suits, complaints, matters, and causes whatsoever; and that they and their successors may have a common seal, and may change and alter the same at their pleasure; and also that they and their successors by the name of the German Society of the city of New-York, shall be in law capable of purchasing, holding and conveying any estate, real or personal, for the public use of the said corporation, provided that the lands, tenements, and hereditaments which it shall be lawful for the said corporation to hold, shall be only such as shall be requisite for the purpose of erecting a house or hall thereon, in which to meet and to transact the business of the said corporation, or such as shall have been bona fide mortgaged to it by way of security, or conveyed in satisfaction of debts previously contracted in the course of its business, or purchased at sales, on judgments which shall have been obtained for such debts, and provided also, that the amount of the real and personal estate which the said corporation are hereby enabled to hold, shall not at anyone time exceed the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars.
And be it further enacted, That the officers of the said corporation shall be a President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, and seven Assistants, who shall hold their offices for one year, and shall be citizens of this state, and be elected on the last Monday in January in every year, at such time and place in the City of New York as shall be fixed on by the officers, or ascertained by the by-laws of the said corporation. That all elections of the said officers or any of them shall be by ballot, and such persons who shall have at any election the greatest number of votes as President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary or Assistants, shall be deemed duly elected to the office for which he or they were severally chosen and designated by the ballots, which were given in at any such election. And the said officers shall hold their respective offices for one year, and until others shall be chosen in
