view to cover any and every thing, whether connected with the main purpose indicated by the title or not, can no longer be of any avail where these provisions exist. As was said by the Supreme Court of New York in a case where these words had been made use of in the title to a local bill: "The words for other purposes ' must be laid out of consideration. They express nothing, and amount to nothing as a compliance with this constitutional requirement. Nothing which the act could not embrace without them can be brought in by their aid."1

*

3. What is embraced by the title. The repeal of a statute on a given subject, it is held, is properly connected with the subjectmatter of a new statute on the same subject; and therefore a repealing section in the new statute is valid, notwithstanding the title is silent on that subject.2 So an act to incorpo[146] rate a railroad company, it has been held, may authorize counties to subscribe to its stock, or otherwise aid the construction of the road. So an act to incorporate the Firemen's Benevolent Association may lawfully include under this title provisions for levying a tax upon the income of foreign insurance companies, at the place of its location, for the benefit of the corporation. So an act to provide a homestead for widows and children was held valid, though what it provided for was the pecuniary means

1 Town of Fishkill v. Fishkill and Beekman Plank Road Co., 22 Barb. 642. See, to the same effect, Ryerson v. Utley, 16 Mich. 269; St. Louis v. Tiefel, 42 Mo. 578. An act entitled "An act to repeal certain acts therein named," is void. People v. Mellen, 32 Ill. 181. An act, having for its sole object to legalize certain proceedings of the Common Council of Janesville, but entitled merely "An act to legalize and authorize the assessment of street improvements and assessments," was held not to express the subject, because failing to specify the locality. Durkee v. Janesville, 26 Wis. 697.

2 Gabbert v. Railroad Co., 11 Ind. 365. The constitution under which this decision was made required the law to contain but one subject, and matters properly connected therewith; but the same decision was made under the New York Constitution, which omits the words here italicized; and it may well be doubted whether the legal effect of the provision is varied by the addition of those words. See Guilford v. Cornell, 18 Barb. 640.

Supervisors, &c. v. People, 25 Ill. 181. So a provision for the costs on appeal from a justice, is properly connected with the subject of an act entitled of "the election and qualification of justices of the peace, and defining their jurisdiction, powers, and duties in civil cases." Robinson v. Skipworth, 23 Ind. 311.

• Firemen's Association v. Lounsbury, 21 Ill. 511.

sufficient to purchase a homestead. So an act "to regulate proceedings in the county court" was held to properly embrace a provision giving an appeal to the District Court, and regulating the proceedings therein on the appeal.2 So an act entitled "an act for the more uniform doing of township business" may properly provide for the organization of townships. So it is held that the changing of the boundaries of existing counties is a matter properly connected with the subject of forming new counties out of those existing. So a provision for the organization and sitting of courts in new counties is properly connected with the subject of the formation of such counties, and may be included in "an act to authorize the formation of new counties, and to change county boundaries." Many other cases are referred to in the note which will further illustrate the views of the courts upon this subject. There has been a general disposition to construe the constitutional provision liberally, rather than to embarrass legislation by a construction whose strictness is unnecessary to the accomplishment of the beneficial purposes for which it has been adopted."

5

1 Succession of Lanzetti, 9 La. An. 329.

* Murphey v. Menard, 11 Texas, 673.

3 Clinton v. Draper, 14 Ind. 295.

Haggard v. Hawkins, 14 Ind. 299. And see Duncombe v. Prindle, 12 Iowa, 1.

5 Brandon v. State, 16 Ind. 197. In this case, and also in State v. Bowers, 14 Ind. 198, it was held that if the title to an original act is sufficient to embrace the matters covered by the provisions of an act amendatory thereof, it is unnecessary to inquire whether the title of an amendatory act would, of itself, be sufficient. And see Morford v. Unger, 8 Iowa, 82.

• Green . Mayor, &c., R. M. Charlt. 368; Martin v. Broach, 6 Geo. 21; Protho v. Orr, 12 Geo. 36; Wheeler v. State, 23 Geo. 9; Hill v. Commissioners, 22 Geo. 203; Jones v. Columbus, 25 Geo. 610; Denham v. Holeman, 26 Geo. 182; Cannon v. Hemphill, 7 Texas, 184; Battle v. Howard, 13 Texas, 345; Robinson v. State, 15 Texas, 311; Conner v. Mayor, &c., of New York, 2 Sandf. 355, and 5 N. Y. 285; Fishkill v. Plank Road Co., 22 Barb. 634; Brewster v. Syracuse, 19 N. Y. 116; People v. McCann, 16 N. Y. 58; Williams v. People, 24 N. Y. 405; People v. Lawrence, 36 Barb. 177; Sharp v. Mayor, &c., of New York, 31 Barb. 572; Davis v. State, 7 Md. 51; Keller v. State, 11 Md. 525; Parkinson v. State, 14 Md. 184; Bossier v. Steele, 13 La. An. 433; Læfon v. Dufoe, 9 La. An. 329; State v. Harrison, 11 La. An. 722; Williams v. Payson, 14 La. An. 7; Fletcher v. Oliver, 25 Ark. 298; Mewherter v. Price, 11 Ind. 199; Gabbert v. Railroad Co., ib. 365; Railroad Co. v. Whiteneck, 8 Ind. 217; Wilkins v. Miller, 9 Ind. 100; Foley v. State, ib. 363; Gillespie v. State, ib. 380; Henry v. Henry, 13 Ind. 250; Igoe v. State, 14 Ind. 239; Haggard v. Hawkins,

[*147] *4. The effect if the title embrace more than one object. Perhaps in those States where this constitutional provision

ib. 299; Reed v. State, 12 Ind. 641; Sturgeon v. Hitchens, 22 Ind. 107; Lauer v. State, ib. 461; Central Plank Road Co. v. Hannaman, ib. 484; Gifford v. Railroad Co., 2 Stockt. 171; Johnson v. Higgins, 3 Met. (Ky.) 566; Chiles v. Drake, 2 Met. (Ky.) 146; Louisville, &c., Co. v. Ballard, ib. 165; Phillips v. Covington, &c., Co., ib. 219; Chiles v. Monroe, 4 Met. (Ky.) 72; Commonwealth v. Dewey, 15 Grat. 1; Whiting v. Mount Pleasant, 11 Iowa, 482; Tuttle v. Strout, 7 Minn. 465; Supervisors, &c. v. Heenan, 2 Minn. 330; Railroad Co. v. Gregory, 15 Ill. 20; People v. Mellen, 32 Ill. 181; Cutlip v. Sheriff, 3 W. Va. 588; McAunich v. Mississippi, &c. R.R. Co., 20 Iowa, 338; State v. Gut, 13 Minn. 341; People v. Allen, 42 N.Y. 404; State v. Miller, 45 Mo. 495.

In Davis v. Woolnough, 9 Iowa, 104, an act entitled "An act for revising and consolidating the laws incorporating the city of Dubuque, and to establish a city court therein," was held to express by its title but one object, which was, the revising and consolidating the laws incorporating the city; and the city court, not being an unusual tribunal in such a municipality, might be provided for by the act, whether mentioned in the title or not. An act to enable the supervisors of the city and county of New York to raise money by tax," provided for raising money to pay judgments then existing, and also any thereafter to be recovered; and it also contained the further provision, that whenever the controller of the city should have reason to believe that any judgment then of record or thereafter obtained had been obtained by collusion, or was founded in fraud, he should take the proper and necessary means to open and reverse the same, &c. This provision was held constitutional, as properly connected with the subject indicated by the title, and necessary to confine the payments of the tax to the objects for which the moneys were intended to be raised. Sharp v. Mayor, &c., of New York, 31 Barb. 572. In O'Leary v. Cook Co., 28 Ill. 534, it was held that a clause in an act incorporating a college, prohibiting the sale of ardent spirits within a distance of four miles, was so germane to the primary object of the charter as to be properly included within it. By the first section of an act for the relief of the creditors of the Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad Company," it was made the duty of the president of the corporation, or one of the directors to be appointed by the president, to advertise and sell the real and personal estate, including the franchise of the company, at public auction to the highest bidder. It was then declared that the sale should be absolute, and that it should vest in the purchaser or purchasers of the property, real or personal, of the company, all the franchise, rights, and privileges of the corporation, as fully and as absolutely as the same were then possessed by the company. The money arising from the sale, after paying costs, was to be applied, first, to the payment of a certain judgment, and then to other liens according to priority; and the surplus, if any, was to be divided ratably among the other creditors, and then if there should be an overplus, it was to be divided ratably among the then stockholders. By the second section of the act, it was declared that the purchaser or purchasers should have the right to sell and distribute stock to the full amount which was authorized by the act of incorporation, and

is limited in its operation to private and local bills, it [148] might be held that an act was not void for embracing two

or more objects which were indicated by its title, provided one of them only was of a private and local nature. It has been held in New York that a local bill was not void because embracing general provisions also; and if they may constitutionally be embraced in the act, it is presumed they may also be constitutionally embraced in the title. But if the title to the act actually indicates, and the act itself actually embraces, two distinct objects, when the constitution says it shall embrace but one, the whole act must be treated as void, from the manifest impossibility in the court choosing between the two, and holding the act valid as to the one and void as to the other.

5. The effect where the act is broader than the title. But if the act is broader than the title, it may happen that one part of it can stand because indicated by the title, while as to the object not indicated by the title it must fail. Some of the State constitutions, it will be perceived, have declared that this shall be the rule; but the declaration was unnecessary; as the general rule, that so much of the act as is not in conflict with the constitution must be sustained, would have required the same declaration from the courts. If by striking from the act all that relates to the object not indicated by the title, that which is left is complete in itself, sensible, capable of being executed, and wholly independent of that which is rejected, it must be sustained as constitutional. *The principal questions in each case will there [*149] fore be, whether the act is in truth broader than the title; and if so, then whether the other objects in the act are so intimately connected with the one indicated by the title that the portion of the

the several amendments thereto; and to appoint an election, choose directors, and organize a corporation anew, with the same powers as the existing company. There was then a proviso, that nothing in the act should impair or affect the subscriptions for new stock, or the obligations or liabilities of the company which had been made or incurred in the extension of the road from Lockport to Rochester, &c. The whole act was held to be constitutional. Mosier v. Hilton, 15 Barb. 657. And see Mills v. Charleton, 29 Wis. 400, - a very liberal case; Erlinger v. Boneau, 51 Ill. 94; State v. Newark, 34 N. J. 236; Smith v. Commonwealth, 8 Bush, 108; State v. St. Louis Cathedral, 23 La. An. 720; Simpson v. Bailey, 3 Oreg. 515; Neifing v. Pontiac, 56 Ill. 172.

'People v. McCann, 16 N. Y. 58.

act relating to them cannot be rejected, and leave a complete and sensible enactment which is capable of being executed.1

As the legislature may make the title to an act as restrictive as they please, it is obvious that they may sometimes so frame it as to preclude many matters being included in the act which might with entire propriety have been embraced in one enactment with the matters indicated by the title, but which must now be excluded, because the title has been made unnecessarily restrictive. The courts cannot enlarge the scope of the title; they are vested with no dispensing power; the constitution has made the title the conclusive index to the legislative intent as to what shall have operation; it is no answer to say that the title might have been made more comprehensive, if in fact the legislature have not seen fit to make it so. Thus, "An act concerning promissory notes and bills of exchange" provided that all promissory notes, bills of exchange, or other instruments in writing, for the payment of money, or for the delivery of specific articles, or to convey property, or to perform any other stipulation therein mentioned, should be negotiable, and assignees of the same might sue thereon in their own names. It was held that this act was void, as to all the instruments mentioned therein except promissory notes and bills of exchange; 2 though it is obvious that it would have been easy to frame a title to the act which would have embraced them all, and which would have been unobjectionable. It has also been held that an act for the preservation of the Muskegon River Improvement could not lawfully provide for the levy and collection of tolls for the payment of the expense of constructing the improvement, as the operation of the act was carefully limited by its title to the future. So also it has been held that" an act to limit the number of grand jurors, and to point out the mode of

People v. Briggs, 50 N. Y. 566. "None of the provisions of a statute should be regarded as unconstitutional where they all relate, directly or indirectly, to the same subject, have a natural connection, and are not foreign to the subject expressed in the title." Phillips v. Bridge Co., 2 Met. (Ky.) 222, approved, Smith v. Commonwealth, 8 Bush, 112. See Ex parte Upshaw, 45 Ala. 234. 2 Mewherter v. Price, 11 Ind. 199. See also State v. Kinsella, 14 Minn. 524. 3 Ryerson v. Utley, 16 Mich. 269. See further Weaver v. Lapsley, 43 Ala. 229; Tuscaloosa Bridge Co. v. Olmstead, 41 Ala. 9; Stuart v. Kinsella, 14 Minn. 524. In Cutlip v. Sheriff, 3 W. Va. 588, it was held that if an act embraces two objects, only one of which is specified in the title, the whole is void; but this is opposed to the authorities generally.