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the governor. Perhaps the governor is of the States rights school, and stands upon the doctrine that State officers should not be required to execute Federal laws. Two acts in regard to mines make careful provision for escapement-shafts, ventilation, hoist-ways, timber props, and for the weighing of coal at the mines.

Book-making, that is keeping a book in which bets are registered, as well as pool selling, is prohibited. The penalty is a fine not exceeding $2,000, or imprisonment in the county jail, not exceeding one year, or both.

The abandonment of a child by its parents, or other person having legal control thereof, is punished by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding three years.

The sale of tobacco in any form to minors under sixteen years of age is made a misdemeanor.

Dealing in future contracts for stocks, bonds, petroleum, cotton, grain, provisions or other produce, where there is no intention to deliver the property sold, is made a misdemeanor, and it is unlawful to keep a store or office, or bucket shop for the purpose of conducting such business.

To entice or induce a chaste unmarried female by false pretences, to enter a house of prostitution, or improper dance-house, or garden, is a felony, punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than ten years.

The riot act has been perfected, and definite regulations have been made for the government of the military forces of the State, and of the posse comitatus when called out by the proper officials to quell a riot. The conspiracy law has been revised and amended, and an additional act passed on that subject. This additional act provides that if two or more persons shall conspire to do an unlawful act, dangerous in its character to human life, or person, or property, or if its accomplishment will probably require the use of violence, which may result in the taking of human life, or injury to person, or property, every party to such conspiracy shall be held criminally liable for whatever offense any one or more of his co-conspirators shall commit, in furtherance of the common design.

It further enacts, that if any person shall by speaking to any public or private assemblage of people, or by writing or printing, or causing to be written, or published any written or printed matter, advise, incite, aid or abet a local revolution, or overthrow of the existing order of society by violence or the resistance to and destruction of the lawful power and authority of the legal authorities of the State, or of any city, town or county, by force or violence, or shall by any of the means aforesaid, incite, aid or abet the disturbance of the public peace, and by such disturbance, attempt at revolution, or resistance to such authorities, shall thereafter ensue and human life is taken, or any person is injured, or any property destroyed by any person, or by any of the means employed to carry into effect the purpose so advised, incited or abetted, every person so advising, inciting, aiding or abetting, shall be deemed as having conspired with the person who actually commits the crime, and shall be punished as a principal, and it shall not be necessary for the prosecution to show that the speaking was heard, or the written or printed matter was read by, or communicated to the person actually committing the crime, in such speaking, writing or printing, is shown to have been done in a public manner.

Another section provides, that where a crime is committed under the circumstances above mentioned, each conspirator shall be punished as a principal, notwithstanding the time and place for bringing about the revolution or overthrow of public order, had not been definitely agreed upon by the conspirators, but

was left to the exigencies of the time, or the judgment of the co-conspirators or any one of them.

To establish the conspiracy, it is not necessary to prove that the parties even came together, or entered into any arrangement, it is sufficient, if it appears that the parties charged were actually pursuing in concert the unlawful purpose, whether acting separately or together, at the same or different times, by the same or different means, provided the acts of each were knowingly tending to the same result.

Another act prohibits the manufacture of dynamite or other explosive compounds within one mile of an inhabited dwelling; such manufacture carried on any where in the State without permit is forbidden; if any person shall manufacture dynamite or other explosive compound with the intent that the same may be used for any unlawful injury to, or destruction of life or property, he is declared guilty of a felony, and on conviction shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for not less than five, nor more than twenty-five years. So any person aiding or assisting in such manufacture, or in buying, selling, storing, transporting, procuring or disposing of dynamite or other explosive compound, either by furnishing the materials, ingredients, means, skill, or labor, or by acting as agent or in any manner acting as accessary before the fact, having reason to believe that the same is intended to be used for the unlawful injury to or destruction of life or property, shall be deemed a principal, and shall be subject to similar punishment.

Indiana: The Legislature of the State of Indiana is entitled to great praise, for it has passed but thirtyeight acts, public and private, which are compressed into sixty-two pages of printed matter. The only noteworthy act passed by this State is that requiring corporations engaged in mining coal, ore, or other mineral, or in manufacturing any article of merchandise, to pay each employee at least once every two weeks in cash. Payment of wages in checks, cards or other paper which is not a bank check, or commercial paper payable in bank at a fixed time, is prohibited, and it is made a misdemeanor to sell supplies or merchandise to the employee at a higher price than such corporations, firms or persons sell to others for cash.

Kansas: The Legislature of Kansas has passed an amendatory act, to carry into effect the constitutional provision prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, except for medical, scientific and mechanical purposes; it is especially aimed at druggists, and prescribes stringent regulations to prevent them from evading the prohibitory law, and it contains a clause providing for the cancellation of a druggist's permit by the probate judge, on a petition signed by twenty-five reputable men and twenty-five reputable women, residing in the township, city or ward in which the business of the druggist is carried on, complaining that he has not in good faith conformed to the provisions of the act. Another act confers on women the right to vote at municipal elections, and makes them eligible to any city or school office. For the purpose of encouraging the manufacture of sugar from beets, sorghum or other sugar-yielding canes or plants grown in the State, a premium of two cents per pound is paid, provided the amount thereof in any one year shall not exceed $15,000. The law in regard to rape has been amended, so as to raise the age of consent to eighteen years. Solicitude as to this crime has occasioned legislation this year in several States. In Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Vermont, the age of consent has been raised to fourteen years, and in Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Jersey to sixteen, and in Nebraska to fifteen years. Kansas also passed an act to enforce the payment in cash of wages due for labor; this act prohibits the issue to employees of tickets or tokeus,

or the use of any means to coerce them to purchase supplies or goods from any particular person, firm, or corporation.

Louisiana: A Sunday law has been passed in Louisiana, closing all places of business on Sunday, but the provisions of the act do not apply to newspaper or printing offices, book stores, drug stores, undertaker shops, public or private markets, bakeries, dairies, livery-stables, railroads, hotels, boarding-houses, steamboats and other vessels, warehouses for receiving and forwarding freights, restaurants, telegraph offices, theatres or any place of amusement, provided no intoxicating liquors are sold on the premises. The sale on Sunday of alcoholic, vinous or malt liquors, is absolutely prohibited, except wine for table use in hotels. The employment of women and children has been regulated; no boy under twelve and no girl under fourteen years of age can be employed in a factory, workshop, or work-house, no child under fourteen years of age can be employed in certain enumerated occupations, unless the child has attended school at least four months next preceding the employment; a day's work for young persons under eighteen years of age, and for women in a factory, or workshop, or clothing, dress-making, or millinery establishment, is teu hours, one of which is to be allowed for dinner. A day's labor on street railroads is fixed at twelve consecutive hours, with reasonable intervals for meals. Employers are required to furnish seats for their' female employees, to be used by them when not necessarily engaged in active duty. The prospective obligation of a surety on an official bond terminates six months after his death, the officer being required to furnish a new surety, otherwise his office is vacated as in case of resignation. Such surety may also after the lapse of one year from the execution of the bond withdraw therefrom on giving the principal thirty day's notice to furnish a new bond; failure of the officer to give a new bond within the time specified, operates as a resignation of the office.

Privileges or liens of creditors ou crops are ranked as follows: First the laborer, second the lessor, third the manager, fourth the pledge, fifth the furnisher of supplies or money, and the physician.

In any civil suit wherein the writ of arrest, attachment, sequestration, provisional seizure or injunction may be issued, the defendant may by reconversion or counter-claim, recover the damages he may have sustained by the illegal resort to such writ.

The defendant is made a competent witness in criminal cases, but he cannot be compelled to testify. The allowance of any rebate by insurance companies is prohibited; the net premium must be expressed in the policy.

The sale of commercial fertilizers has been regulated; such fertilizers cannot be sold until the dealer has filed with the commissioner of agriculture a statement setting forth the name and brand of the fertilizer; the number of pounds contained in the package; the name of the manufacturer and the place of manufacture, and the character of the ingredients which he is willing to guarantee the fertilizer contains; this statement is declared to be a guaranty to every purchaser. The sale of oleomargarine or of any other substance than the product of the cow as butter is prohibited. It is made unlawful to introduce into the State any substance which in the opinion of the board of health may produce a liability to contagion or infection of any disease among the people, whether the same shall be in the form of bacteria germs, microbes, virus (vaccine virus excepted), or any other substances, claimed to contain the elements of any infectious or contagious disease, whether introduced for the purpose of inoculation or otherwise, without permission of the board of health.

By this act the Legislature intended to prevent an irruption from the tropics of a number of persons, some of them no doubt charlatans, who proposed to inoculate the people with yellow fever or cholera germs. One man proposed to introduce into the city of New Orleans yellow fever microbes, sufficient to inoculate ten thousand persons; it was apprehended he might in this way produce a yellow fever epidemic.

Maine: The status of children born out of marriage has been very much modified in the State of Maine. Sir William Blackstone's defense of the common law doctrine no longer satisfies the legislators of Maine, who have lost all respect for the statute of Merton, and for the barons and nobles of Henry III, who refused to adapt the law of England to that of the church. The people of Maine, it seems, do not fancy the idea of having a nullius filius in their midst; they have gone as far as they well could in providing every child with a father. The statute enacts that an illegitimate child is the heir of his parents who intermarry. Any such child is the heir of his mother; he is also the heir of his father if adopted into his family, or acknowledged in writing before a justice of the peace or notary public; and in either of the foregoing cases, such child and its issue shall inherit from its parents, respectively, and from their lineal and collateral kindred, and these from the child and its issue, the same as if legitimate. This statute is subject to criticism, in as much as it makes no distinction between adulterous bastards, and natural children the issue of parents, who at the time of conception might have contracted marriage. The civil law does not tolerate the legitimation or acknowledgment of natural children born of an adulterous connection; nor does it so incorporate into the family a natural child not legitimated by marriage, as to impart to it legitimate heritable blood, and thus entitle it to inherit from legitimate collaterals and entitle legitimate collaterals to inherit from it.

An act has been passed to compel the attendance at school of children between the ages of eight and fifteen years of age, for at least sixteen weeks in each year; truant officers are appointed to enforce the law, and a boy between ten and fifteen years of age found wandering about the streets in school hours is to be committed to the State reform school, unless his parents or guardian give pledges satisfactory to the truant officer that he will attend school as required by law. A bureau of industrial labor statistics has been established, and the employment of labor has been regulated. No woman, nor a female minor under eighteen, nor a male under sixteen years of age, can be employed to work in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment for more than ten hours a day. The parties may contract for the forfeiture of a week's wages in case the employer discharges the employee without a week's previous notice of his intention, or in case the employee quits work without similar notice; no child under fifteen years of age can be employed to work in such establishments, except during vacation of the public schools, unless during the year next preceding the employment it has attended for sixteen weeks some public or private school, eight weeks of which to be continuous.

An act has been passed which provides that any court may exclude minors as spectators from the court room during the trial of any case, civil or criminal, when their presence is not necessary as witnesses or parties.

Another act provides, that after twenty years from the death of any person no probate of his will or administration of his estate shall be originally grauted, unless it appears there are moneys due to the estate from the United States or the State of Maine. The act does not apply to foreign wills previously probated

in another State or county; political nominating conventions and primary meetings are protected from disturbance and fraud; the sale of commercial fertilizers has been regulated. Imprisonment for debt has been abolished, except in case of fraud, but the creditor is authorized on petition to a magistrate to examine the debtor, and compel him to make disclosure of any property he may have, which is liable to seizure; the machinery to accomplish this result is well devised. The death penalty which was incorporated into the penal law of the State in 1883 has been abolished, but a convict sentenced to imprisonment for life, for an offense which was formerly capital, cannot obtain a pardon or commutation of sentence, unless after due inquiry and after hearing evidence; the Supreme Judicial Court shall certify to the governor that in their opinion, upon all the evidence, the convict is innocent, or was wrongly convicted.

An act has been passed to establish boards of health in each city and town to protect the people from contagious diseases; it is very thorough, and is especially aimed at scarlet fever, small-pox, diphtheria and cholera; also an act to extirpate contagious diseases among cattle.

Massachusetts: After next January all civil actions, whether at law or in equity, except replevin, may be brought in the same manner in which suits in equity now are, save that in such proceedings common-law pleadings, so far as practicable, are to apply.

A change of venue in civil actions is permitted in the Supreme Judicial or Superior Court, when there appears to the judge danger of an unfair trial from local prejudice or other cause.

Superior Court judges over seventy, who have served ten years, may retire upon half salary.

When real estate is subject to conditions or restrictions unlimited as to time, such conditions or restrictions (except restrictions in a lease for a term of years certain) are in future to be limited to the term of thirty years from the date of the instrument, or the probate of the will creating the same; the act does not apply to grants of the State, nor to gifts or devises for public, charitable or religious purposes.

Warehousemen may sell property deposited with them, to obtain charges for storage when the charges are overdue one year, and the statute notice of sale is given.

A limited partnership, which succeeds to the business of a former firm, may use its name with the consent of its members. A special partner may withdraw six per cent interest on his capital out of the profits, without liability to refund the same, if it does not impair the capital of the partnership. In case of a renewal of a limited partnership, the amount contributed by the special partner must be stated, and his original capital if impaired must be made good. Noncompliance with the provisions of the law regulating limited partnership subjects the members to the liabilities, and entitles them to the rights of general partners. The employer is made liable to the employee for any defect in his, the employer's, works, arising from negligence of the employee himself, or of an employer charged with supervision; also for negligence of any superintendent in the employer's employ; and for negligence of any employee in control of any signal, switch, locomotive, engine or train upon a railroad. The legal representative of the employee may recover in case of death, or in case of instantaneous death, the employee's widow, or if no widow, the next of kin, provided such next of kin were dependent on the employee's wages for support.

Damages are limited to $4,000, or in case of death, to $5,000. The employer cannot rid himself of liability for defects in his works by contracting with an independent contractor. No recovery can be had where

the employee, knowing of the defect or negligence causing the injury, failed within a reasonable time to inform his employer, or superior thereof. A certain set-off is allowed when the employer has contributed to an insurance fund from which the employee has benefited. This act does not apply to domestic servants or farm laborers.

Acts in reference to labor and capital are numerous, and in their general nature are as follows:

An act to procure sanitary provisions in factories and workshops.

An act against the employment in factories of children under the age of fourteen in the cleaning of machinery in motion, or of any machinery in dangerous proximity thereto.

An act to secure the proper ventilation of factories and workshops.

An act to secure uniform and proper meal-times for children, young persons, and women employed in factories and workshops and in an enumerated class of factories.

An act respecting the employment of minors and women in manufacturing and mechanical establishments, and regulating the number of hours of employment, and limiting over-time employment in case of stopping of machinery.

An act to regulate fines for imperfect weaving, and an act to secure weekly payments of wages by corporations.

Contracts for convict labor have been prohibited, and competition between such labor and free labor is practically forbidden.

For two hours after the opening of the polls, no person entitled to vote in a national or State election, and asking for absence, is to be employed in any mechanical or mercantile establishment, except such as may conduct its business on Sunday.

A penalty is imposed on every owner or superintendent of a mechanical or mercantile establishment, who directly or indirectly employs therein, except during the vacation of the public schools, a minor under the age of fourteen who cannot read and write the English language, and upon every parent or guardian who permits such employment, also upon every person directly or indirectly employing a minor of fourteen who cannot read and write the English language, provided such minor since the age of fourteen has resided for one year in a city or town in the State, wherein public evening schools are maintained, and is not a member of a day or evening school. The last provision may be suspended by the school committee of the place in which the minor resides, if they are satisfied that the labor of the minor is necessary to the support of the minor's family. Clubs distributing or selling intoxicating liquors are made common nuisances, except in cities and towns where licenses are granted, when the licensing board in its discretion may grant a club license.

The sale of intoxicating liquors in time of riot, or great public excitement, may be prohibited by the mayor of a city or selectmen of a town. Any license under the statutes relating to intoxicating liquors is forfeited by a conviction for violation of any of such statutes. Implements and furniture used in the illegal sale of intoxicating liquors may be seized. Any sign of whatever character designed to announce the keeping of intoxicating liquors for sale is to be prima facie evidence of such keeping. The maintaining of a United States tax receipt as a dealer in intoxicating liquors, other than malt liquors, is to be prima facie evidence of keeping for sale.

Self-registering ballot-boxes are to be used in regis tering ballots in voting on the question of license in a city or town. The sale of intoxicating liquors by retail druggists and apothecaries is regulated and limited.

The Sunday law has been amended; one is no longer subject to a fine for being present "the evening next preceding the Lord's day at a game, sport, play or public diversion" given without license. The number of works, ranking as works of "necessity and charity," has been enlarged. Steam, gas and electricity may be manufactured and distributed for purposes of lighting, heat or motive power; water distributed for fire or domestic purposes; the telegraph and telephone used; drugs, medicines and surgical appliances sold; horses, carriages, yachts and boats let; steam ferryboats on established routes and horse-cars run; newspapers printed and sold, milk delivered, and butter and cheese made; public bath-houses kept open; and before ten in the morning and between four and halfpast six in the evening, bread and other food usually dealt in by bakers, made and sold. The board of railrood commissioners may authorize the running of such steam-boat lines and trains as the public necessity or convenience requires. Travelling on the Lord's day. on errands other than those of necessity and charity, continues no longer subject to a fine of $10 for "each such offense;" children under thirteen years of age, unless accompanied by a person over twentyone years of age, are not to be admitted to any licensed place of amusement.

The insurance laws have been amended and codified in an act of one hundred and twelve sections. A law has been passed for the punishment of habitual criminals, which is similar to the statute of Connecticut respecting the punishment of incorrigible criminals; also a law for the punishment of unnatural and lascivious acts. Provision has been made for the suppression of contagious diseases among domestic animals, and for the extirpation of pleuro-pneumonia in co-operation with the United States. Commissioners of wrecks and shipwrecked goods have been created and their duties defined; the examination of railroad commissioners once in two years has been ordered; and the use of common stoves in passenger cars has been prohibited, as well as the use of any heater or furnace not approved by the railroad commissioners; finally, the honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who served in the army and navy of the United States during the civil war are exempted from the operation of the civil service act.

Michigan: A law has been passed in Michigan making it unlawful to celebrate a marriage without a license, and providing for the registration of marriages.

Divorce has been rendered more difficult by a law which declares that no divorce shall be granted, unless the marriage shall have been solemnized in the State, or unless the complainant shall have resided therein one year preceding the commencement of suit; if the cause for divorce occurred out of the State, the complainant must have resided in the State two years, and no testimony can be taken in a divorce suit until four months after the petition has been filed, except where the cause of divorce is desertion, or the testimony is taken to perpetuate it.

It is made the duty of the officer before whom the witnesses are examined, to propound to each witness the following question: "Do you know any fact, matter or circumstance which will in any way tend to weaken complainant's case for divorce?"

The bill of complaint must set forth the names and ages of all children of the marriage under fourteen years of age; a copy of the subpoena must be served upon the prosecuting attorney of the county where the suit is commenced, whose duty it is, when in his judgment the interest of the children, or the public good, so requires, to introduce evidence and oppose the divorce; the court in granting the decree may provide that the defendant shall not marry again within a specified time not to exceed two years.

A child under ten years of age is permitted to testify on a promise, instead of an oath, to tell the truth, if the judge is satisfied that the child has sufficient intelligence and sense of obligation to tell the truth.

The Supreme Court is authorized at any time and in any suit to call before it the parties or any witness to testify orally in open court.

No appeal is allowed from any order of the Probate Court removing an executor, administrator, guardian or trustee, for failure to give a new bond, or to render an account in pursuance of law.

If any minor has property sufficient for his maintenauce and education in a manner more expensive than his father can reasonably afford, the Probate Court may order the expenses of education and maintenance to be paid out of the income or principal of the minor's property.

Any person claiming title to land, whether in possession or not, may institute suit against another person not in possession also claiming title and have the controversy settled. The "actual damages" which may be recovered against a newspaper publisher, who has published a libel in good faith, and on notice has retracted it, are damages which the plaintiff has sutfered "in respect to his property, business, trade, profession or occupation, and none other."

Lands devised to a person for life with power of appointment by bill, or lauds devised in trust without power of sale may be sold by decree of court; and the proceeds thereof invested, under the order of the court, are treated as real property, and are subject to the dispositions of the will as if no sale had been made. all debts for labor have precedence over all debts In case of insolvency of any person or corporation, which had not become a lien on the property of the debtor prior to the performance of the labor.

The employment of males under fourteen years of age, and of females under sixteen years of age, for more than nine hours a day, is prohibited.

To protect children from being educated in immorality, the courts are authorized, after due inquiry, to remove them from the custody of the persons having them in charge, and place them in some State institution, or in the custody of some suitable person. The act applies only to children under fourteen years of age, who are bound out, apprenticed, or given away by their parents, or either of them.

Any girl between the ages of ten and seventeen years, and any boy between ten and sixteen years of age, who runs away from school, or from the office, shop, farm or other place where he or she is employed, and is found lounging about saloons, bar-rooms, or in the public streets, or attending without permission any public dance, skating-rink or show, may be arrested as a truant upon complaint made by the parents, or by a town or city officer, and sentenced to confinement in the reform school, the boy until he is seventeen years old, and the girl until she attains the age of twentyand one years.

The well-known oleomargarine law has been passed, also a law to prohibit the sale of unwholesome milk, and of adulterated liquor.

All establishments where emery wheels or belts are used are required to be provided with blowers, so arranged as to carry away the dust from the emery wheels while in operation.

Prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors depends on local option. A very severe act has been passed to protect from fraud primary elections and political conventions.

No railroad company, whose road has been constructed in whole or in part by public aid, or local subscription, is allowed to abandon any portion of its road, except upon the order of the Circuit Court of

the county wherein lies the portion of the track proposed to be abandoned.

After the 1st of November, 1888, passenger cars can be heated by no method or device which is not approved by the railroad commissioner.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

DE FACTO OFFICERS ELECTION UNDER UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACT-COUNTY SUPERVISORS.

SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS, JUNE. 20, 1887.

LEACH V. PEOPLE.

A board of supervisors of a county, elected under an unconstitutional act, the members of which perform the duties of the office, and who are publicly conceded and supposed to be the legal supervisors, is the board of supervisors de facto; and its acts in levying taxes, etc., where the public and third persons are interested, are valid.

APPEAL from County Court of Wayne county.

SHELDON, J. This was an application made by the collector of taxes for Wayne county, in this State, for judgment for delinquent taxes against certain real estate of the appellant in that county. The taxes delinquent were levied to pay interest on $200,000 of bonds purporting to be bonds issued by Wayne county in 1869, and in January, 1870; $100,000 as a donation to and for the stock of the Illinois South-eastern Railroad Company, whose railroad runs through said county.

The

By an act of the general assembly approved February 28, 1867, entitled "An act to change the time of electing certain officers in a county therein named," it was enacted that the board of supervisors in Wayne county shall consist of five persons, to be elected in the following manner, to-wit: The townships of Four Mile, Hickoryhill and Arrington shall constitute the first electoral district of said county, and shall be entitled to one member of said board. The townships of Big Mound, Lamard, Jasper, and Barnhill shall constitute the second electoral district in said county, and be entitled to two members of said board. townships of Leech, Massillon, Mt. Erie and Elm river shall constitute the third electoral district in said county, and be entitled to one member of said board. The remainder of said Wayne county shall constitute the fourth electoral district, and shall be entitled to one member of said board. The second section provides that the members of the board shall be elected in each district on the first Tuesday in April, 1867, and each four years thereafter. The third section provides for the organization of the board so composed, and that when organized, it shall perform all duties enjoined upon, and shall have all the powers and privileges of the board of supervisors acting under the general township organization laws of this State, and that any three of the board shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of any business.

The objection taken to the tax is that the bonds are not valid: their alleged invalidity consisting in their having been issued under authority of this board of supervisors thus constituted. It is contended that the statute aforesaid is unconstitutional.

[Omitting this consideration.]

The act then being held to be not valid, does it follow, as contended by appellant, that the acts of the official body elected under that law in compliance with its provisions are null and void? This body was the de facto board of supervisors of Wayne county, with color of legal title, and it is the well-settled prin

ciple that the acts of such officers are valid when they concern the public, or the rights of third persons who have an interest in the act done. But it is said that this principle applies only where there is a de jure office for a de facto officer to fill, citing the recent case of Norton v. Shelby Co., 118 U. S. 425, as so holding; and it is insisted there was no de jure board of supervisors of Wayne county. Wherever township organization prevails, there is in every county a board of supervisors for the transaction of the affairs of the county. The act in question merely changed the number of the members of the board from fifteen to five, and the mode of election from towns singly to two more towns unitedly, and the term of office. Nothing was added to or taken from the powers or duties of the board. After the passage of the act there still remained the board of supervisors of Wayne county, the official body for the management of the county's affairs; and the persons elected as members, under the act, went on under the sanction of the statute, and exercised the powers and duties of the board of supervisors of Wayne county without question. There was no rival board, but it was the sole acting board of supervisors in Wayne county. Were not the public justified in relying upon it as the board of supervisors of Wayne county?

In Norton v. Shelby Co., supra, the opinion in the case of State v. Carroll, 38 Conn. 449, is referred to as containing an admirable statement of the law upon the subject of the validity of the acts of de facto officers. In the Connecticut case it was said: "An officer de facto is one whose acts, though not those of a lawful officer, the law, upon principles of policy and justice, will hold valid, so far as they involve the interests of the public and third persons, where the duties of the officer were exercised. First, without a known appointment or election, but under such circumstances of reputation or acquiescence as were calculated to induce people, without inquiry, to submit to or invoke his action, supposing him to be the officer he assumed to be; * * third, under color of a known election or appointment, void because the officer was not eligible, or because there was a want of power in the electing or appointing body, or by reason of some defect or irregularity in its exercise, such ineligibility, want of power, or defect being unknown to the public; fourth, under color of an election or appointment by or pursuant to a public unconstitutional law, before the same is adjudged to be such."

It appears to us that the case at bar is one which comes within the category last named. There was such a legal official body as the board of supervisors of Wayne county, the powers and duties of which official body were exercised by persons under color of an election, as members thereof, in pursuance of a public unconstitutional law. The real cause of complaint is that the office legally existing was illegally filled. The cases are numerous which hold that the acts of a public officer elected or appointed under an unconstitutional law are valid as respects the public and third persons, a number of which are cited in the case of State v. Carroll, and referred to in Norton v. Shelby Co.

In People v. Bangs, 24 Ill. 184, a law providing for the election of a judge was held unconstitutional, and the election under it void; yet it was said the judge so re-elected had color of office, no doubt; and acting as he did, under color of office, that his acts were as valid, of course, as if the law had been constitutional.

In Trumbo v. People, 75 Ill. 561, a school-district was held not to be legally established. So far as that alleged district was concerned, there was no such legal school-district, and there was no de jure office of a school director of that alleged school-district. Yet

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