In Daubman v. Smith' the act was entitled "to transfer the charge and keeping of the jails and the custody of the prisoners in the counties of Essex and Hudson from the sheriff to the board of chosen freeholders, and for the employment of pris oners, and to regulate the term of service therein." Magie, J., said, in delivering the opinion of the court: "I am compelled to the conclusion that the legislation in question is in obvious opposition to the constitutional provision in one or the other of its phases. For, if the object of this act may be taken to be the regulation of the jails and the custody of the prisoners in the two counties named in the first eight sections, then the ninth section, in providing for the extension of the scheme to other counties, introduces another and different object, and the act embraces more than one object.2 "If, on the other hand, the object of this act may be taken to be the regulation of the jails and then of the prisoners in all the counties of the state, then that object is not expressed in the title. If such was the object of the act, the fact that with respect to some counties it was mandatory, and with respect to others optional, might not be objectionable. The matters part of the legislature to disregard the constitutional requirement, yet we cannot be governed by these considerations, if the act is of a class which is actually prohibited. The act, it will be seen, is not one which establishes a general system for the expenditure of non-resident highway taxes, or for the construction of state roads. It singles out two state roads and provides for the expenditure of certain non-resident highway taxes upon each. It then proceeds to provide for the location and construction of a third state road and the expenditure of certain other taxes upon that. "The three objects are as separate and distinct as the three great lines of railroad crossing the state, and the same arguments which might be advanced in support of this act would support also an act which would single out those three railroads for special and peculiar legislation in respect to which the roads have no necessary connection. A combination of that description would at once be pronounced unconstitutional by general consent, but would not differ at all, in principle, from the present act, in which the combination of objects is equally apparent, and equally unnecessary for the proper purpose of legislation. The only difference there could be in the two cases would be that, in a case of a combination of interests among powerful corporations to secure favorable legislation on their behalf, a purpose to evade the constitutional requirement would generally be very apparent, while in this case we do not imagine it to have existed at all; but the question of violation of the constitution is not a question of intent." 147 N. J. L. 200. 2 In re Sackett, etc. Sts. 74 N. Y. 95. comprehended in the act would seem to be germane to such an object. But the title does not express such an object." The act had more scope than the title, and the excess was so much as applied to a county not named in the title. § 99. A curative act may apply to any number of instruments or proceedings. One act legalized the proceedings in three separate towns, though taken distinct from each other, to issue bonds in aid of a railroad. By miscarriage of some promoters of them they failed to comply with the law under which they were set on foot, so as not to be efficacious. It was held that the bill contained but one subject. The court said it was a local bill, to have effect upon that separate portion of the state. The object of it was to legalize and validate certain doings in that territory, which, although carried on distinct from each other, had a common aim and purpose. So an act to confirm, reduce and levy certain assessments in the city of B. was held to embrace but one subject." § 100. One act may relate to all or a portion of the courts of a state in defining their jurisdiction or regulating their practice. In the Matter of Wakker, an act in relation to justices and police courts of New York was held not to be obnoxious to constitutional objection on account of two courts being the subject of legislation. The court say: "It was the object of this law to establish justices' courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction within this city, and to abolish such minor jurisdictions as stood in the way of the courts to be created. The wellknown jurisdiction of justices of the peace for the country is divided by this statute between the new justices created by it, upon one set of whom is conferred the civil and upon the other the criminal jurisdiction of the country magistrates. The office of justice, its tenure and jurisdiction, and the compensation of its incumbents are provided for, and clerks are ordered and compensated by this law." It provided also that its provisions should be applicable to the justices and clerk of the marine court. That court was substantially a justice's court, it being distinguishable only by having additional jurisdiction in certain marine cases not cognizable by justices. On this point the court say: "It would be giving an undue importance to this 1 Rogers v. Stephens, 86 N. Y. 623. 33 Barb. 162. 2 In re Van Antwerp, 1 T. & C. 423. one feature in respect to jurisdiction to hold that this alone deprived it of the character of a justice's court, while it possessed all the main characteristics of that tribunal. It is still a court of inferior and limited jurisdiction, conducted, in all respects material to this argument, as a justice's court. If this be correct, then, in the strictest construction of the article of the constitution under consideration, a statute in relation to justices' courts, confined to the organization and regulation of these courts, may properly embrace in its provisions the marine court." An act was held valid in Kentucky which regulated the jurisdiction of several courts, the inferior courts of the state. It was an act to regulate the civil jurisdiction of justices of the peace, police judges and quarterly courts, and the appellate jurisdiction of the circuit courts on appeals from their judgments, and to authorize the quarterly courts to appoint clerks. The act was treated as one to regulate the jurisdiction of several of the courts of the state. The subject was deemed single.1 § 101. The title and subject of amendatory and supplementary acts.-The constitutional requirement under discussion as applied to acts of this character when they contain matter which might appropriately have been incorporated in the original act under its title is satisfied generally if the amendatory or supplemental act identifies the original act by its title, and declares the purpose to amend or supplement it. Under such a title, alterations by excision, addition or substitution may be made.3 1 Allen v. Hall, 14 Bush, 85. 2 State Line, etc. R. R. Co.'s Appeal, 77 Pa. St. 429; Craig v. First Presb. Church, 88 id. 42; Millvale Borough v. Evergreen R'y Co. 131 id. 1; Second German Am. B. Asso. v. Newman, 50 Md. 62; Swartwout v. Railroad Co. 24 Mich. 389; Gibson v. State, 16 Fla. 291; Morford v. Unger, 8 Iowa, 82; People v. Willsea, 60 N. Y. 507; Brandon v. State, 16 Ind. 197; Mills v. Charleton, 29 Wis. 400; Yellow River Imp't Co. v. Arnold, Robinson v. Lane, supra. 46 Wis. 214, 224; Hoffman v. Parsons, 27 Minn. 236; Jones v. Columbus, 25 Ga. 610; City of St. Louis v. Tiefel, 42 Mo. 578; State v. Newark, 34 N. J. L. 236; Robinson v. Lane, 19 Ga. 337; Perry v. Gross, 25 Neb. 826; Williamson v. Keokuk, 44 Iowa, 88; National Bank v. Com'rs, 14 Fed. Rep. 239; Saunders v. Provisional Municipality, 24 Fla. 226; Alberson v. Mayor, 82 Ga. 30. See Hyman v. State, 87 Tenn. 109; Hyde Park v. Chicago, 124 IL 156. But It is not enough to refer to the original act merely by the number of the chapter of published laws which includes it.1 see State v. Smith, 35 Minn. 257. In that case it appears that outside of the general law for the assessment and collection of taxes an independent or cumulative act in pari materia was in force requiring notice of the expiration of redemption after a tax sale. A subsequent statute, entitled generally as an act to amend the general law, contained a provision expressly repealing this separate statute, which was probably equivalent to providing that redemption should expire absolutely by lapse of the redemption period without notice to the party who had the right of redemption. This was matter germane to the original bill which was amended, and under the rule stated in the text the title was sufficient. The court, however, held otherwise, and Dickinson, J., delivering the opinion of the court, said: "An amendatory law is for the amendment not of what might have been enacted under the title of the original statute, but of what was enacted; not of what the original law might have been, but of what it was. Hence the sufficiency of the title of an act merely declared to be amendatory of a prior law, to justify the legislation which may be enacted under it, depends not alone upon the fact that the title of the original statute was so comprehensive that the legislation might have been properly enacted in such prior law, but it depends also upon the nature and extent of the prior enactment to amend which is the declared purpose or subject of the latter act. This seems self-evident; but to test the correctness of the rule invoked, let us apply it to supposable We will assume that under cases. 1 People v. Hills, 35 N. Y. 449. the title of the law of 1878, "An act to provide for the assessment and. collection of taxes,” the only legisla tion adopted had been a change of the prior law in respect to the time of meeting of the state board of equalization or of the manner of publishing the delinquent list. Now, suppose a later act, declared in its title to be amendatory of that act, to consist of two sections; the first amending the prior act by prescrib ing a different time for the meeting of the state board or a different manner of publishing the delinquent list. The second section, we will suppose, simply declares the repeal of section 2 of a law of 1873 (Sp. Laws, 1873, ch. 111), authorizing railroad corporations to adopt the scheme of substituted taxation in that act provided; or let the supposed second section declare the repeal of the law of 1877 (chapter 105), which required an annual return by railroad corporations of land sold from their untaxable land grant, so that the same might be properly subjected to taxation; or again, let the supposed second section be like that now in question,- simply the repeal of the act of 1877, respecting the giving of notice of the expiration of the period for redemption; or let us suppose that the so-called amendatory act had consisted only of such repeal of the law of 1877. In such cases the mind is at once impressed with the incongruity between the subject of the act as expressed in its title and the enactment under it. Yet the principle relied upon by the respondent would sustain such legislation, because it might have been adopted under the title of the original law. The fault in the asserted The true and actual subject or object must be expressed in the title and not by way of reference to something else to show it.1 An act entitled to amend the charter of a named municipal corporation may contain a provision changing the territorial boundary of the municipality. Under such a title provisions have sometimes been enacted curing defects in and validating municipal proceedings taken of course subsequent to the enactment of the original charter. Such provisions are germane to the object of the incorporation, but not to the function or act of creating a corporation, prescribing and distributing its powers, and regulating their exercise. Such curative provisions are retrospective, and are not of the nature of a charter,' while the original act is constitutive and wholly prospective. § 102. Provisions in an act not within the subject expressed in the title. The title of an act defines its scope; it can contain no valid provision beyond the range of the subject there stated. A title importing a prospective statute will rule is that it does not regard the nature and extent of the original enactment which it is the declared purpose of the later act to amend, but only the title of it; it rests upon the assumption that the enactment was as comprehensive as under its title it might have been. We think it cannot be relied upon to aid in the determination of such cases, and, if recognized as a rule without qualification, that it would open a way to the accomplishment of the very evils which the constitutional provision was intended to prevent." Re-affirmed in State ex rel. Nash v. Madson, 45 N. W. Rep. 856. 1 Id.; People v. Briggs, 50 N. Y. 553; Tingue v. Port Chester, 101 N. Y. 294, 303; People v. Fleming, 7 Colo. 231; Pennington v. Woolfolk, 79 Ky. 13. It was decided in State v. Garrett, 29 La. Ann. 637, that parts of a statute could be repealed by reference to the numbers of the sections repealed. But see Second German 5 State v. Silver, 9 Nev. 227; People v. Common Council, 13 Abb. Pr. (N. S.) 121; Lowndes County v. Hunter, 49 Ala. 507; State v. Wardens, 23 La. Ann. 720; Brieswick v. Mayor, etc. 51 Ga. 639; Davis v. State, 7 Md. 115; In re Tappen, 36 How. Pr. 390; Ex parte Thomason, 16 Neb. 238; Mewherter v. Price, 11 Ind. 199; People v. Gad |