military uniforms, expenses of delegates to a municipal convention, and the like.

111. Budget.-A classified statement of annual appropriation of municipal revenues, commonly called a budget, is required in many states, as the measure of lawful municipal expenditures during the year. The object of this budget is to ensure an orderly, systematic, and economical administration of municipal affairs, and the executive officers of the municipality are required to conform their operations to this budget, and limit their expenditures to the sums appropriated to the various departments or kinds of municipal work.84 It has been held that unwarranted expenditures for municipal objects may be ratified by the council, and a claim therefor be thus validated.85

112. Municipal claims-Appropriation.-Claims against a municipality ex contractu do not become actionable until after due and regular presentation and demand for payment, and refusal by the proper officer. In the management of municipal affairs some officer is intrusted with the duty of auditing claims; and when the claims are approved, or an accord has been reached, warrants are drawn for payment upon the municipal treasury. After such warrant has been presented and payment refused, and not before, the claimant has a right of action thereon;

84 The amount placed on the budget for the annual expenses of a municipal corporation when collected by taxes levied therefor must be applied to the purposes specified in the budget; Badger v. New Orleans, 49 La. Ann. 804, 37 L. R. A. 540.

85 Barrett v. Mobile, 129 Ala. 179, 30 South. 36, 87 Am. St. Rep. 54; Mills v. Gleason, 11 Wis. 470, 78 Am. Dec. 721.

but the warrant is not conclusive upon either party. The municipality may defend against the warrant upon the ground that the claim was ultra vires, fraudulent, or unfounded; and the claimant, at any time before assigning or receiving payment of the warrant, may waive this acknowledgment of indebtedness and sue the municipality upon his original claim. Appropriation, being the authoritative application by the council of municipal revenues to a distinct object or definite purpose, fixes the rule of action. governing all officers in the handling and disbursement of the municipal revenues.

No discretion is left to the financial officer in disbursing the municipal revenues; the funds appropriated to a specific object must be applied solely to it. Whatever be the statute or ordinance of appropriation, the disbursing officer must act in obedience to it.

113. Taxing power.-Taxation is an attribute of sovereignty. The power is not an essential function of a municipal corporation, but may be delegated to it by the state, either expressly or by necessary implication. Taxation is inherent in the state, as an essential attribute of sovereignty. It is primarily a legislative function, all taxation being based upon legislative authority; but, as stated before, the legislature may delegate this power to the municipality. This may be granted in express terms, or it may be implied as necessary for the exercise of other powers expressly granted. Thus, if a municipality is expressly authorized to borrow money, the power to levy taxes to raise revenue to meet the obligation is necessarily implied.

The power of municipal taxation is subject to the sovereign will, and may be granted, enlarged, abridged, or revoked when and as the legislature shall deem best. The legislature, at the creation of the corporation, may grant or withhold this power, as to it shall seem best. It may give a small or large measure of the power; and after the original grant it may enlarge, curtail, or wholly revoke it, subject only to the vested rights of creditors.

114. Public purpose only.-Taxes may be levied by a municipality for public purposes only. The legislature is the exclusive judge as to the rate of taxation to be imposed upon the state by itself; and such measure of taxing power as it possesses it may confer upon a municipality. If the power is perverted to private purposes, it is no longer taxation; it is extortion. And it matters not whether the malversation is in small or in large sums; it is an abuse of sovereign power, amounting to robbery under the forms of law. The touchstone of all taxation, municipal and state, in our country, is not, then, the rate of the levy, but the object of the appropriation.

115. Judicial question.-Whether the purpose is public or private is for ultimate decision by the courts. The facts of any case being conceded or proven, it is then for the courts to declare the law; and, while the common council of a municipality are empowered in the first instance to express their view of the nature of the tax, their opinion is not conclusive, but may be subjected to the ultimate test of judicial determination. It has been held that public

moneys in a town treasury cannot be distributed among "the inhabitants of the town according to families." Also there is a decision that the credit of a town cannot be loaned to a manufacturing firm to induce the location of the manufacturing plant in the town.87 Furthermore, it has been decided that a tax on a foreign insurance company for the benefit of disabled firemen was void.

On the same principle the proposed issuance of $20,000,000 worth of bonds by the city of Boston to raise money to loan to lot-owners for the purpose of rebuilding in the burnt district in the city after the great fire of 1872 was declared to be null and void.88 The same ruling had been previously made upon a similar act of the legislature of South Carolina in regard to the city of Charleston after the fire of 1866.89

116. What are public purposes.-A general concurrence of judicial opinion includes among public purposes of municipalities: (1) The administration of justice; (2) the preservation of peace and order; (3) the protection of property; (4) the facilitation of locomotion and transportation; (5) the preservation of the public health; (6) the support of public education; (7) the promotion of public comfort; (8) the care of the helpless; (9) the reward of civic fidelity and heroism.

The question of what is a public and what a private purpose is to be found fully expressed in the

86 Hooper v. Emery, 14 Me. 375.

87 City of Parkersburg v. Brown, 106 U. S. 487.

88 Lowell v. Boston, 111 Mass. 454, 15 Am. Rep. 39.

89 Feldman & Co. v. Charleston, 23 S. C. 57, 55 Am. Rep. 6.

opinion of Judge Black in the celebrated case of Sharpless v. City of Philadelphia," which may be thus digested:

"Taxes may be imposed for roads of all kinds, canals, and bridges, that there may be facilities for transportation of freight and for travel; for public schools or colleges, that the people may be educated; for public libraries, that their means of improvement may be increased; for the poor, the dumb, the blind, the insane, lest they suffer from want; for the police of the state, in regulations for the preservation of health or the detection of crime; for courts of law, that individual rights may be protected and enforced, and that crime, when detected, may receive its fitting punishment; for the preservation of peace and the protection of the country from foreign enemies; to aid, encourage, and stimulate commerce, domestic and foreign, by the establishment of mints, postal system, and maintaining navies to keep open the highway of nations; to encourage citizens in the defense of their country by suitable rewards and mementos for past services in times of war, or by bounties for enlistment for future services; and for the promotion of the arts and sciences. For all these matters taxes may be imposed. The purpose is public. The object is governmental. The money raised and property purchased are held by the agents of the state for the state. The object is so to regulate the state that all its citizens may enjoy their lives, liberty, and property, and pursue their happiness according to the dictates of their own reason."

90 21 Pa. 147, 59 Am. Dec. 759.