by John Marshall Harlan

“ The application for the special election and the notice therefor were not so radically defective as to justify us in saying, as matter of law, that a debt for a railroad subscription was thrust upon the legal voters and tax-payers of the township without their having a reasonable opportunity to vote upon the question of subscription. It is not a case where bonds have been issued by the supervisor and town clerk, without any previous election whatever to authorize them so to do. ”

“ The purchaser of the bonds, if chargeable with notice of these facts, was, in terms, assured by the statute that no such mistakes as those facts indicated would invalidate the bonds, if the majority of the voters at the election had approved the subscription. He had the right to rely upon these legislative assurances, unless the fifth section of the act of March 6, 1867, was in violation of the Constitution of the State. We do not, however, feel justified in declaring that provision of the act to be in conflict with that instrument. ”

“ Silliman (61 id. 218) , the court, while holding that the legislature could not clothe the supervisor and town clerk, without the consent of the people, with discretionary power of taxation or of creating a debt,-they not being the corporate authorities of the township in the sense of the Constitution,-yet approved that case so far as it ruled that those who were the corporate authorities of a town, within the meaning of a State Constitution, might be empowered by the legislature to subscribe to the stock of a railroad corporation, and issue bonds therefor, without taking a vote of the people. ”