charge after an investigation by such board. As these prosecutors have not been removed, suspended, expelled, or discharged from the police force by the commissioners, they are not within the terms of either of these statutes. The regulation of the force by assignment of its members to particular duties, according to the requirements of' the service and the special fitness of the individual members for these duties, must certainly be left to the discretion of the board, if they are to have any control or any liberty to act for the promotion of the efficiency of their department. If every change made by. them is to be regarded as a degredation or an elevation, and questions of precedence and preference among the members of the police force are to be settled by hearing on evidence and argument, there can be no proper subordination,—no selection or preference for skill or aptitude for special service. The hinderance and restraint on the commissioners would defeat, rather than promote, the efficiency of the police force, which is the main purpose of the law invoked, and all other laws on the subject. There is no reason in this ob~ jection.

The other causes assigned are considered and decided in the case of State v. Board of Police Com’rs of Newark, ante, 659, at the present term.

The writ will be dismissed, with costs. '

STATE (VAN ALST, Jr.) 1:. MAYOR, E'rc., OF JERSEY CITY, per Board Fire Com’rs, etc.

FIRES AND FIRE DEPARTMENTS—FIRE COMMISSIONERS—CLERK—TENURE 0F
OFFIcE—P. L. N. J. 1885, PAGE 130.
The clerk of the board of fire commissioners of Jersey City, New Jersey,
is an employe, and his position is protected by the act of 1885, (page 130.)

(Syllabus by the Court.)

On certiorar'i reviewing resolution passed by board of fire commissioners of Jersey City.

This writ brings up the proceedings concerning the election of a clerk, and the removal of Van Alst from his position of clerk to the board of fire commissioners of Jersey City. Van Alst was elected clerk of the board of fire commissioners, April 17 , 1880. At'a meeting held on April 28, 1886, the board voted to proceed to ballot for a clerk to fill the position then occupied by the prosecutor, but, after a number of ballotings without success, the board adjourned. The writ brings up the proceedings of the board in its attempt to elect a clerk.

G. Collins, for prosecutor.

A. L. McDermott, for defendants.

REED, J. The counsel for the prosecutor claims that his office is within the terms of the act of 1885, (page 130,) and that he is by it protected from removal. 'The act provides that the officers and men employed by municipal authority in the fire department of any city shall severally hold their respective offices, and continue in their respective employments, during good behavior, efficiency, and residence in such city. It then provides for what causes they may be removed.

The point mooted upon the argument was whether the clerk of the board of fire commissioners was an officer or employe, within the meaning of the act. The fire department of Jersey City was organized by the charter contained in P. L. 1871, p. 1094. Section 115 of the act confers upon the fire commissioners authority to appoint a clerk, and such persons as they may deem necessary for the proper management of the fire, telegraph, and alarm apparatus of said city, and to define their duties, and fix their compensation. This clause is the concluding one of the section, which section generally defines the offices and employment for which the board shall select men. The act was amended by the act of 1872, (page 665,) but not so as to alter in any respect the method of , appointing a clerk. I am of opinion that the clerk is an officer or person employed by municipal authority in the fire department. His duties are connected with the execution of the functions of the department. Although his services are more remote from the actual extinguishment of flames than are those of truckmen and firemen, yet all these men are engaged in a common service. His position is protected by the act of 1885.

It is objected by the defendants that he was not appointed by municipal authority because of a failure to comply with a rule of the board providing that no appointment in the department should be legal until the applicant did certain things. This rule is set out in the preceding case of Michaelis v. Fire Cmn’rs, ante, 881, and, in addition to what was said of the rule in that case, it appears that the rule was not in force when the appointment in the present case was made.

The resolution that the board should proceed to the election of a clerk is set aside.

TOFFEY 'v. ATonEsON.
(Court of Chancery of New Jersey. December 6, 1886.)

1. CONsTITUTIONAL LAw—RETRosPEOTIvE LAws—FOREcLosURE or MORTGAGE— DEGREE 0F DEFICIENCY—P. L. N. J. 1880, PAGE 255. _ The first section of the New Jersey statute of 1880, (P. L. 255,)declar1ng that no decree for deficiency shall be made in a foreclosure suit, is valid.

2. SAME—AFFECTING REMEDY—CONST. N. J. ART. 4, § 7.

Notwithstanding the constitutional provision that the legislature shall not pass any law depriving a party of any remedy for enforcing a contract which existed when the contract was made, it is competent for the legislature to change the practice of the courts, and any legislation which merely afiects the pursuit of remedies for enforcing contracts is not within the constitutional prohibition.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Bill to foreclose. On demurrer.
William P. Douglass, for demurrant.
M. T. Newbold, for complainant.

VAN FLEET, V. C. This is a foreclosure suit. The complainant, in addition to the ordinary decree condemning the mortgaged premises to sale, asks that a decree be made adjudging that the defendant is liable for any deficiency which may exist in case the mortgaged premises shall be sold for a sum less than the amount due on her mortgage. Her mort— gage was made in 1869. During the same year the mortgagor sold the mortgaged premises to the defendant, and by the deed, by which they were conveyed to him, the defendant assumed the payment of the complainant’s mortgage, and thereby, as between the mortgagor and himself, became the principal debtor, and, as such, stood bound to discharge the mortgage debt in exoneration of the mortgagor. These facts, according to the former practice of the court, would unquestionably be sufficient to entitle the complainant to the decree she asks. Klapworth v. Dressler, 13 N. J. Eq. 62; Crowell v. Currier, 27 N. J. Eq. 152; S. C. on appeal, Id. 650. But a statute was passed in 1880 which declares that in all proceedings to foreclose mortgages, commenced after it takes effect, no decree for deficiency shall be made. P. L. 255. If this statute is valid, it is clear that no such decree as the complainant asks, can be made. The complainant, however, disputes the validity of this statute; her insistment being that it is void under that provision of our constitution which declares that the legislature shall not pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, or depriving a party of any remedy for enforcing a contract which existed when the contract was made. Const. art. 4, § 7, p. 3.

This objection is not new. It has been made twice before. First, in Newark Sac. Inst. v. Forman, 33 N. J. Eq. 436, where the chancellor held that, although the statute prohibits the entry of a decree for deficiency in a suit to foreclose a mortgage on a purely legal liability,—as, for example, against the obligor making the bond accompanying the mortgage, or against a guarantor of the mortgage debt, and thus takes away the complainant’s equitable remedy,—it was nevertheless valid, for it does not deprive the complainant of his legal remedy. The statute leaves that in full vigor, and it was held to be a valid exercise of legislative power for the legislature, where both a legal and equitable rem— edy exists for the same cause of action, to abolish the equitable remedy, provided the legal remedy is left in full force; and provided, also, that, in taking the equitable remedy away, the suitor is deprived of no right of recourse to either person or property for the collection of his debt which his remedy in equity gives him, and his remedy at law does not. And next in Allen v. Allen, 34 N. J. Eq. 493, where, on a precisely similar state of facts with that existing in the case under consideration,Vicechancellor Dom) held that the statute was valid. The ground on which he put his judgment was that the statute simply regulates the remedy, but does not destroy it or take it away. By the uniform course of decision on the question as to how far legislative power is restrained by this provision of the constitution, it has been held that it is entirely competent for the legislature to change the practice of the courts, and that any'legislation which merely affects the pursuit of remedies for enforcing existing contracts is not within the prohibition Of this provision. Potts v. New Jersey Arms 60 Ordnance Co., 17 N. J. Eq. 395; Rader v. Roadrdistrict, 36 N. J. Law, 273; Newark Sac. Inst. v. Forman, supra.

All that this statute attempts to do is to prescribe a new rule of practice. By the practice inaugurated by the court in Klapworth v. Dressler, supra, it was made competent for a complainant, in a foreclosure suit, where the grantee of his mortgagor had bound himself to pay the mortgage debt, and thus made himself the principal in respect to such debt, and so liable over to the mortgagor for deficiency in case the mortgaged premises were not sold for a sum sufficient to discharge the mortgage debt, to have the question of such person’s liability for deficiency decided in that suit, before it was known Whether there would be a deficiency or not, and also before any right of action for deficiency had accrued. This course of practice, while appearing somewhat incongruous, inasmuch as it put it in the power of a complainant to compel a defendant to litigate the question whether he was liable or not before the fact on which his liability depended had occurred, was nevertheless highly advantageous to the defendant. It placed him in a position where he could know, before the sale of the mortgaged premises, just what his liability was, and he was thus afforded an opportunity, before the sale of the mortgaged premises, to adopt such measures as might be necessary for his protection. The statute changes this course of practice. It does not take away a mortgaged right to a decree for deficiency,——that remains in full force,—but it does declare that hereafter he shall not have a right to a decree adjudging that a defendant is liable for deficiency until a deficiency actually exists; in other words, that he must wait for his remedy until he has suffered a wrong. The constitutionality of the statute is, in my judgment, free from the slightest doubt.

A further objection is made. The second and third sections of this statute, as amended by an act passed in 1881, (P. L. 184,) have been declared unconstitutional. Baldwin v. Flagg, 43 N. J. Law, 495; Goddingto'n v. Bispham, 36 N. J. Eq. 574; Morris v. Carter, 46 N. J. Law, 260. The complainant insists that the sections which have been pronounced unconstitutional are so closely connected with the main object of the section under consideration, and form so essential a part of the general legislative scheme, that, if a part of the statute falls, the whole must go down. There is nothing in this objection. The section under consideration stands wholly independent of the other two. The two parts of the stat_ ute deal with entirely different subject-matters, and stand as distinct as they would if they had been the subject of separate statutes passed at different times. The chancellor passed upon this Objection in Newark Sac. Inst. v. Forman, supra, and held it to be groundless.

The statute upon which the demurrer in this case is founded having been held to be valid, the demurrer must be sustained, with costs.

1. WITNESS—CONTRADICTING—COLLATERAL MATTERS. A witness in a suit for divorce. on cross-examination, was asked if he had not at one time committed larceny. Having denied it, held, that he could not be contradicted in regard thereto.

2. SAME—IMPEAOHMENT—CHARGE OF CRIME.

A witness cannot be impeached by Showing that he has been charged with and arrested for a crime.

On bill for divorce. Appeal from ruling of the master.
G. O. Vanderbilt, for appellant.
W. Y. Johnson, contra.

BIRD, V. C. The suit is for divorce. The defendant sought, on the examination of witnesses before the master, to discredit one of the witnesses called and examined by the complainant. This he endeavored to do, first, by asking him, on cross-examination, if he had not been guilty of larceny, particularly naming the goods said to have been stolen, which the witness denied; and then by ofi'ering to prove that he had admitted to others that he had stolen the goods. This testimony was objected to, and rejected by the master. The master was right. He followed the rule as laid down by Greenleaf, in his work on Evidence, (section 449,) and by all the judges who have considered the question on appeal. The question is not whether the witness may be asked such a question or not, nor whether he can plead his privilege and refuse to answer, but, having been asked and answered, whether or not, in such case, he can be contradicted, when it appears to touch upon matters wholly collateral to the issue between the parties, and solely to pertain to the credibility of the witness.

In State v. Roberts, 81 N. C. 605, a witness for the state was asked, on cross-examination, if he had not said to one Wills “that, rather than be outdone by a negro, he would swear to any amount of lies;” and also if he had not admitted, on a trial before a justice of the peace, that he