CHAP. 211.—An ACT to amend and re-enact an act passed March
21, 1836, entitled “‘an act to incorporate the town of Salem, in
the county of Botetourt,’’ and all acts amendatory thereof.

Approved February 12, 1892.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia,
That an act passed March twenty-first, eighteen hundred
and thirty-six, entitled an act to incorporate the town of
Salem, in the county of Botetourt, and all acts amendato-
ry thereof, and amendatory of any acts amendatory there-
of, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

§ 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia,
That the town of Salem, in the county of Roanoke, as

chartered by act of assembly of March twenty-first, eigh-
teen hundred and thirty-six, entitled “an act to incorpo-
rate the town of Salem, in the county of Botetourt,” and
all acts amendatory thereof, and amendatory of any acts
amendatory thereof, as heretofore laid off and as may be
hereafter extended, shall continue to be a body politic in
the name of the council of the town of Salem, and as such
shall have, exercise, and enjoy all] the rights, immunities,
and powers, and be subject to all the duties now incum-
bent upon the said town as a body politic; shall have and
exercise all the powers and be subject to all the provisions
of the code of Virginia, except so far as may be herein
otherwise provided.

§ 2. The municipal authorities of said town shall consist
of seven aldermen, who shall be elected every two years by
the qualified voters of the said town as hereinafter pro-
vided.

8 3. The mayor and aldermen shall constitute the coun-
cil of said town, and all the corporate powers of said town
shall be exercised by said council, or under its authority,
except when otherwise ordered.

§ 4. There shall be an election held on the fourth Thurs-
day in May, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, and every
two years thereafter; the voting place in each ward to be
fixed by the aldermen, of which election and location of
voting places the aldermen shall give at least ten days’
notice prior to such election. The election in each ward
shall be held by three of the qualified voters of the said
town, selected by the judge of the county court of said
county, and conducted in the manner prescribed by the
election Jaws of this state, at which election the first ward
shall elect two aldermen, the second ward shall elect two
aldermen, and the third ward shall elect three aldermen,
all of whom shall be qualified voters of said town, and
residents of the wards for which they are elected. The
aldermen so elected shall constitute the council of said
town. At their first meeting after their qualification the
aldermen so elected shall choose one of their number as
mayor, who shall exercise the powers and perform the du-
ties given and required by this act and the general laws
of this state for the government of towns of less than five
thousand inhabitants.

§ 5. Be it further enacted, That the said council shall
be the judge of the election of its own members. When-
ever from any cause a vacancy shal! occur in the office of
mayor or aldermen the same shall be filled by the council
at its next regular meeting.

8 6. Be it further enacted, That the said council shall be
vested with and exercise, individually or collectively, all
the powers and authority which can be exercised by jus-
tices of the peace under the charter, by-laws, and ordi-
nances of said town and under the laws of the state for
prosecuting and suppressing unlawful assemblies, disturb-
ances, and violent and disorderly conduct within the
corporate limits of the said town. They shall have power
to enforce finea, not exceeding one hundred dollars in
amount, for violation of the peace, as may be regulated by
ordinance of said council, and may commit to jail of said
county of Roanoke until said fines are paid, or compel
such person or persons 80 committed to work on the street
and public works or buildings for a term not exceeding
four months, and to have exclusive jurisdiction in all
cases arising under the by-laws and ordinances of the said
town, and to issue any and all proper process, whether
mesne or final, which may be necessary to enforce their
authority.

§ 7. Be it further enacted, That for the purpose of car-
rying into effect the police regulations of said town, the
said town shall be allowed the use of the county jail of
Roanoke county for the safe-keeping and confinement of
all persons who shall be sentenced to imprisonment under
the ordinances of the said town.

_ § 8. The said council shall have power to elect a sergeant
for the said town, and to appoint all necessary police offi-
cers, a town engineer, and town attorney, and also a treasu-
rer and secretary, and prescribe their compensation. The
said treasurer, before he enters upon the duties of his of-
fice, shall execute a bond, with sureties approved by said
council, in penalty double the amount of the revenue of
said town, conditioned for the faithful performance of his
duties. The sergeant, before entering upon the perform-
ance of his office, shall execute his bond, with security ap-
proved by said council, in a penalty double the amount of
the revenue of the said town in the preceding year, condi-
tioned for the faithful performance of the duties of his
office. During his continuance in office as sergeant of
said town he shall have within the corporate limits of said
town, and within one mile around same, the same powers
and perform the same duties and receive the same fees,
and be liable to the same penalties as a constable. In col-
lecting the town taxes the said sergeant may distrain and
sell therefor in like manner as a treasurer may distrain
and sell for state taxes, and shall have in other respects
like powers to enforce the collection thereof. Should the
office of sergeant become vacant by his removal from the
limits of said town, resignation, or otherwise, the said
council shall have power to appoint a sergeant to serve as
such for the unexpired term. The said sergeant, by and
with the consent of the council, can appoint one or more
deputies, and require bond from same with penalty condi-
tioned for the faithful performance of their duties. The
ouncil shall have power to remove any officer enumerated
n this act for malfeasance or misfeasance in office.

§ 9. Be it further enacted, That the mayor or any two.
f said aldermen shall have power to summon a meeting
f said council, which meeting shall be composed of not
ess than four members, including the mayor, or, in his
bsence, a mayor pro tempore, elected by said aldermen,
vyho may be present for the transaction of business, each
laving one vote, except the mayor, who shall have no vote
t any meeting except in case of atie. The said alder-
nen, moreover, shall keep a complete record of all their
yroceedings and accounts in suitable books, and deliver
uch to their successors in office; the same shall at all
imes be open to the inspection of persons qualified to
ote.

§ 10. Be it further enacted, That the said council shall
ilso have power and authority to make all necessary pro-
yisione to prevent accidents by fire, and to supply the
town with water for all necessary purposes, and to pur-
chase engines, hose, fire-hooks, ladders, and other fixtures
useful for preventing accidents by fire, and to organize
firecompanies. The aldermen of said town shall also have
power and authority to negotiate any loan or loans for the
purpose of buying necessary real estate, and for the erect-
ing of public buildings, and for the general improvement
of the said town, so that the amount borrowed shall not
exceed that allowed by law; and shall also have the au-
thority to issue registered or coupon bonds for said loan
or loans, payable at not more than thirty years after date of
said bonds, bearing interest at a rate not greater than six
per centum per annum, payable semi-annually. They
shall also have power and authority to establish markets
and regulate the same, to graduate and pave, or in any
other manner improve the streets, walks, and alleys of
said town; to make and maintain sewers; to change, di-
rect and protect the water courses in said town; to pre-
vent and punish by reasonable fines the practice of firing
guns, or in any manner setting fire to powder, of run-
ning horses, and of all else detrimental to the peace and
quiet of said town; to license and regulate shows and
other public exhibitions, and the same to tax to such ex-
tent as they may deem reasonable and expedient; to pre-
scribe rules for the orderly and regular building of houses
and chimneys; to regulate blacksmiths’ shops and all
other shops considered likely to occasion accidents by fire,
and the erection of stoves and stove-pipes; to regulate
the erection of privies, stables, and cow-sheds, and pre-
scribe their location; to regulate butchers’ stalls and
slaughter-houses; to remove and abate nuisances within
said town at the expense of those who may occasion
them; to prohibit horses, mules, hogs, dogs, cows, and
other animals from running at large within the limits of
said town; to prevent the exhibition of stud-horses and
jack-asses in said town, and generally to pass all by-laws
and ordinances not contrary to the constitution and laws
of this state or of the United States, which the said coun-
cil may think necessary and proper for carrying into effect
the foregoing powers, or that may be hereafter vested in
them, and for regulating the police, preserving the peace
and good order and government of said town, and to
amend or repeal the same at their pleasure, and to en-
force the observance of such by-laws and ordinances un-
der penalties not exceeding one hundred dollars for one
offence, to be recovered, with costs, in the name of said
corporation, before the mayor, or any alderman of said
town, and applied in aid of the taxes imposed upon said
town.
§ 11. Be it further enacted, that the council of said
‘town shall appoint annually an assessor, who shall be a
qualified voter of said town, and who shall assess the
value of all the real and personal property in the cor-
porate limits of said town, except the puis lots, lands,
and buildings belonging to the county of Roanoke located
in the town of Salem, which said assessment shall] not be
higher than the assessments made on said property for
state taxation, and the same shall form the basis of taxa-
tion for said town. And said council shall have power
and authority to levy and collect annually a tax on the
real and personal property in the corporate limits of said
town, except the public lots, lands, and buildings belong-
ing to the county of Roanoke, and on such other subjects
within the said town as are or may be taxed by the revenue
laws of the state, and on dogs belonging to persons resid-
ing in said town, and for the privilege of carrying on any
regular business, trade, or profession by persons residing
without the corporate limits thereof: provided, that the
tax on real estate and personal property shall not exceed
in any one year one dollar on every hundred dollars value
thereof, and that the poll-tax shall not exceed fifty cents
on every male person over twenty-one years of age in any
one year; and for the purpose of carrying on any regular
trade, business, occupation, or profession within said town
by pereons residing without the corporate limits, shall not
exceed in any one year the tax imposed by the said coun-
cil on persons residing within the corporate limits for
carrying on like business, trade, profession or occupation.
Should any person carry on any such trade, business, pro-
fession, or occupation without obtaining license therefor
and paying the tax required by ordinance, he shall be pro-
secuted as for violation of the ordinances of said town as
hereinbefore provided.
§ 12. Be it further enacted, That in order the better to
determine who shall be liable to taxation in the said town
under this act, it is hereby declared that all persons liable
to taxation as hereinbefore provided, and residing in or in
pursuit of any business, trade, or occupation, calling, or
profession in said town, as aforesaid, on the first day of
February annually, shall be subject to taxation the current
year: provided, however, that whenever satisfactory evi-
dence shal] be presented to said council that any person
or persons or corporation has invested within the corpo-
rate limits of said town the sum of five thousand dollars
or more, for the purpose of employing the said capital
strictly in the business of manufacturing within the said
corporate limits any article or articles, the said council
shall, if the manufactories be in actual operation, issue to
said person or persons or corporation, who for the purpose
of this section may be deemed a manufacturer, a license
as such manufacturer, and no corporation or town taxes
shall be assessed on or required to be paid on such license
or on said capital whilst so invested and so employed
within the corporate limits, except as provided in section
fourteenth of this act, during the period of ten years from
the passage of this act.

§ 13. Be it further enacted, That the said council shall
have power and authority to have the sidewalks, curbing,
and footways along any street oralley within said town of
such width as they may prescribe, properly paved or other-
wise suitably improved and repaired and altered whenever
they may think fit, at the proper cost and expense of the
owners or occupants of the lands or lots along the front or
side of which such footways, sidewalks, or other improve-
ments extend, and to levy and collect for that purpose a
special tax on each of such lots or pieces of land propor-
tioned to the number of feet of the same fronting on such
pavement or other improvements, and to levy and collect
for that purpose a special tax on each of such lots or
pieces of land proportioned to the number of feet of the
same fronting on such pavement or other improvement,
which special tax shall be collected by the sergeant of said
town as other taxes on real estate within the said town are
herein directed to becollected. In all cases where a lessee
or tenant shall pay the “expense of any such pavement
along the side or sides of the land or lot by him occupied
for which land or lot, by contract with his lessor or land-
lord, he shall be bound to pay rent, the amount of any
such expense paid by him or collected from him, or made
out of his property, shall be a good and valid set-off against
so much of the rent due or accruing to his lessor or land-
lord.

§ 14. Be it further enacted, That all taxes, whether gen-
eral or special, assessed upon any land or lot in said town’
under this act, are hereby declared to constitute a lien
upon such land or lot, and if the town sergeant shall not
have been able with due diligence to collect the said taxes
by the first day of June of the year after the same were
assessed, he shall, at the first meeting of the council there-
after, make return upon oath of the taxes so uncollected,
and the lands or lots whereon such uncollected taxes were
levied; and thereupon said council shall have authority,
after first duly advertising, to sell said lots or lands so re-
turned delinquent, subject to any lien the state may have
thereon for any state tax unpaid thereon.

§ 15. Be it further enacted, That the said council shal;
also have power to lay off and open new streets, cross-
streets, and alleys of such width and extent as said coun-
cil may think fit and convenient, and alter those already
laid off and opened, or such as may hereafter be laid off
and opened, whether within the original or extended lim-
its of said town.

§ 16. Be it further enacted, That the said town and the
taxable persons and property therein shall be exempt and
free from any poor rates or road taxes, and from contrib-
ufing to any county expenses; and the said town shall, at
its own expense, provide for its own poor and keep its
streets in order: provided, however, that the said town of
Salem shall pay to the county of Roanoke, in nine equal
annual payments (the first of which payments shall be
made as of August first, eighteen hundred and ninety),
that proportion of nine thousand dollars which the value
of the real estate taken in by reason of the extension of
the corporate limits of said town under this act bears to
the value of the whole of the real estate so taken in, and
that of Roanoke county, as ascertained by the assessment
of eighteen hundred and ninety.

§ 17. Be it further enacted, That for the purpose of
maintaining the police regulations of said town under the
authority of this act, and for no other purpose, the juris-
diction of the corporate authorities thereof shall be, and
the same is hereby, made to extend one mile beyond the
limits of said town.

§ 18. Be it further enacted, That the by-laws heretofore
passed by the trustees of the said town of Salem, and
which have not been repealed, shall be, and continue, in
force until altered or repealed by the council of said town.

§°19. Be it further enacted, That the corporate limits of
the said town shall be as follows: Beginning at the point
where the corporate line now crosses the Cove road, north
of Salem; thence with the Cove road six hundred feet
northward; thence west five degrees south to a point due
north of a point two hundred feet west of Langhorne’s
mill; thence due south to the river; thence with said river
eastward to a point due south of the line between the
lands of the Salem improvement company and C. W. Bur-
well; thence northward with said line to the Big Lick
turnpike; thence with the said turnpike northwest to the
present corporate line; thence with same to beginning.

§ 20. Be it further enacted, That the said town shall be:
laid off into three wards, which shall be as follows: the’
first ward shall begin at a point where the western boun-
dary of the said town crosses Main street; thence with Main
street to Water street; thence with Water street to the
river; thence with the river to the western line of said
town; thence with same to the beginning. The second
ward shall begin at the point where the western boun-
dary of said town crosses Main street; thence with Main
street to College street; thence with College street to
Clay street; thence with Clay street to High street ; thence
with High street tothe northern boundary of said town;
thence with the northern boundary of said town to the
western boundary of said town; thence with the western
boundary of the said town to the beginning. The third
ward shall be as follows: beginning at the intersection of
Main and Water streets; thence with Water street to the
river; thence with the river to the eastern boundary of
the town tothe Big Lick turnpike; thence with the cor-
porate line to High street; thence with High street to
Clay street; thence with Clay street to College street;
thence with College street to Main street; thence with
Main street to the beginning. There shall be elected in
the first ward two councilmen, in the second ward two
councilmen, and in the third ward three councilmen.

§ 21. The council may, by proper ordinances, erect in
or near eaid town suitable houses of correction or refor-
mation, also station-houses for the confinement of all
persons charged with a violation of the ordinances of
said town until such time as said persons shall be tried
for such violation, or shall use the county jail as such
station-house, with consent of the board of supervisors of
said county.

§ 22. The said council shall have authcrity to permit
railroads, to be operated either by steam, horse, or elec-
tric power, to be built or laid through the streets of said
town, and to regulate the speed, designate the routes and
grades, and limit the rates of charges between points
within the corporate limits for passengers and freight by
street railways, and may wholly exclude the same when
the welfare of the town demands such exclusion.

§ 23. The said council shall have power, by proper or-
dinances, to forbid the sale of liquors (such as is required
by law to obtain a license to sell) on Sunday, or the sale
of the same to minors without the consent of parent or
guardian, and to prevent, forbid, and punish the sale of
same at any place not duly licensed, and to impose fines
for violation of any such ordinances in addition to those
prescribed by state laws.

§ 24. In order to sewer said town the council shall have
power and authority to divide the said town into conve-
nient sewer districts, to be designated sewer district, num-
ber one, sewer district, number two, et cetera. Upon the
completion of the sewerage in any such district, it shall
be lawful for said town to assess three-fourths of the
costs of said sewerage upon the lot-owners of said district,
to be assessed against such lot in proportion to number of
square feet of said lot, which shall be collected as other
taxes and assessments are collected, and the sum as afore-
said shall constitute a lien on said lot, the council to have
power to make said assessment payable in such instal-
ments as it may deem proper, the deferred instalments to
bear interest at the rate of six per centum per annum, the
council to have a list of said lots and the amounts due
thereon for said sewer assessments recorded in the clerk’s
office of Roanoke county: provided, that any lot-owner
may pay the whole of said assessments at any time before
maturity and have the lot so paid on released from the
lien of said assessment: provided further, that no Jat.
shall be subject to said sewer assessment until said sewer
pipes are so laid that same can be used by the occupant
of said lot for any building that can be erected on said lot
on grade line established on streets on which said lot
abuts, nor unless proper facilities for using the water from
the water system of said town be given to said occupant.
When the sewer assessment is paid for, or on account of
any lot, there shall be forever attached to said lot the
privilege of using said sewer under the regulatjons and
rules prescribed by the ordinances of said council, without
any additional tax for said privilege, the said council to
keep the sewer mains in proper repair. Upon default
being made in payment of said sewer tax assessment, or
any instalment thereof, the lot or lots upon which such
default is made shall be liable for sale in the same way as
lots or lands delinquent for non-payment of taxes as
hereinbefore provided.

§ 25. Be it further enacted, That the said town shall
have the right to establish, or cause to be established, gas
and electric works for the use of the said town.

§26. Be it further enacted, That all registration of
voters and elections held in the said town shall be as pro-
vided by the constitution and laws of this state.

§ 27. Be it further enacted, That the extension of the
corporate limits of the town of Salem shall not exempt
the property taken into the town by such extension from
its liability to taxation for the payment of a subscription
of two hundred thousand dollars, or any part thereof,
made by the county of Roanoke to the Valley railroad

Google
Ompany, which lands were outside the corporate limits
yf said town, and were liable to Such taxation at the time
aid subscription was made.

§ 28. Be it further enacted, That the olectors residing
mn the corporate limits of the town of Salem shall not, at
any election to be held hereafter for supervisors of Salem
magisterial district, in Roanoke county, have the right to
vote for such supervisor. ,

§ 29. Be it furtherenacted, That the electors residing in
the corporate limits of the town of Salem shall not vote in
any election that may hereafter be held to ascertain
whether or not the said county of Roanoke shall make a
subscription to the capital stock of any railroad company
or other corporation, or in any other matter affecting the
revenues of the said county.

8 30. Be it further enacted, That upon the additional
property taken into the corporate limits of Salem by this
act, taxes for the year eighteen hundred and ninety shall
be assessed and collected by the town of Salem, and not
by the county of Roanoke.

§ 31. Be it further enacted, That all acts and parts of
acts concerning the town of Salem, in the county of Roa-
noke, or the lands and lots therein, which are in conflict
with or contrary to the provisions of this act, shall be, and
the same are hereby, repealed.

2. This act shall be in force from its passage.