Bell v. Railroad Company

Citations

• 71 U.S. 598
• 18 L. Ed. 338
• 4 Wall. 598
• 1866 U.S. LEXIS 907

Syllabus

<p>1. Municipal corporations, such as the- county boards of police usual in Mississippi, -when authorized by statute to do acts 'which otherwise they would have no power to do — such, for example, as subscribe to a railroad incorporated and beginning in another State and passing through their own State — cannot modify or alter the subscription as authorized by the statute. A compromise by such board with a railroad company which does so modify or alter the subscription is, accordingly, void.</p> <p>2. A sheriff, ex officio collector of taxes, who under the direction properly given of such county police board has collected a tax which such board was authorized by statute, upon certain conditions, to levy for the benefit of another body, a railroad company, has no right to decide whether such municipal body has laid the tax rightly or not, or to settle differences between the tax-payers, the county, and the third body. If the president of the board of police direct him to pay it to the third body his duty is to pay it.</p> <p>3. The fact that the statute made it the duty of such sheriff before entering upon the duty of collecting to give a bond to the president of the board of police, -with sureties to be approved by him, and by which he should bind himself to “ keep safely and pay over to the order of the president of the board of police all money collected by him,” and that the sheriff did not give a bond in such form at all, does not affect this obligation.</p> <p>4. Where there is a plea to merits, and the parties go to trial accordingly, irregularities previously set up by pleas in abatement and demurrers to them are waived.</p>