Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/892

 tflLLIAUS V. BEBS. 885 �complainant avers is ail the taxes which the company is lia- ble to pay. But complainai.t charges that, in addition to said assessment, and the tax extended against the same, the board of equalization of this state, at its meeting in 1879, valaed and assessed the capital stock of said company at $150,000; that the auditor of state certiiied the said assessment, under direction of said board, to the clerk of said Cook county, for the purposes of taxation, and that the county clerk extended a capital- stock ta.x upon the assessment roUs against said com- pany, according to the percentage required, for state, county and other municipal purposes, amounting to the sum of $7,167, in addition to the tax upon the property of the company extended against the valuation by the town assessor, and that a warrant for the collection of said property and capital- stock tax bas beendulyissued, and is in thehands of defend- ant Eees, collector for the town of South Chicago, for collec- tion; that the company has paid the taxes extended against the valuation of its property made by the town assessor, and will pay the capital- stock tax so assessed, and in the hands of the collector, unless restrained by the order of this court ; and because the said capital-stock tax is wholly unauthorized and illegal, the complainant prays for an injunction restrain- ing the collection of the said tax by the assessor, or the pay- ment by the said corporation. �It is admitted, for the purposes of this case, that the com- pany had, in the year 1879, laid down in the streets and alleys of the city of Chicago 18e miles of main or pipes for the purpose of conveying gas to its consummers. �To this bill the defendant Eees has demurred, and the right of complainant in the ca*e made by the bUl to the relief asked for has been ably argued by the solicitors for the com- plainant and the defendant. �The decision of the case seems to me to be involved in the answer to two questions which naturally arise upon the stat- ute under -çvhich this tax was assessed: First. Did the legis- lature of this state intend that the capital stock of gas com- panies should be assessed or valued. for the purposes of tax- ation by the state board of equalization? Second. Can the ����