avenue and the track of the Illinois Central Railroad, whether the same be submerged or not, constituting a part of sections 10 and 15, in township 39, range 14 E. of the third P. M., or lying or being adjacent thereto on the east. This grant was subject to various conditions, among which were that the premises should not be conveyed or leased except upon the votes of three-fourths of the aldermen required to be elected, and that the city, at its election, might dedicate the whole or part of the premises for a public park. On the day of its introduction, this bill was read a first time, and ordered to be read a second time. The same day "the rule was dispensed with," the bill read a second time, and referred to a committee. On the 4th of February, 1869, the committee reported it back with amendments, recommending its passage as amended. The house adopted other amendments; and on the 10th of February, 1869, the report, as amended by the house, was adopted. On the same day the

bill was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading. It was read a third time on the 20th of February, and passed. On the same day, immediately after its passage, it was ordered by the house that the title be "A bill for an 'An act in relation to a portion of the submerged lands and Lake Park grounds lying on and adjacent to the shore of Lake Michigan, on the eastern frontage of the city of Chicago."" The fact of the passage of the bill in the house was communicated to the senate on the day of its passage, and two days thereafter it was taken up, read a first time, "ordered to a second reading," and laid on the table to be printed. On the 1st of March, 1869, the committee to which the bill had been previously referred, reported it back, with a recommendation in favor of its passage. The report" was concurred in, and the bill ordered to a third reading." The bill was read a third time, and passed, with the foregoing title, on the 8th of March, 1869. It was vetoed by the governor, and on the 16th of April, 1869, passed each body, his objections to the contrary notwithstanding. It will be seen from this history of the act as it went through the legislature that nothing appears in the senate journal to show that the bill was in fact read a second time in that body. Is it essential to its validity that it should appear in the journal that the bill was "read on three different days in each house?" Does the mere silence of the senate journal as to whether the bill was in fact read a second time in that body, on some one of three different days, raise a conclusive presumption that it was not so read?

The earliest case in the supreme court of Illinois upon this general subject to which our attention has been called is Spangler v. Jacoby, 14 Ill. 297. The court there said: "In our opinion, it is clearly competent to show from the journals of either branch of the legislature that a particular act was not passed in the mode prescribed by the constitution, and thus defeat its operation. The constitution requires each house to keep a journal, and declared that certain facts made essential to the passage of a law shall be stated therein. If those facts are not set forth, the conclusion is that they did not transpire. The journal is made up under the immediate direction of the house, and is presumed to contain a full and complete history of its proceedings. If a certain act receive the

constitutional assent of the body, it will so appear on the face of the journal, and, when a contest arises as to whether an act was thus passed, the journal may be appealed to to settle it. It is the evidence of the action of the house, and by it the act must stand or fall. It certainly was not the intention of the framers of the constitution that the signatures of the speakers and executive should furnish conclusive evidence of the passage of a law. The presumption, indeed, is that an act thus verified became a law pursuant to the requirements of the constitution; but that presumption may be overthrown. If the journal is lost or destroyed, this presumption will sustain the law, for it will be contended that the proper entry was made in the journal; but when the journal is in exist ence, and it fails to show that the act was passed in the mode prescribed by the constitution, the presumption is overcome, and the act must fall." This decision is cited by counsel to support the proposition that the mere silence of the journal as to whether a bill was or not read on three different days-the journal not being lost or destroyed—is itself fatal to the validity of the act. But we are not satisfied that the court intended to express an opinion upon that precise point. Although it did not appear, in that case, that the bill was read the third time before it went to the senate, or that the ayes and noes were called, no special comment was made by the court upon the silence of the journal as to the bill not being read the third time. Plainly, its language had reference to the fact that the journal did not show the passage of the bill by ayes and noes. It was with reference to that fact that the language above quoted was used. In Turley v. County of Logan, 17 Ill. 152, the court said that "the journals should show the readings, and the passage of the law by a constitutional vote;" but nothing was said as to what would be the result where the journal did not show that each of the required readings was had. The general language above quoted seems to have been unnecessary to the decision, for the court finally sustained the validity of the act there in question, upon the ground that the same legislature, in extra session, caused its journals to be amended so as to show what, according to the minutes of the clerk of the house, was the fact,―that the bill had been read the required number of times. That we do not misinterpret these decisions is shown in Supervisors of Schuyler Co. v. People, 25 Ill. 181, where one of the grounds of objection to an act was that the senate journal did not show that the bill was read three times before it was put on its final passage. The court said: "The constitution does require that every bill shall be read three times in each branch of the general assembly before it shall be passed into a law; but the constitution does not say that these several readings shall be entered on the journals. Some acts performed in the passage of laws are required by the constitution to be entered on the journals, in order to make them valid, and among these are the entries of the ayes and nays on the final passage of every bill; and we held in the case of Spangler v. Jacoby, 14 Ill. 297, that, where the journal did not show this, the act never became a law. But, where the constitution is silent as to whether a particular act which is required to be performed shall be entered on the journals, it is then left

to the discretion of either house to enter it or not; and the silence of the journal on the subject ought not to be held to afford evidence that the act was not done. In such a case we must presume it was done, unless the journal affirmatively shows that it was not done." This decision was expressly reaffirmed in Railroad Co. v. Hughes, 38 Ill. 186. Nothing to the contrary was decided in People v. Starne, 35 Ill. 141, or in Ryan v. Lynch, 68 Ill. 161, which is relied upon as modifying or overruling Supervisors of Schuyler Co. v. People. The case in 35 Ill. recognizes the doctrine of the Schuyler Co. Case, and goes upon the ground that the ayes and noes were not called, and spread upon the journals of the house, on the passage of the bill. In Ryan v. Lynch it appeared from the journal that the bill was read twice in the senate; but the journal was silent as to a third reading, and did not show any call of the ayes and noes on the final passage of the bill. The decision was that as the proceedings in the senate, certified by the secretary of state, were competent proof of the facts therein stated, the failure of the journal to show a call of the ayes and noes was fatal to the bill. Nothing was said as to the effect to be given to the mere silence of the senate journal as to the third reading of the bill. Indeed, we do not find that any of the numerous decisions of the state court relating to the passage of bills by the legislature have modified or overruled the doctrine announced in Supervisors of Schuyler Co. v. People. With that doctrine we are entirely satisfied. It is in harmony with the adjudications in many of the states whose constitutions have provisions similar to those in the constitution of Illinois which we have been considering. Miller v. State, 3 Ohio St. 475; McCulloch v. State, 11 Ind. 424; State v. City of Hastings, 24 Minn. 78; English v. Oliver, 28 Ark. 317; Chicot Co. v. Davies, 40 Ark. 200; State v. Francis, 26 Kan. 724; In re Vanderberg, 28 Kan. 243; State v. Mead, 71 Mo. 268. We therefore hold that the mere silence of the senate journal as to whether the act of 1869 was read the second time in that body does not justify us in holding it to be invalid.

The next inquiry, under this head, is whether the act of 1869 is a private or local law; if so, whether the title sufficiently expresses the subject thereof. In entering upon this inquiry, we lay out of view the eighth section of the act declaring it to be a public act; for the mere declaration of the legislature that it was a public act would not make it such, or preclude the determination of its character by the courts. Railroad Co. v. Gregory, 15 Ill. 28. On behalf of the railroad company, it is contended that the word "private" is used as contradistinguished from "public," and "local" as contradistinguished from "general;" that the act in question is both public and general, because it concerns the interests of the public at large, contains a grant of the public domain of the state, provides for a revenue to be applied for state purposes only, and has in view the improvement of a harbor, in which object as well the people of Chicago as of the entire country and of foreign countries are interested. We recognize the force of this argument. But, if it be sound, it would follow that every act, or at least the great body of acts, referring in any way to municipal corporations, and to railroads constructed and maintained un

der legislative authority, must be taken out of the prohibition against the passage of a private or local law, whose subject is not expressed by its title; for all such acts may be said to relate to agencies employed by the state for the accomplishment of public purposes, and in which, in some sense, the people of the whole state are interested. Some light, we think, is thrown upon this question by the constitution of 1870, which does not contain any provision requiring the subject of a private or local law to be expressed in its title, but instead thereof prohibits the general assembly from passing "local or special laws" in certain enumerated cases, among which are 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 practice in courts of justice; regulating the jurisdiction and duties of justices of the peace, police magistrates, and constables; providing for changes of venue in civil and criminal cases; incorporating cities, towns, or villages; providing for the management of common schools; the protection of game or fish; and chartering or licensing ferries or toll-bridges. The word "local," as used in the constitution of 1870, evidently means what it did in that of 1848; and we are of opinion that laws relating to any of these subjects would have been deemed "local," within the meaning of the constitution of 1848, when, by their terms, they were to have only a local territorial operation. In many of the states, the constitutional requirement is that every law, whether private or public, local or general, shall contain but one subject, which shall be expressed in the title. But the Illinois constitution of 1848 had in view only to guard against enactments of a private or local character, the subject whereof was not expressed in the title. If it were conceded, in this case, that the act of 1869 must, by reason of some of its provisions, be deemed a public act, within the rule requiring courts to take judicial notice of its contents, (Binkert v. Jansen, 94 Ill. 290,) the result would not follow for which counsel of the company contend; for the constitutional prohibition equally applies to legislation which is local in its character. In other words, an act may be of a public nature, and yet, by its terms, be local in its operation and immediate results. This act does not relate to the entire line of the railroad company within the state, nor to all the municipal corporations existing under her authority, but, among other things, to specified property in a particular city. It contains provisions which concerned the people within that municipality far more than the people of any other locality in the state. Obviously, the intention of the framers of the constitution was to protect local communities against enactments, of the subjects whereof they had no previous notice from the titles used by the promoters of such legislation. An act is local which specially concerns the property and rights of a portion of the people of the state, although its subject may be of a public nature, and although in its general operation the people of the entire state may, in some sense, have an interest. It is none the less a local act, within the meaning of the constitution, because some of its provisions, if embodied in a separate statute, might have made that

statute a general law. As we shall see further along, the city of Chicago had, when the act of 1869 was passed, certain property rights in lands within its corporate limits. In that property no other municipal corporation of the state had any direct interest. Of some of that property the act required the city to make sale to particular corporations, at a named price. If such an act be not local, it is difficult to conceive of one that would be of that character, within the meaning of the constitution.

The rules to guide us in solving the question whether the subject of an act is sufficiently expressed seem to be well established by numerous decisions of the supreme court of Illinois. In Railroad Co. v. Gregory, 15 Ill. 20, it was said that the provision of the constitution must receive "a fair and reasonable construction,-one which will repress the evil designed to be guarded against, but which at the same time will not render it oppressive or impracticable." In City of Ottawa v. People, 48 Ill. 233, that, while the subject must be expressed, "the adjuncts to that subject, or the modus operandi, need not be." In Binz v. Weber, 81 Ill. 288, that the question whether an act contains more than one subject is to be determined by the controlling purpose of the law; not by the various provisions made for carrying that purpose into effect. In Johnson v. People, 83 Ill. 431, that the constitution "does not require that the subject of the bill must be specifically and exactly expressed in the bill; hence we conclude that any expression in the title which calls attention. to the subject of a bill, although in general terms, is all that is required." In Blake v. People, 109 Ill. 504, that the clause of the constitution under consideration has uniformly been "construed liberally in favor of the validity of enactments; and the fact that many things of a diverse nature are authorized or required to be done is unimportant, provided the doing of them may fairly be regarded as in furtherance of the general subject of the enactment." And in Mix v. Railroad Co., 116 Ill. 502, 6 N. E. Rep. 42, that "it is sufficient that the act is fairly covered by its title. The constitution does not require that all the legal effects of an act, such as repeals by implication, should be expressly stated in the title. Such a thing would be utterly impracticable. The general rule is illustrated in numerous cases in the state court, to some of which it will be well to refer. In Railroad Co. v. Gregory, 15 Ill. 20, "An act to incorporate the Belleville and Illinoistown Railroad Company" was held to contain but one subject, although one of its provisions conferred upon a named city and county authority to subscribe to the stock of the company, and although another section authorized the company to unite with any other railroad then or thereafter to be constructed in the state. So was "An act to incorporate the Firemen's Benevolent Association, and for other purposes," which contained a provision requiring the agents of all foreign insurance companies doing business in Chicago to pay to the association 2 per cent. on the amount of all premiums received by such agents. Association v. Lounsbury, 21 Ill. 511. In O'Leary v. County of Cook, 28 Ill. 534, "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to incorporate the Northwestern University,"" which contained a prohibition upon the sale of ardent sprits within a distance of four miles of the university,