Public Aid—A Constitutional Question. 345 
of road proposed before the articles of association can be filed 
(12), on the filing of maps (§22), the one hundred and five items 
in the annual reports (§31), on baggage (§37), on the formation 
of passenger trains (§38), and on intoxication (§4). All the 
other provisions of the law could, at least in their essentials, 
be constructed synthetically from the charters granted before 
the bill was proposed. Noticeable among these are the sections 
on the organization of railroad’ companies (§1), on the election 
of directors (§5), subscription and forfeiture of stock (§7), trans¬ 
fer of stock (§8), increase of stock (§9), on expropriation (§§14 
to 22 inclusive), on the changing of routes (§23), on crossings 
and intersections (§24), on the powers of railroad companies (§28), 
on legislative control (§33), and several less important provi¬ 
sions. The effect of the passage of^this bill would undoubtedly 
have been most wholesome in putting an end to bargain¬ 
ing and wrangling over the many charters which were destined 
to fill our statute books, and which wrought much harm to many 
an innocent holder of worthless stock. It remains now to show 
how, after this failure, Wisconsin drifted into general legisla¬ 
tion by the logic of events in her railroad development. 
III. PUBLIC AID. A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION. 
The publication of acts authorizing certain towns, cities, or 
counties to aid in the building of railroads, in the volume con¬ 
taining the “general laws” passed by legislatures, is one of the 
first facts that strikes the student with a sense of apparent in¬ 
consistency. Railroad charters clearly seem to be private acts. 
Statutes authorizing certain municipalities to aid in building 
railroads appear to be private and local acts too. And yet, acts 
authorizing an enumerated list of towns to subscribe for rail¬ 
road stock are classed as general laws and published in the 
volume containing statutes of this kind. Evidently there is 
something in our notions of general and special legislation not 
in harmony with legal practice. We are helped out of our 
difficulty by an examination of decisions of the supreme court 
of Wisconsin. 1 
1 State ex rel. Cotliren vs. Lean, 9 Wis., 279. Clark et al. vs. Janes¬ 
ville, 10 Wis., 136. 
