The Short Title of this Act shall be “The Stamp Act 1875 Amendment Act, 1877.”

If an instrument chargeable with any duty and which may be legally stamped after execution be lost before the same is stamped, secondary evidence may nevertheless be given of such instrument and of the contents thereof in any Court, but the person adducing such evidence shall first pay to the officer of the Court, whose duty it would be to read such instrument in Court if the same had not been lost, such unpaid duty and fine as the Judge shall assess to be the duty and fine that would be payable on such instrument had such instrument itself been tendered in evidence. If such duty and fine be not paid on assessment being made as aforesaid, the evidence shall be rejected.

Section one hundred and three of the said Act shall be read as if the words “written therein in ink” had been used in the third and seventh lines thereof, in lieu of the words “inserted therein” in each of the said lines.