Samuel Blatchford

“ Even if the statute applies to town bonds and their coupons, no fraud or imposition was practiced on Potter or Marsh to induce them to sign these bonds and coupons. They knew what they were signing, and signed intentionally. The fraud or circumvention intended by the statute, which only embodies a rule of the common law, is not that which goes merely to the consideration of the instrument, but it must go to the execution or making ”

“ If a village or city, and the law of its incorporation has special provisions, those are to followed; otherwise any general law as to village or city elections is to be observed. As the proceeding was to originate by an application filed in the town clerk's office, so the same officers who would conduct an ordinary town election were to be concerned with this election, and the town clerk's office was to be the place of deposit of all the papers and of the return of the vote, and two town officers were to issue the bonds. ”

“ On any other construction, as by section 2 a vacancy in the office of justice can be filled only by election, a town would, in case of a vacancy in the office of justice, have to go without a supervisor, in case of a vacancy in his office, till a justice could be elected. ”

“ Rep. 704, this court upheld the effectiveness of a recital in bonds, in favor of a bona fide holder, as against an alleged defect in the mode of conducting an election held prior to the adoption of this same constitution of Illinois, the bonds being issued after its adoption, although that instrument forbade the issuing of the bonds unless their issue should have been authorized under then existing laws, by a vote of the people prior to the adoption of the constitution. ”

“ No county, city, township, school-district, or other municipal corporation, shall be allowed to become indebted in any manner, or for any purpose, to an amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum on the value of the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last assessment for the state and county taxes previous to the incurring of such indebtedness. ”

“ It is not fraud which relates to the quality, quantity, value, or character of the consideration that moves the contract, but it is such a trick or device as induces the giving of one character of instrument under the belief that it is another of a different character,-such as giving a note or other agreemeent for one sum or thing, when it is for another sum or thing ”

“ This is an action at law, brought in the circuit court of the United States for the Northern district of Illinois, by Eliza Jennings, against the town of Oregon, a municipal corporation in the county of Ogle and state of Illinois, to recover $13,510, the amount payable by 193 coupons of $70 each, cut from 24 bonds for $1,000 each, purporting to have been issued by that town. ”