Stanley Matthews

“ For the levy and collection of a tax is not only an entire thing, although accomplished by successive steps and by separate officials, but is a continuous transaction, each one taking it up where his predecessor left it; and if the relator was compelled to obtain a separate mandamus against each person charged with the performance of a single service, the very delay and break in the continuity of the process might be, by the terms of the law itself, a sufficienct answer to each succeeding writ ”

“ It can make no difference in principle that in a particular case the law, instead of casting the performance of the entire duty upon a single person, has divided it among several, each to perform but one act in the series, and each acting independently and not as responsible to any of the others, but all required to co-operate in the attainment of the single result, and by a continuous and uninterrupted succession, so as to preserve the integrity and unity of the performance as an entire duty. ”

“ Board of County Commissioners of Labette Company Kansas v. United States
The objection that the circuit court had no jurisdiction to issue its mandamus to the plaintiffs in error is based upon the supposition that, because they are not parties to the judgment against Oswego township, and are not officers of or representatives of that municipal corporation, but are officers of the county of Labette, the proceeding against them is the exercise of an original jurisdiction, which does not belong to that court. ”