people in a city and the right to fund its floating debt.' Where an act provided for a change in the management of the internal affairs of towns and boroughs which were sea-side resorts and then governed by commissioners; 2 the court held it came within the constitutional interdict. The whole statute by its terms was confined to sea-side resorts governed by boards of commissioners. The individuals thus grouped into a class by legislative enactment are distinguished from other municipalities by these two features only, and the court said, "consequently, no legislation touching this class alone is constitutional, unless it properly relates to these peculiarities. We cannot see how the section under review is so related. That the power to expend the road tax of a municipality on its streets should be vested in its own governing body, rather than in the committee of the township of which its territory forms a part, is a proposition which seems to have no natural connection with the facts that the municipality is a sea-side resort, and that its governing body is styled a board of commissioners." § 129. In respect to the enumerated subjects as to which legislation is required to be general, and special acts prohibited, though such subjects may be divided into classes distinguished 1 Anderson v. Trenton, 42 N. J. L. 486. A classification may be sustained where the differences are not extreme, but exist. The test would not then be judicial, depending on whether the law was special, but legislative, whether wise or not. Wheeler v. Philadelphia, 77 Pa. St. 338; Kilgore v. Magee, 85 id. 401; Rutgers v. New Brunswick, 42 N. J. L. 51; Skinner v. Collector, id. 407; Fellows v. Walker, 39 Fed. Rep. 651. 2 Ross v. Winsor, 48 N. J. L. 95. 3 In Closson v. Trenton, 48 N. J. L. 438, the act in question was to establish a license and excise department in certain cities containing more than fifteen thousand inhabitants, and in which the granting of licenses is not already vested in a board of excise or in the court of common pleas. was held local and special. The It court said: "There can be no reason suggested why cities with more than fifteen thousand inhabitants should have a system of granting licenses different from that of cities with a less population. In respect to the matter of the legislation all cities are a class, and an attempt to segregate cities into distinct classes for this purpose by a standard of population is not classification but an arbitrary selection of one or more localities." Hightstown v. Glenn, 47 N. J. L. 105; Gibbs v. Morgan, 39 N. J. Eq. 126; Tiger v. Morris Common Pleas, 42 N. J. L. 631; Ernst v. Mor gan, 39 N. J. Eq. 391; Freeholders v. Stevenson, 46 N. J. L. 173; Alsbath v. Philbrick, 50 N. J. L. 581; Bray Hudson, 50 N. J. L. 82. See Dobbins v. Northampton, 50 N. J. L. 496. by substantial differences for the purpose of legislation appropriate to such conditions as spring from these differences, there must nevertheless be a limit to such division, even founded on substantial differences. Within certain limits subjects may be grouped on the basis of such differences for general legislation; beyond those limits such differences would not be the basis of classification, but the ground of segregation by which each individual would be distinguished for special enactments.1 The prohibition is in the way of legislation for individual cases.' It is equally fatal to such legislation though it be general in form. If a statute is plainly intended for a particular case, and looks to no broader application in the future, it is special or local, and, if such laws are prohibited on the subject to which it relates, is unconstitutional. The lineaments by which such cases are to be distinguished are usually so special that a law confined thereto would be anticipated to have no effect from the antecedent improbability of such a case arising. When, therefore, it is found to fit such a special case, it is deemed to have been enacted solely for it.' An act came in question which gave the right to file a me See Desmond v. Dunn, 55 Cal. 242; Earle v. Board of Education, id. 489. 2 Nevil v. Clifford, 63 Wis. 435; Williams v. Bidleman, 7 Nev. 68; Montgomery v. Commonwealth, 91 Pa. St. 125; Frye v. Partridge, 82 Ill. 267. 1 Devine v. Board of Commission- 68 N. Y. 381. ers, 84 Ill. 590; Montgomery v. Commonwealth, 91 Pa. St. 125; Davis v. Clark, 106 Pa. St. 377; Westerfield, Ex parte, 55 Cal. 550; Koser, Ex parte, 60 id. 177, 191; Commonwealth v. Patten, 88 Pa. St. 258; State v. Herrmann, 75 Mo. 340; Rutherford v. Heddens, 82 id. 388; Mason v. Spencer, 35 Kan. 512; State v. Squires, 26 Iowa, 340; Stange v. Dubuque, 62 Iowa, 303; State ex rel. v. Mitchell, 31 Ohio St. 592; Frye v. Partridge, 82 Ill. 267; Pritz, Ex parte, 9 Iowa, 30; Davis v. Woolnough, id. 104; State v. Graham, 16 Neb. 74; Phillips v. Schumacher, 10 Hun, 405; Healey v. Dudley, 5 Lans. 115; Hodges v. Baltimore Pass. Ry. Co. 58 Md. 603; Central Iowa R. R. Co. v. Board of Supervisors, 67 Iowa, 199; S. C. 22 Am. & Eng. R. R. Cas. 223; Kimball v. Rosendale, 42 Wis. 407; Kerrigan v. Force, 3 State ex rel. v. Mitchell, 31 Ohio St. 592; State v. Herrmann, 75 Mo. 340; McCarthy v. Commonwealth, 110 Pa. St. 243; S. C. 14 Am. & Eng. Corp. Cas. 271; Hammer v. State, 44 N. J. L. 667; Devine v. Board of Commissioners, 84 Ill. 590; Davis v. Clark, 106 Pa. St. 377; Commonwealth v. Patten, 88 Pa. St. 258; Frye v. Partridge, 82 Ill. 267; Hallock v. Hollingshead, 49 N. J. L. 64; Hudson Co. Freeholders v. Buck, id. 228; State v. Boyd, 19 Nev. 43. 4 Id. 1 chanic's lien in certain cases, but contained a proviso excluding from its operation counties having a population of over two hundred thousand inhabitants. It was held void as a local and special law, and therefore within the constitutional inhibition of such laws "authorizing the creation, extension or impairing of liens." The classification of counties by population and the passage of laws applicable to a certain class only have within reasonable limits and for some purposes been admitted upon the assumption that counties having a small population may ultimately have one much larger. In the case under consideration, however, two counties had, at the time the law in question was passed, a greater population than two hundred thousand. As it could not be assumed that their population would ever fall below that limit they were permanently excluded from the operation of the act. The court say: "It was not then a general act. It did apply to a great number of counties; but there is no dividing line between a local and a general statute. It must be either one or the other. If it apply to the whole state, it is general. If to a part, it is local. As a legal principle it is as effectually local when it applies to sixty-five counties out of sixty-seven as if it applied to one county only. The exclusion of a single county from the operation of the act makes it local." Where an act provided exceptionally for the holding of courts in all counties of more than sixty thousand inhabitants, adding restrictively, "in which there shall be any city incorporated, at the time of the passage of this act, with a population exceeding three thousand inhabitants, situate at a distance from the county seat of more than twenty-seven miles by the usually traveled road," the court held the act local; that it applied and was intended to apply to only one county.3 2 § 130. Amendatory and curative acts.- Existing general laws required to have a uniform operation cannot be amended so as to interrupt their uniform operation. Amendments 1 Davis v. Clark, 106 Pa. St. 377. St. 258; State v. Herrmann, 75 Mo. 2 Montgomery v. Commonwealth, 340; Weinman v. Wilkinsburg, etc. 91 Pa. St. 125; Devine v. Board of R'y Co. 118 Pa. St. 192. Commissioners, 84 Ill. 590; McCarthy v. Commonwealth, 110 Pa. St. 243. 3 Commonwealth v. Patten, 88 Pa. State ex rel. Peck v. Riordan, 24 Wis. 484; State ex rel. Keenan v. Supervisors, 25 id. 339; State ex rel. cannot be made to particular charters where special acts of incorporation are prohibited. Nor can special curative acts be passed to give effect to proceedings defective and void, because taken in the absence of necessary statutory authority, or because not taken in pursuance of statutes in force.3 Walsh v. Dousman, 28 id. 541; Zeigler v. Gaddis, 44 N. J. L. 363. 1 Pritz, Ex parte, 9 Iowa, 31; Davis v. Woolnough, id. 104. See Brown v. Denver, 7 Colo. 305; Hodges v. Baltimore Union Pass. R. R. Co. 58 Md. 603. 2 Independent School District v. Burlington, 60 Iowa, 500; Stange v. Dubuque, 62 Iowa, 303. See State v. Squires, 26 id. 340. 3 Mason v. Spencer, 35 Kans. 512; City of Emporia v. Norton, 13 id. 569. CHAPTER VII. AMENDATORY ACTS. § 131. Constitutional requirement and its purpose. 132. Acts expressly amendatory. 133. Amendment "to read as follows." 134. Repeal and re-enactment. § 131. The constitutional requirement and its purpose.The requirement is substantially the same in the constitutions of many states-that no law shall be revived or revised or amended by reference to the title only; but the law revived or revised, or the section amended, shall be re-enacted or inserted at length in the new act. The provision is mandatory.1 This requirement was intended mainly to prevent improvident legislation. By a prevalent form of amendatory legislation the amendatory act itself was unintelligible; words were stricken out or inserted, additions or substitutions made by mere reference to the place in the old law where the change should be introduced. It required an examination of the former act and a comparison with it of the new act to understand the change. Much confusion and uncertainty ensued from this practice. After repeated amendments in this manner there was much difficulty in determining the state of the law. The requirement was intended to remedy this evil by requiring the legislature changing the law to state it entire in its amended form: the whole act, when revived or revised, or a whole section amended.3 'Tuskaloosa Bridge Co. v. Olmstead, 41 Ala. 9; Walker v. Caldwell, 4 La. Ann. 297. See Lehman v. McBride, 15 Ohio St. 573. etc. v. Trigg, 46 Mo. 288, 290; People v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 484, 497; Davis v. State, 7 Md. 151, 159; Colwell v. Chamberlin, 43 N. J. L. 387; 2 Lehman v. McBride, 15 Ohio St. Draper v. Falley, 33 Ind. 465, 469; 573, 603. Blakemore v. Dolan, 50 Ind. 194, 203. 3 Timm v. Harrison, 109 Ill. 593; Sovereign v. State, 7 Neb. 409; Mayor, |