under this provision. The legislature cannot delegate to commissioners the power to state a tax. The act did state the object of the tax, but not the tax itself. Hanlon v. Westchester County (1870) 57 Barb. 383.

The act of 1875, chap. 60, amending the act of 1865, relating to payments by foreign insurance companies, imposed a license fee, and not a tax, and therefore was not within the prohibition of this section. The tax covered by the constitutional provision is one general in its provisions and coextensive with the state. People v. Fire Asso. (1883) 92 N. Y. 311, 44 Am. Rep. 380, also Exempt Firemen's Benev. Fund v. Roome (1883) 93 N. Y. 313, 45 Am. Rep. 217, construing the act of 1879, chap. 89, and other statutes requiring foreign insurance companies doing business in the state to contribute a percentage of premiums for certain local purposes.

The acts of 1879, chap. 382, 1881, chap. 402, 1883, chap. 516, prescribing a special method for collecting taxes in certain counties, do not impose, continue, and revive a tax, and are not within the prohibition of this section. People v. Ulster County (1885) 36 Hun,

491.

The provision of the corporation tax law of 1880, chap. 542, making the taxes applicable to the payment of the ordinary and current expenses of the state, sufficiently states the object of the tax. People v. National F. Ins. Co. (1882) 27 Hun, 188; People v. Home Ins. Co. (1883) 92 N. Y. 328, affirmed in (1889) 134 U. S. 594, 33 L. ed. 1025, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 593.

This section does not apply to the collateral inheritance tax law of 1885, chap. 483. "In terms it applies to every tax which the legislature can impose, and is not confined to a property tax. It is not, even by its terms, confined to a general tax embracing the whole state; but the language, literally construed, is broad enough to embrace every local tax imposed for local purposes. . Taxes may be imposed upon a great variety of objects. They may be direct or indirect, special or general, and they may be imposed in the shape of excise and licenses upon hawkers, peddlers, auctioneers, insurance agents, liquor dealers, and others. All the contributions for the support of the government, enforced from individuals in the various ways mentioned, are, properly speaking, taxes. Notwithstanding the general language of the section referred to, we do not think it was intended to apply to every tax which the legislature could impose. . . . The object of the constitutional provision was to convey information to the members of the legislature and to the people, and it should have a practical construction with a view

to accomplish its purpose so far as attainable, and to carry out the policy which we may assume dictated it." The collateral inheritance tax is permanent. "It is always uncertain upon whom it will fall and how much revenue it will produce." It would be impracticable for the legislature to specify the particular objects to which the tax should be applied, “and we are of opinion that this section. was intended to apply to the annual recurring taxes known at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and imposed generally upon the entire property of the state." Re McPherson (1887) 104 N. Y. 306, 58 Am. Rep. 502, 10 N. E. 685.

§ 25. [Three-fifths bills.]-On the final passage, in either house of the legislature, of any act which imposes, continues, or revives a tax, or creates a debt or charge, or makes, continues, or revives any appropriation of public or trust money or property, or releases, discharges, or commutes any claim or demand of the state, the question shall be taken by yeas and nays, which shall be duly entered upon the journals, and three fifths of all the members elected to either house shall, in all such cases, be necessary to constitute a quorum therein.

[Const. 1846, art. 7, § 14.]

This belongs to the same class as § 24.

The provision for a commutation tax in the militia law of 1851 did not render the act subject to the requirement that three fifths of each house of the legislature must be present at its passage. The commutation is not a tax in the ordinary sense. People ex rel. Scott v. Chenango (1853) 8 N. Y. 317.

An act enlarging the territorial boundaries of a village did not require the presence of three fifths of the legislature on its final passage. Pumpelly v. Owego (1863) 45 How. Pr. 219.

The act of 1855, chap. 428, for compensating parties whose property may be destroyed in consequence of mobs and riots, did not require the presence of three fifths of the legislature on its fina! passage. Darlington v. New York (1865) 31 N. Y. 164, 88 Am. Dec. 248.

The act of 1879, chap. 89, making the plaintiff in this case the recipient of the percentage of premiums received on business transacted in this state by foreign insurance companies, did not require the presence of three fifths. Exempt Firemen's Benev. Fund v. Roome (1883) 93 N. Y. 313, 45 Am. Rep. 217.

§ 26. [Board of supervisors.]—There shall be in each county, except in a county wholly included in a city, a board of supervisors, to be composed of such members and elected in such manner and for such period as is or may be provided by law. In a city which includes an entire county, or two or more entire counties, the powers and duties of a board of supervisors may be devolved upon the municipal assembly, common council, board of aldermen, or other legislative body of the city.

[As amended in 1899; for original, see amendments of 1874.]

In the chapter on the Commission of 1872, I have given a sketch of the origin of the provision requiring a board of supervisors in each county, including a reference to the discussion of the subject in the Convention of 1867. I have there noted the fact that the second part of the section relating to boards of aldermen was added by the legislature while the report of the Commission was under consideration. This provision then applied only to the city and county of New York, which were conterminous. By the New York charter of 1873, which was passed by the same legislature that recommended the constitutional amendments, the board of aldermen became the supervisors of the county. The constitutional provision was not changed by the Convention of 1894. The Greater New York charter of 1897, chap. 378, which, in general, took effect January 1, 1898, extended the boundaries of the city by including the counties of Kings and Richmond and a part of the county of Queens. This situation.

rendered inapplicable the second part of the above section, and the counties composing the new city, including the county of New York, became subject to the first part of the section, which required a board of supervisors in every county, except as therein indicated, and that exception then had no meaning. Accordingly the same legislature which passed the charter passed a supplemental act (1897, chap. 380) which provided that "in every county of the state wholly included within the limits of a city, but not comprising the whole of such city, there shall be a board of supervisors, to be composed of the members of the municipal assembly, board of aldermen, common council, or other legislative body of such city, who shall be elected as such, and also as supervisors within the territorial limits of the county," and certain duties were imposed on such board. This did not include Queens county, only a part of which was in the city, and whose supervisors therefore continued to exercise the powers vested in them before the charter. The unsatisfactory condition in Queens county resulting from the fact that a part of it was included in the city and a part remained subject to the ordinary county and town laws, suggested a division of that county and the legislature of 1898 accordingly erected the county of Nassau, comprising three towns, Oyster Bay, North Hempstead, and Hempstead, not included in the city of New York, and this act, as to most of its provisions, took effect on the 1st of January, 1899. This left all of Queens county in New York and subject to the provisions of the supplemental act of 1897, chap. 380, already cited. The legislature of 1899, by chap. 74, amended § 1586 of the New York charter by including Queens county, and by adding a provision which terminated the duties of the board of supervisors on the 31st of December, 1899. But subsequently, at the same session, chap. 416, the legislature

extended the powers of such board until the end of the term for which the supervisors had been elected. As a result of these statutes, the city of New York comprised four entire counties,-New York, Kings, Richmond, and Queens, and that part of Queens county not included in the city had become the county of Nassau. The necessity of re-establishing a board of supervisors in New York county consequent upon the enlargement of the city suggested a constitutional amendment which should relieve all the counties in the city from the operation of the requirement that each county must have a board of supervisors. An amendment was accordingly proposed in the legislature of 1898, and was approved and submitted to the legislature of 1899, by which it was again approved and submitted to the people and adopted at the November election in that year.

In construing the act of 1898, chap. 588, erecting the county of Nassau (Re Noble [1898] 34 App. Div. 55, 54 N. Y. Supp. 42), the court say that “although the board of supervisors is a county organization, its members are not elected by the body of electors of the county, but are chosen by the electors of their several towns respectively, and individually they are classed as town officers," and quote the provision of the county law that "the supervisors of the cities and towns in each county, when lawfully convened, shall be the board of supervisors of the county." By the Nassau act, the supervisors of three towns, Oyster Bay, North Hempstead, and Hempstead, then in office, were to constitute the board of supervisors of the new county, but the court suggest that by operation of the county law, these supervisors would constitute such board without any other legislative declaration. Supervisors are town officers, with specific powers and duties as such, and they are also made members of the legislative body of the county.

§ 27. [Powers of boards of supervisors.]—The legislature shall, by general laws, confer upon the boards of supervisors of the several counties of the state such further