government; and the new constitution contained a much greater amount of detail, imposing further restrictions on the General Assembly and also on the local governments.

The most important change was the prohibition of local or special legislation in a list of 23 enumerated subjects. A considerable number of the subjects in the enumerated list related to local government, as follows:

Laying out, opening, altering and working roads or highways;
Vacating roads, town plats, streets, alleys and public grounds;
Locating or changing county seats;

Regulating county and township affairs;

Regulating the jurisdiction and duties of justices of the peace, police magistrates and constables;

Incorporating cities, towns or villages, or changing or amending the charter of any town, city or village;

Providing for the management of common schools;

The opening and conducting of any election, or designating the place of voting;

Chartering or licensing ferries or toll bridges;

Creating, increasing or decreasing 'fees, percentages or allowances of public officers during the term for which said officers are elected. or appointed;

Granting to any corporation, association or individual, the right to lay down railroad tracks, or amending existing charters for such purpose.

At the same time, the constitution includes a series of special provisions relating to the courts, county commissioners, and other county officers in Cook County.

In the article on the Judicial Department, several changes were made in the provisions relating to county courts. The election of county judges by districts of two or more counties was authorized. The jurisdiction of county courts was enlarged; and the establishment of separate probate courts in counties of over 50,000 population was authorized. A state's attorney was to be elected in each county, in place of one for each judicial circuit. As already noted, special provisions were adopted relating to the courts of Cook County.

Further details were added to the regulations for the removal of county seats. Voters on this question are required to have resided in the county six months and in the precinct ninety days before the election. The question of removal may not be submitted oftener than once in ten years. And a three-fifths vote is required for the removal of a county seat farther from the center of the county.

For the management of county business in counties not under township organization, a board of county commissioners was again provided (as under the constitution of 1818), to take over the administrative functions of the county court, under the constitution of 1848. For Cook County, a special provision established a board of 15 county commissioners, 10 elected from the city of Chicago and 5 from the towns outside the city.

Additions were made to the list of constitutional county officers. Besides adding the state's attorney, the coroner was again named, and provision was made for electing probate judges and recorders of deeds in counties with over 50,000 and 60,000 population respectively. Several sections dealt in considerable detail with the fees and compensation of county officers and required semi-annual reports of fees, with special provisions for Cook County.

It was proposed to require township organization throughout the state; and this led to some discussion of the township system. The optional provisions were however retained, with additions relating to votes on adopting and on continuing or discontinuing the township system, providing that no two townships should have the same name. and requiring the day of the annual town meeting to be uniform throughout the state.

In the article on Revenue, a limit of 75 cents on the $100 assessed valuation was established for county taxes, unless an excess be approved by a vote of the people of the county. A more definite provision was adopted relating to taxes for corporate purposes; and authorizing cities, towns and villages to make local improvements by special assessment or by special taxation of contiguous property or otherwise.

As a result of the great increase in municipal debts during the preceding decade (largely for aid to railroads), a limit of five per cent was placed on such debts, with a further provision requiring the levy of an annual tax to pay interest on any debt and to discharge the principal within twenty years.

The general effect of these changes and additions was to stereotype the existing system of detailed legislative control, without administrative supervision, and to make changes in that system almost impossible. The only method left for meeting new problems and for avoiding in some measure the restrictions imposed was the creation of new classes of local districts and local authorities; and this has added further complications to the organization of local government throughout the state.

Legislation since 1870. At the session of the General Assembly in 1872, a series of revised laws relating to local government were passed, which were for the most part incorporated in the Revised Statutes of 1874. These included:

Several acts relating to fees and salaries of county and township

officers.

An act relating to public libraries, approved March 7, 1872.

An act to provide for the removal of county seats, approved March 15, 1872.

An act in regard to roads and bridges, approved March 21, 1872. An act for the assessment of property and for the levy and collection of taxes, approved April 1, 1872.

An act in regard to elections, and to provide for filling vacancies in elective offices, approved April 3, 1872.

An act to provide for the incorporation of cities and villages, approved April 10, 1872.

The Revised Statutes, however, included another revision of the road and bridge law, which repealed that of 1872.

As a result of these measures, the laws on these subjects were codified and made more coherent, and these general laws replaced many provisions in local and special acts. But there was also a marked tendency to elaborate still further the details of statutory regulations as to the organization and functions of local officers.

The Revised Statutes of 1874 have been amended and supplemented by much later legislation; and from time to time a revision of the laws on some subjects has been passed. Most of this has been in the form of general laws; and the prohibition on local and special legislation has been more effective than in many other states in restricting the volume of legislation and the proportion of laws enacted for particular communities.

Among the more important laws relating to local government, passed since the Revised Statutes of 1874, may be noted the following: Acts revising the road and bridge laws, in 1877, 1879, 1883, 1887 and 1913.

Acts relating to drainage districts, in 1879 and 1885.

Acts relating to park districts, in 1893 and 1895.

An act to revise the law in relation to justices of the peace and constables, in 1895.

1919.

An act to regulate the civil service of cities, in 1895.

An act concerning local improvements, in 1897.

An act for the assessment of property, etc., in 1898.

Acts relating to primary elections in 1905, 1906, 1908, 1910 and

Acts relating to high school districts, in 1905, 1911 and 1917.
An act to revise the school law, in 1909.

Commission government law, in 1910.

An act relating to forest preserve districts, in 1913.

An act relating to public health districts, in 1917.

In these and other acts, however, the tendency toward greater detail has continued; and, notably in recent years, the volume of legislation has largely increased. In 1919, there were 202 acts relating to local government, aggregating 418 pages in the session laws. Comparatively few of these (only 8 acts, covering 39 pages) related specifically to county and township government. But there were 14 acts relating to cities and villages, 21 relating to schools, 15 relating to roads and bridges, 17 relating to drainage, 8 relating to elections, 87 making changes in the revenue laws, and 14 relating to courts, and 11 to fees and salaries.

The volume and detail of legislation on local government has been increased by the use of various devices for enacting laws general in form but of limited application. Counties, cities and other local districts have been classified usually on a basis of population, though

sometimes on other grounds; but without establishing a definite system of classification. The use of optional laws, effective only in communities which vote to adopt them, has been extended; and in a number of cases such laws have been passed with special reference to a particular community. New types of local districts have been created, such as park, drainage, sanitary, high school and public health districts, with overlapping jurisdiction covering the same territory as other types of local districts and adding to the complexities of local government.

Optional laws and the creation of overlapping districts have been upheld by the supreme court; and there is apparently no limit under the present constitution to the extent to which these methods may be employed. The classification of local districts has also been upheld in a number of cases; but in other cases some forms of classification have been held invalid, as being based on no reasonable relation to the purposes of the act.2

Some other tendencies in the legislation and in the general conditions of local government since 1870 may be briefly noted. The movement in the direction of decentralization has continued, as illustrated by the further extension of the township system, and by the introduction (in 1887) of elective road district commissioners in counties not under township organization. The latter change removed one of the important distinctions between the two forms of county government in Illinois. The creation of new types of local districts also illustrates the tendency towards decentralization.

At the same time, but more especially in the last twenty years, there have been distinct steps in the direction of more centralized local government. This has been indicated by changes in the laws increasing the powers and importance of county officers, as compared with the town officers, in such matters as the administration of poor relief, highways and the assessment and collection of taxes, and by the reduction in the number of town highway commissioners from three to one. The declining importance of the civil town has been aided by the close restrictions on its power of taxation and the failure to enlarge its authority; and is reflected in the gradual disappearance of the town meeting as an active agency, and the exercise of such town functions as remain by administrative officers acting under the minute regulations of statute law.

More notable has been the great development of municipal powers and functions in the incorporated cities and villages. This has been due primarily to the increase of urban population; but has been aided by the fact that the urban districts have been adjusted in area from time to time with changes in population so as to correspond more closely to the needs for public services than the fixed and artificial boundaries of the townships. Moreover the organization of urban government under the cities and villages act and still more under the commission plan has been placed on a more concentrated and systematic basis than that of other local authorities.

2Devine v. Commissioners of Cook County. 84 Ill.. 590 (1877); People v. Knopf, 183 Ill. 410 (1900); Douglas v. People, 225 Ill. 536 (1907). See Bulletin No. 6, on Municipal Home Rule.

Still further, there has been a considerable development of state. administration in fields formerly in the hands of local officials. State aid and supervision of local authorities have been established in the case of schools through the Superintendent of Public Instruction; for county jails and poor houses, through the State Board of Charities, replaced by the State Charities Commission, and in 1917, by the department of Public Welfare; in the work of road construction, by the State Highway Commission and the present department of Public Works and Buildings; and in the assessment of property for taxation by the State Tax Commission, established in 1919.

In other cases a more complete transfer of functions from local to state officials has been accomplished, as in the assessment of railroad property by the State Board of Equalization, and now by the State Tax Commission; the development of state charitable institutions whose management was more thoroughly centralized under the State Board of Administration in 1909 and combined with the state correctional institutions under the department of Public Welfare in 1917; and the control of public utilities by the Public Utilities Commission established in 1913.

The reorganization of state administration, by the civil administrative code of 1917, into an integrated and coherent system, does not directly affect the machinery of local government. But it serves as further indication of the tendency towards more systematic and efficient public administration. And at the same time, it offers a marked contrast, to the unorganized arrangements in most of the local districts and in the local governments as a whole.