Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/902

 890 FEDEBAli BBFOBTSBi �by law, the statute run from that date. It is no answer to the plea to say the treasury of the county never contained funds to pay the ■warrants. They were a legal tender in payment of taxes, and it was open to the plaintiff, by appropriate judicial proeeedings, to compel funds to be placed in the treasury for their payment, and the right of action accrued when the warrants were issued, and not when there were funds in the treasury for their payment. Where a contract was made for work, payable out of a public fund, it was held the statute began to run from the time the work was completed, althougli the fund was not then raised, Emery v. Day, 1 Crompton, M. & E. Ex. 245, �ihe statute of limitations is one of repose. It is not based on pre- sumption of payment, but on the irhpoiicy of permitting state de- mands and transactions long past to be made the subject of judiisial inquiry ; and hence, neither indisposition nor inability of the debtor to pay is an answer to the plea. There is the same reason for giving counties the benefit of it as individuals. It is not always true that outstandiug warrants have never been paid by the county, or that they ought to be paid. It not unfrequently occurs that they are issued illegally and without consideration, and the records of this court disclose the fact that warrants once redeemed were afterwards frauduleiftly withdrawn and put in circulation. The county is as likely to be deprived of the evidence of such faets by lapse of time as an individual, and for that reason should have the same protec- tion from the statute. The form of warrant prescribed by statute contains no seal. There is no statute in terms requiring the clerk to afiSx the county seal to such instruments, and it is not affixed to the warrants sued on ; so that the question of the period required to bar sealed instruments does not arise in this case. �The question whether warrants are valid without a seal was not argued and is not decided. �Demurrer overruled. ��� �