Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/363

 aAUSs i;. City o? clabksmllb. 355 �scribed in counts 18 lo 27, inclusive, were àlleged and shown to have been made in payment of a subscription by defendant to the stock of a Company organized to build st gravai road îrom the ferry landing in Illinois, opposite to Clarksville, tô other points in Illinois, under a law of Missouri authorizing such subscription upon condition that the assent of the citi- zens was first obtained by an election, Sess. Acts 18e6, p. 254. It was also alleged that such assent was in fact obtained at an election held on October 2, 1866. �Defendant pleaded as a special defence that this election was not valid because the voters were not registered, but at the trial conceded that no registration law was in force at the time of the election, and then claimed and attempted to prove that the election was invalid because the voters were not sworn as required by section 6 of article 2 of the constitution of Missouri of 1865. • ' �The evidence showed that the road company negotiated the bonds for value, before maturing, to sundry persons, by whom they were transferred to plaintiff ; also, that the subscription was authorized by an ordinance passed by defendant's city council in January, 1867, in the preamble of which was the foUowing reoita,l, to-wit : �"Whereas, the legislature of Missouri, by an act approved March 12, 1866, so amended the charter of the city of Clarks- ville as to authorize the city council to take stock in roads leading to the city or to the ferry landing opposite to the city, in Illinois, by first obtaining the assent of two-thirds of the legal voters of the city thereto, and whereas, at an espeeial election held for that purpose at the city haU on the second day of Octo- ber, 1866, the authority was so given ****** to subscribe the sum of $15,000 ; * * * Now, therefore, be it ordained, " etc., etc. �It also appeared that the bonds were issued ïn payment oif the subscription only as the work on the road was finished. and that defendant received and voted the stock so subscribed, ànd still retaiued the same. Two of these bonds bore date April 1, 1872, two days after the passage of the act requir- ing registration of bonds, (Sess. Acts 1873, p. 56,) and ��� �