abutting property, so drawing the contracts that no liability to pay rests upon the city (11). § 73. Rights of holders in due course of negotiable bonds: Recitals. In those cases in which municipal corporations have been given power to issue negotiable bonds, it is difficult to determine the question of the rights of holders of the same who have purchased them in good faith, for value, and without notice that certain formalities required by law have not been satisfied. Very often the law requires that the voters of the locality sanction the issue by a majority vote. If this is not done, may a holder in due course, i. e., a transferee for value without notice of the fact that no vote was had, enforce the bonds? It is clear that if the bonds as issued contain no recitals as to the statute under which they are issued, or as to the prior votes or proceedings of the voters, no recovery can be had, even by a holder in due course (12). Where, however, the officers whose duty it is to ascertain whether all conditions required by statute have been complied with, insert in the bonds a recital that they have, e. g., that the election was duly held and a majority vote given sanctioning their issue, it is held that a holder in due course may recover (13). The idea back of this is that the legislature must intend the officials to announce the result and that other persons may rely upon their statements-clearly a fair rule. In the case cited the court put it as follows: "Where legislative authority has been given to a municipality, or to its officers, to subscribe for the stock of a (11) Davis v. Des Moines, 71 Iowa 500. (12) Marsh v. Fulton Co., 10 Wall. 676. railroad company, and to issue municipal bonds in payment, but only on some precedent condition, such as a popular vote favoring the subscription, and where it may be gathered from the legislative enactment that the officers of the municipality were invested with power to decide whether the condition precedent has been complied with, their recital that it has been, made in the bonds issued by them and held by a bona fide purchaser, is conclusive of the fact and binding upon the municipality; for the recital is itself a decision of the fact by the appointed tribunal." § 74. Same: Public records. The limitations on this doctrine are clearly set forth by Mr. Justice Gray of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Sutliff v. Lake County Commissioners (14): "In those cases in which this court has held a municipal corporation to be estopped by recitals in its bonds to assert that they were issued in excess of the limit imposed by the constitution or statutes of the state, the statutes, as construed by the court, left it to the officers issuing the bonds to determine whether the fact existed which constituted the statutory or constitutional condition precedent, and did not require those facts to be made a matter of public record. But if the statute expressly requires those facts to be made a matter of public record, open to the inspection of every one, there can be no implication that it was intended to leave that matter to be determined and concluded, contrary to the facts so recorded, by the officers charged with the duty of issuing the bonds." In other words, it must appear that the recitals relied upon must be made by officers whose duty it was, under the statute authorizing the issue of the bonds, to ascertain and determine whether all conditions were complied with, "not merely for themselves, as the ground of their own action, in issuing the bonds, but, equally, as authentic and final evidence of their existence for the information and action of all others dealing with them in reference to it" (15). In the case from which the foregoing extract is taken, the court concluded that the holder in due course of the bonds in question could not recover, as the recitals were not of the required character. § 75. Right to recover from a public corporation in quasi-contract. The principles of the law relating to quasi-contracts are treated in the article on that subject in Volume I of this work. As pointed out there, the basis of the liability is the fundamental principle that no person shall unjustly enrich himself at another's expense. This principle, of course, may be applied to corporations, private and public, as well as to natural persons. For example, one who paid money to a city for invalid bonds was permitted, on returning the bonds, to recover, not on the contract contained in the bonds, but on a quasi-contractual duty to restore the amount paid (16). The bonds were invalid because not having been registered with a state official, but the city officials concealed this by antedating them so that they appeared to have been issued before the act requiring registration went into effect (15) Harlan, J., in Bank of Toledo v. Porter Township, 110 U. S. 608. However, a recovery in quasi-contract will be denied if to permit it will result in destroying the effect of limitations placed upon the powers of a municipal corporation to protect the taxpayers from what is popularly known as "graft." In McDonald v. Mayor of New York (17) the charter of the city required contracts for the purchase of supplies above a certain amount to be let to the lowest bidder-obviously to protect the public from the payment of exorbitant prices. The plaintiff furnished supplies to the city in virtue of an agreement not made in accordance with the charter provision. He could not, of course, recover on the contract, as that was clearly void; but sought to reach the same result by relying on the fact that the city had had and used the supplies, and should pay for them, at least, their reasonable value. A recovery was denied, the court saying that all who dealt with the city must at their peril ascertain the limitations contained in the city charter, and that to permit any recovery at all would nullify the limitation in question. PUBLIC OFFICERS PERCY BORDWELL, B. L. (University of California) Professor of Law, Universty of Missouri. INTRODUCTION. § 1. Administrative Law. Administrative Law in its broad signification includes the great mass of public or governmental law not included in international or constitutional law or the penal codes. It is readily distinguishable from international law, and, although many of its rules have penal sanctions, it is not likely to be confused with the fairly well defined body of rules intended to pro |