Wabash Railroad v. People ex rel. Thoele

Citations

• 138 Ill. 303

Syllabus

<p>1. Road tax—duty of highway commissioners. The highway commissioners are required to prepare, and deposit with the town clerk, lists containing the land and personal property road tax, and to direct the town clerk to make a copy of each list, which copies, after subscribing the same, they shall cause to be delivered to the respective overseers of highways of the several road districts.</p> <p>2. Same—duty of overseer of highways. Each overseer of highways is required to deliver to the supervisor of his town, five days before the annual meeting of the board of supervisors, the lists so furnished to-him, with an affidavit as to the property on which the tax is paid and as to that on which it is not paid.</p> <p>3. Same—duty of supervisor and board of supervisors. The supervisor of each town is required to receive the list of the overseer, “and to lay the same before the board of supervisors of the county.” It is. then the duty of the board of supervisors “to cause the amount of the arrearages of the road tax returned by the overseer of highways to be levied on the lands returned, and to be collected in the same manner that other taxes of the county are levied and collected.”</p> <p>4. Section 117 of the Road act does not confer on the board of supervisors the power to make an original levy, but merely to supervise the levy already.made by the highway commissioners, after being satisfied that it is in proper shape and for a lawful purpose and within the legal rate, to cause steps to be taken for its collection. To this end it is the-duty of the board to deliver the lists so submitted to it, to the county clerk, to be extended, provided they need no correction.</p> <p>5. These lists pass into the hands of the full board from the possession of the town supervisors, and should not go into the hands of the county clerk until they have been laid before the board. When there is any record showing that they have passed into the control of the county clerk, the presumption