Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/285

 liBwis V. com'bs of sheeman county. 273 �issue bonds and sell them at such price as can be procured therefor, when such authority bas been withheld by the law- making power. This view is fully supported by a case recently decided by the supreme court, (^Scipio v. Wright, 101 U. S. 665.) �So far as the court-hoûse bonds are coucerned, then, they must be held invalid, for the reasons : First, want of author- ity for Toting bonds for the purpose of building a court-house ; second, because no bonds were ever voted by Sherman ôounty for any such purpose; third, because none of the bonds or the proeeeds thereof were ever used to build a court-house, or were ever used for any other purpose by the county ; and, fourth, because the bond contains no recitals showing that the same had been issued conformably to law, so as to eut off the defences relied on. �But with reference to the coupons taken from the bridge bonds it is different. There is full authority of law for the people of a county to vote for the issuing of bonds to aid in building bridges. The bridge bonds recite on their face that their issue was duly authorized by a vote of the people of the county, and that the resuit of such election was entered upon the commissioners' records, as provided by law. This recital is perhaps untrue, as the commissioners' proceedings show no such thing. But, as stated, the law authorizes the voting of bonds for such a purpose, and the bond recites the fact that they were properly voted for and authorized by a vote of the people of the county on the eleventh day of August, 1873, and that the resuit of the vote was spread upon the commissioners' journal of proceedings. The purchaser of the bonds, without notice of infirmity, was not in a position to know or believe that the bonds recited a falsehood on their face, and he was not, under the circumstances, bound to look beyond the bond itself. Ho might well believe what he saw stated in the bond. Fair dealing will not permit the defend- ant to gainsay what it has, through its proper officers, thus solemnly asserted. But this is not ail. The law not only authorizes the issuing of bonds for such purposes, but they were so issued, and used direet in payment for building sev- �v.5,uo.3— 18 ����