Morrison Waite

“ But here the answer shows affirmatively that the whole of the six-mill levy of 1882 will not be sufficient to pay the ordinary current expenses of the county. No effort was made to have the answer more specific and certain, so as to show what the whole amount of the tax would be, and in what way it was to be expended, but the relators were content to go to a hearing upon a general demurrer to the answer as it stood. We must therefore assume the fact to be that a special tax cannot be levied to pay the judgment without embarrassing the county in the administration of its current affairs. ”

“ It is true that was a case in which a bondholder was seeking payment out of the ordinary revenue fund after the special tax authorized by law to be levied for his benefit had been exhausted, but the balance due him was just as much a charge on the ordinary revenue fund as if there had been no other provision in his favor. ”

“ No court has the right to control that discretion, much less to usurp or supersede it. To do so, in a single year, would require a revision of the details of every estimate and expenditure, based upon an inquiry into all branches of the municipal service ”