within said nine months, such person shall forfeit and pay
for every such offence, five dollars, and the further sum of one
dollar for every month such person shall neglect to deliver the
same, to be sued for and recovered by any person who will sue for
the same, the one half to the use of such prosecutor, and the
residue to the use of the poor of the township in which such
delinquent shall reside.

"3. _And be it enacted_, That the person entitled to the service
of any child born as aforesaid, may, nevertheless, within one
year after the birth of such child, elect to abandon such right;
in which case a notification of such abandonment, under the hand
of such person, shall be filed with the clerk of the township, or
where there may be a county poor-house established, then with the
clerk of the board of trustees of said poor-house of the county
in which such person shall reside; but every child so abandoned
shall be maintained by such person until such child arrives to
the age of one year, and thereafter shall be considered as a
pauper of such township or county, and liable to be bound out by
the trustees or overseers of the poor in the same manner as other
poor children are directed to be bound out, until, if a male, the
age of twenty-five, and if a female, the age of twenty-one; and
such child, while such pauper, until it shall be bound out, shall
be maintained by the trustees or overseers of the poor of such
county or township, as the case may be, at the expense of this
State; and for that purpose the director of the board of chosen
freeholders of the county is hereby required, from time to time,
to draw his warrant on the treasurer in favor of such trustees or
overseers for the amount of such expense, not exceeding the rate
of three dollars per month; provided the accounts for the same be
first certified and approved by such board of trustees, or the
town committee of such township; and every person who shall omit
to notify such abandonment as aforesaid, shall be considered as
having elected to retain the service of such child, and be liable
for its maintenance until the period to which its servitude is
limited as aforesaid.

"A. Passed at Trenton, Feb. 15, 1804."

The public journals of the larger Northern cities began to take a
lively inte