Section 16. Nothing in this constitution contained shall prevent the legislature from making such provision for the education and support of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and juvenile delinquents, as to it may seem proper; or prevent any county, city, town or village from providing for the care, support, maintenance and secular education, of inmates of orphan asylums, homes for dependent children or correctional institutions, whether under public or private control. Payments by counties, cities, towns and villages to charitable, eleemosynary, correctional and reformatory institutions, wholly or partly under private control, for care, support and maintenance, may be authorized, but shall not be required by the legislature. No such payments shall be made for any inmate of such institutions who is not received and retained therein pursuant to rules established by the state board of charities. Such rules shall be subject to the control of the legislature by general laws. Section 17. Commissioners of the state board of charities and commissioners of the state commission in lunacy, now holding office, shall be continued in office for the term for which they were appointed, respectively, unless the legislature shall otherwise provide. The legislature may confer upon the commissions and upon the board mentioned in the foregoing sections any additional powers that are not inconsistent with other provisions of this constitution.

ARTICLE XII.

Section 1. The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated.

Section 2. The corporation created in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, under the name of The Regents of the University of the State of New York, is hereby continued under the name of The University of the State of New York. It shall be governed and its corporate powers, which may be increased, modified or diminished by the legislature, shall be exercised, by not less than nine regents.

Section 3. The capital of the common school fund, the capital of the literature fund, and the capital of the United States deposit fund, shall be respectively preserved inviolate. The revenue of such common school fund shall be applied to the support of common schools; the revenue of such literature fund shall be applied to the support of academies; and the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars of the revenues of the United States deposit fund shall each year be appropriated to and made part of the capital of such common school fund.

Section 4. Neither the state nor any subdivision thereof, shall use its property or credit or any public money, or authorize or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly, in aid or maintenance, other than for examination or inspection, of any school or institution of learning wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught.

ARTICLE XIII.

Section 1. Sheriffs, clerks of counties, district attorneys, and registers in counties having registers, shall be chosen by the electors of the respective counties, once in every three years and as often as vacancies shall happen,

except in the counties of New York and Kings, and in counties whose boundaries are the same as those of a city, where such officers shall be chosen by the electors once in every two or four years as the legislature shall direct. Sheriffs shall hold no other office, and be ineligible for the next term after the termination of their offices. They may be required by law to renew their security, from time to time; and in default of giving such new security, their offices shall be deemed vacant. But the county shall never be made responsible for the aets of the sheriff. The governor may remove any officer, in this section mentioned, within the term for which he shall have been elected; giving to such officer a copy of the charges against him, and an opportunity of being heard in his defense.

Section 2. All county officers, whose election or appointment is not provided for by this constitution, shall be elected by the electors of the respective counties or appointed by the boards of supervisors, or other county authorities, as the legislature shall direct. All city, town and village officers whose election or appointment is not provided for by this constitution, shall be elected by the electors of such cities, towns and villages, or of some division thereof, or appointed by such authorities thereof, as shall be provided by law. All other officers, whose election or appointment is not provided for by this constitution, and all officers, whose offices may hereafter be created by law, shall be elected by the people, or appointed, as may be provided by law.

Section 3. When the duration of any office is not provided by this constitution, it may be declared by law, and if not so declared, such office shall be held during the pleasure of the authority making the appointment.

Section 4. The time of electing all officers named in this article shall be prescribed by law.

Section 5. The legislature shall provide for filling vacancies in office, and in case of elective officers, no person appointed to fill a vacancy shall hold his office by virtue of such appointment longer than the commencement of the political year next succeeding the first annual election after the happening of the vacancy.

Section 6. Provision shall be made by law for the removal for misconduct or malversation in office of all officers, except judicial, whose powers and duties are not local or legislative and who shall be elected at general elections, and also for filling vacancies created by such removal.

Section 7. The legislature may declare the cases in which any office shall be deemed vacant when no provision is made for that purpose in this constitution.

Section 8. No officer whose salary is fixed by this constitution shall receive any additional compensation. Each of the other state officers named in this constitution shall, during his continuance in office, receive a compensation, to be fixed by law, which shall not be increased or diminished during the term for which he shall have been elected or appointed; nor shall he receive to his use any fees or perquisites of office or other compensation.

Section 9. All offices for the weighing, gauging, measuring, culling or inspecting any merchandise, produce, manufacture or commodity whatever, are hereby abolished; and no such office shall hereafter be created by law: but nothing in this section contained shall abrogate any office created for the purpose of protecting the public health or the interests of the state in its

property, revenue, tolls or purchases, or of supplying the people with correct standards of weights and measures, or shall prevent the creation of any office for such purposes hereafter.

Section 10. Appointments and promotions in the civil service of the state, and of all the civil divisions thereof, including cities and villages, shall be made according to merit and fitness to be ascertained, so far as practicable, by examinations, which, so far as practicable, shall be competitive: provided however, that honorably discharged soldiers and sailors from the army and navy of the United States in the late civil war, who are citizens and residents of this state, shall be entitled to preference in appointment and promotion, without regard to their standing on any list from which such appointment or promotion may be made. Laws shall be made to provide for the enforcement of this section.

ARTICLE XIV.

Section 1. All able-bodied male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, who are residents of the state, shall constitute the militia, subject however to such exemptions as are now, or may be hereafter created by the laws of the United States, or by the legislature of this state.

Section 2. The legislature may provide for the enlistment into the active force of such other persons as may make application to be so enlisted.

Section 3. The militia shall be organized and divided into such land and naval, and active and reserve forces, as the legislature may deem proper, provided however that there shall be maintained at all times a force of not less than ten thousand enlisted men, fully uniformed, armed, equipped, disciplined and ready for active service. And it shall be the duty of the legislature at each session to make sufficient appropriations for the maintenance thereof.

Section 4. The governor shall appoint his aides-de-camp and military secretary and the adjutant-general of the state, all of whom shall hold office during his pleasure, their commissions to expire with the term for which the governor shall have been elected; he shall also nominate, and with the consent of the senate appoint, all major generals. The legislature may prescribe the number and qualifications of major generals and aides-de-camp.

Section 5. All other commissioned and non-commissioned officers shall be chosen or appointed in such manner and shall have such qualifications as the legislature may deem most conducive to the improvement of the militia, provided, however, that no law shall be passed changing the existing mode of election and appointment unless two-thirds of the members present in each house shall concur therein.

Section 6. The commissioned officers shall be commissioned by the governor as commander-in-chief. No commissioned officer shall be removed from office during the term for which he shall have been appointed or elected, unless by the senate on the recommendation of the governor, stating the grounds on which such removal is recommended, or by the sentence of a court martial, or upon the findings of an examining board organized pursuant to law, or for absence without leave for a period of three months or more.

ARTICLE XV.

Section 1. It shall be the duty of the legislature by general laws to provide for the organization of new cities in such manner as shall secure to them the exercise of the powers granted to cities in this article. Except as to cities having more than one hundred thousand population, it shall be the duty of the Legislature to restrict the powers of taxation and assessment so as to prevent abuses in taxation and assessments by any city or incorporated village.

Section 2. The legislature may regulate and fix the wages and, except as otherwise provided in this article, the salaries and may also regulate and fix the hours of work or labor, and make provision for the protection, welfare and safety of persons employed by the state or by any county, city, town, village or other civil division of the state, or by any contractor or subcontractor performing work, labor or services for the state, or for any county, city, town, village or other civil division thereof.

Section 3. Every city shall have exclusive power to manage, regulate and control its property, affairs and municipal government subject to the provisions of this constitution and subject further to the provisions of the general laws of the state, of laws applying to all the cities of the state without classification or distinction, and of laws applying to a county not wholly included within a city establishing or affecting the relation between such a county and a city therein.

Such power shall be deemed to include among others:

(a) The power to organize and manage all departments, bureaus, or other divisions of its municipal government and to regulate the powers, duties, qualifications, mode of selection, number, terms of office, compensation and method of removal of all city officers and employees, including all police and health officers and employees paid by the city, and of all non-judicial officers and employees attached to courts not of record, and to regulate the compensation of all officers not chosen by the electors and of all employees of counties situated wholly within a city except assistants and employees of district attorneys and except officers and employees of courts of record.

(b) The power, as hereinafter provided, to revise or enact amendments to its charter in relation to its property, affairs or municipal government and to enact amendments to any local or special law in relation thereto. A city may adopt a revised charter or enact amendments to its charter or any existing special or local law in relation to any matter of state concern the management, regulation and control of which shall have been delegated to the city by law, until and unless the legislature, pursuant to the provisions of section four of this article shall enact a law inconsistent therewith. The term "charter" is declared for the purposes of this article to include any general city law enacted for the cities of one class in so far as it applies to such city.

The legislative body of the city may enact such amendments, subject to the approval of the mayor and of the board of estimate and apportionment of the city if any there be; provided, however, that in a city in which any of the members of the board of estimate and apportionment are not elected or in which no such body exists no such amendment shall be enacted without the assent of two-thirds of all members elected to such legislative body.

Every such enactment shall embrace only one subject and shall expressly declare that it is such an amendment. Every amendment which changes the framework of the government of the city or modifies restrictions as to issuing bonds or contracting debts shall be submitted to the legislature in the year one thousand nine hundred and sixteen on or before the fifteenth day of March and in any year thereafter during the first week of its next regular session, and shall take effect as law sixty days after such submission unless in the meantime the legislature shall disapprove the same by joint resolution. Every other such amendment shall take effect upon its enactment as above provided without such submission to the legislature.

The legislature by general law shall provide for a public notice and opportunity for a public hearing by the legislative body of the city concerning any such amendment before final action thereon by it.

At the general election in the year one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, and unless its charter after one revision thereof shall otherwise provide, in every eighth year thereafter either at the general or at a special election, every city shall submit to the electors thereof, the question "Shall there be a commission to revise the charter of the city?" and may at the same time choose seven commissioners to revise the city charter in case the question be answered in the affirmative, provided, however, that in the city of New York the number of such commissioners shall be sixteen, nine of whom shall be chosen by the electors of the entire city, two by the electors of the borough of Manhattan, two by the electors of the borough of Brooklyn, and one each by the electors of the boroughs of The Bronx, Queens and Richmond respectively. Such revision when completed shall be filed in the office of the city clerk, and not less than six weeks after such filing shall be submitted to the electors of the city at the next ensuing general election or at a special election to be called for that purpose. If such revision be approved by the affirmative vote of the majority of the electors voting thereon such revision shall be submitted to the legislature during the first week of its session in January of the year following the approval thereof, and if not disapproved by the legislature by joint resolution prior to the first day of July thereafter shall thereupon take effect as law except as therein otherwise specified. The legislature shall by general law provide for carrying into effect the provisions of this paragraph.

Every charter revision and every amendment of any provision of law, enacted pursuant to this section, shall be deposited with the secretary of state and published as the legislature may direct.

Section 4. All cities are classified according to the latest federal or state census or enumeration, as from time to time made, as follows: The first class includes all cities having a population of one hundred and seventyfive thousand or more; the second class, all cities having a population of fifty thousand and less than one hundred and seventy-five thousand; the third class, all other cities.

The legislature may delegate to cities for exercise within their respective local jurisdictions such of its powers of legislation as to matters of state concern as it may from time to time deem expedient.

The legislature shall pass no law relating to the property, affairs or municipal government of any city excepting such as is applicable to all the cities of the state without classification or distinction.