but found none, and that there were no stakes on the ground prior to 1906. The second survey, several years after the purchase by Edith J. Wolhaupter, was made by Frank J. Geraghty and certified to by Mershon, who was present, and said that at that time he found many stakes, and Geraghty testified that he found several old stakes which one Foster told him he put in. Geraghty said that there were two stakes with 135 feet between them, which did not correspond with the width of the lots, and that, the lots being 50 feet wide, the stakes ought to have been 100 feet apart. He said he found a piece of an old cedar stake at another place, but Mershon, who made the first survey, testified that he did not use any cedar stakes. Geraghty said he found a stake at the north-west corner of lot 3 and the south-west corner of lot 2, indicating the length of the south line of lot 4 to be 230.25 feet. After the purchase by appellant J. W. Herrington made a survey for her in 1906, and testified that he found the bottom of an old surveyor's stake 270.2 feet west of Washington avenue, which would be the same place as the north-west corner of lot 5 according to the original plat of 1890; that he placed an iron stake 26.5 feet east of the south-west corner of lot 3 according to that plat; that there was no other iron stake on any of the lots but the one he put in; that he found no other stake on the lots except the bottom of the old stake which corresponded with the original plat, and that he found no stakes measuring 160 feet east from Belmont avenue, which the appellee claimed to be the line of the stakes. Vertus B. Roberts made a survey on September 2, 1904, and testified that he found stakes showing the line between lots 3, 4 and 5 as claimed by appellee; that he found a stake at the north-west corner of lot 4 but did not remember that it came above the ground at all; that he may have found it by digging in the ground, and that they had sometimes to make quite a search for stakes. Whether the stakes he found were set in the original survey or the sec

ond one does not appear, but they corresponded with a line fixed by the second survey, in 1897, after the sale of the lots. W. J. Griffin made a survey in December, 1906, after the purchase by appellant, and found stakes, but he said that Geraghty's book of the survey of 1897 showed that they were put there by Geraghty, and he said that they were rotten and it was hard to tell what they were.

This recital of the evidence will show that there is at least serious doubt whether there were any stakes visible on the ground in the brush, grass and weeds at the time of the purchase by Edith J. Wolhaupter, and whatever title she acquired was conveyed to appellant. The evidence for the appellee was not sufficient to overcome the presumption, upon which appellant had a right to rely, that the plat gave the correct dimensions of the lots. In our opinion the chancellor erred in overruling the exceptions and entering the decree.

The decree is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to dismiss the bill.

Reversed and remanded, with directions.

THOMAS C. HAGGARD et al. Appellants, vs. HARVEY FAY, County Clerk, et al. Appellees.

Opinion filed June 21, 1912—Rehearing denied October 3, 1912.

1. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS-matter of building town hall must be mentioned in notice of town meeting. To legalize a vote to build a town hall and to levy a tax therefor it is essential that the notices of the annual town meeting at which the action is to be taken shall state that the question of building a town hall will be brought up at such meeting, and in the absence of legal notice the vote to levy the tax is void.

2. SAME―what is not a compliance with statute as to notice. Where, after the town clerk has posted six notices of the annual town meeting and published the notice once, a petition for action on the question of building a town hall is presented, and the clerk

thereupon amends three of the notices by merely writing in the statement that the proposition of building a town hall will be brought up, and publishes the amended notice once, there is no compliance with the law even though the amendment was made and the amended notice was published more than ten days before the meeting, there being no change in the date of the three notices amended nor any change at all in the other three.

3. SAME incorporated town has power to levy tax to build a town hall. Under the provisions of the statute authorizing the question of building a town hall to be voted upon at a town meeting and authorizing the electors to direct the raising of money by taxation for certain specified purposes "and any other purpose required by law," an incorporated town may, by complying with the provisions of law on the subject, levy a tax to build a town hall.

4. INJUNCTION-equity may enjoin the extension of void tax. Where a tax to pay for building a town hall is voted at an annual town meeting without legal notice that the question will be brought up at such meeting, the vote, and the tax levy based thereon, are void, and a court of equity has power to enjoin the extension and collection of such tax.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of Piatt county; the Hon. W. G. COCHRAN, Judge, presiding.

HERRICK & HERRICK, for appellants.

W. A. Doss, C. S. REED, C. W. FIRKE, and ELIM J. HAWBAKER, for appellees.

Mr. JUSTICE CARTER delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of Piatt county dissolving an injunction and dismissing a bill for want of equity. The injunction restrained the county clerk from extending a certain tax levied for the purpose of constructing a town hall in the town of Blue Ridge, in said county. The decree ordered that an appeal should have the effect of continuing said injunction in force.

March 14, 1911, the town clerk of said town posted notices for the annual town meeting, to be held April 4, in six of the most public places in said town, and also pub

lished a notice of said meeting in a newspaper in Mansfield, in said town. March 24 a petition signed by twenty-five electors was filed with the town clerk, requesting that he give notice that the question of buying land and building a town hall for said town would be brought up at the annual town meeting. The town clerk, after the filing of said petition and more than ten days before the annual town meeting, inserted in three of the notices already posted, a statement with reference to building the town hall, so that those notices, after the insertion, read as follows:

"Annual Town Meeting.

"Notice is hereby given to the citizens, legal voters of the town of Blue Ridge, in the county of Piatt and State of Illinois, that the annual town meeting for said town will be held at the town clerk's office in Mansfield, Ill., for district No. 1, and that the miscellaneous business will be transacted at the same place at the hour of 2 P. M., and at F. D. Gillispie's grain office in Harris, Ill., for district No. 2, they will vote for officers in said town on Tuesday, the 4th day of April next, being the first Tuesday in said month, for the following purposes, viz.: First, to choose a moderator to preside at said meeting; second, to elect one commissioner of highways; third, to vote on the proposition, 'Shall the road and property tax be paid in money?' Notice is hereby given that the question of purchasing land and building a town hall will be brought before such annual meeting, and to act upon any additional subjects which may, in pursuance of law, come before said meeting when convened.

"Polls open at seven o'clock A. M., and must close at five o'clock P. M.

"Given under my hand at Mansfield this 14th day of March A. D. 1911. F. A. Rock, Town Clerk."

The date of these notices was not changed and no other change was made except the amendment, which is shown by the italicized words. From this record it must be assumed that the other three posted notices remained unchanged; that the town clerk published the notice, as so changed, March 24, in the same newspaper as before; that the town meeting for the transaction of miscellaneous business was held at the town clerk's office in Mansfield and was attended by nearly two hundred electors; that a reso

lution was adopted to build a town hall for said town of Blue Ridge to cost not to exceed $8000 and for a tax to be levied for that purpose; that there were about four hundred qualified voters in the town, and that a number of them voted in election district No. 2 at Harris, some five miles distant from Mansfield. Appellants claim that the polls at Harris were not closed while the miscellaneous business was being transacted at Mansfield, and that thereby a number of voters were deprived of their vote on the proposition in question.

The first matter to be considered is whether the notice given by the town clerk that the town hall question would be brought up at the meeting was so deficient as to render the tax proposed to be extended for that purpose invalid.

The contention of appellees that as the time and place of holding the annual town meeting was fixed by law no notice was necessary on the question of building a town. hall cannot be sustained. The authorities cited to support this contention apply only when the time and place of holding an election, and the officers or subjects to be voted on, are all fixed by law, and do not control when the statute requires, as it does here, that the notice of the election must specify the particular business to be done. The rule is general that where the statute requires the business to be stated in the notice of a town meeting such notice is essential. (2 Dillon on Mun. Corp.-5th ed.-sec. 509.) A vote is void if the conditions precedent to the taking of it are not observed. (I Cooley on Taxation,—3d ed.— 566; see, also, Stephens v. People, 89 Ill. 337; Simons v. People, 119 id. 617; Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Co. v. People, 205 id. 582.) This court has held that in order to invest an annual town meeting with jurisdiction to adopt the proposition to pay the district labor and property road tax in labor it was essential that the petition prescribed in the statute be followed and that the statutory notice thereof be given by the town clerk,