said court or judge in vacation shall have a discretion to grant or
refuse to said persons a charter of incorporation upon the terms set forth
in said certificate, or grant it upon such other terms as may be adjudged
reasonable. If the charter be granted, it shall be recorded by the clerk of
said court in a book to be provided and kept for the purpose, and shall be
certified by him to the secretary of the Commonwealth, to be in like man-
ner recorded in his office. And in all cases where charters may hereafter
be granted to persons to engage in the business of taking or catching fish
for the purpose of converting the same into oil or manure in this State,
it shall be the duty of the secretary of said company, on the first day of
every June hereafter following, to furnish a statement, giving the names
of the owners, the amount and number of every certificate of stock issued
by said company, together with the residence or residences of said owner
or owners, which statement shall be sworn to and delivered by the said
secretary of the said company to the clerk of the county court of the
county in which the principal office of said company may be located, who
shall record the same in a book to be kept for that purpose, which shall
be open for inspection as all other records in said office.

Any charter heretofore or hereafter granted to a company under the
provisions of this section by a court or judge thereof in vacation may be
altered or amended, or the corporate name of the company be changed,
by the said court or the judge in vacation on the application of the com-
pany authorized by a majority of the stockholders in general meeting.
And any charter heretofore or hereafter granted by the general assembly
which, under the provisions of this section, might have been granted by
764 ACTS OF ASSEMBLY.

a court or judge may in like manner and on like application be altered
or amended, or the corporate name of the company changed, by the cir-
cuit court of the county or circuit court or corporation court of the cor-
poration whercin the principal office of the company is, or by the Judge
of such court in vacation. Said alteration, amendment, or change shall
be recorded by said clerk, and in the office of the secretary of the Com-
monwealth as hereinbefore provided for recording charters, and shall t«
as effectual and legal, from that time, as if originally a part of said
charter. But nothing contained in this section shall be held or constrw «
as denying to any building fund association which has heretofore beer
organized and incorporated under the act of May twenty-ninth, eighteer
hundred and fifty-two, and amendatory acts, all the rights, powers, priv:
ilges, and franchises granted to and vested in such as ssociations und
said act. And it shall not be lawful for the general assembly to gran
relief, or to incorporate any company, or to alter or amend the charte:
of any corporation, provision for which is made in this section, unles:
application shall have been first made to such circuit or corporatior
court, or to the judge thereof in vacation, and refused.
2. This act shall be in force from its passage.