originals. In other cases relied upon by appellant the originals were, in fact, filed with the county clerk. The court was right in permitting the amendment of the town clerk's certificate. Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railroad Co. v. People, 225 Ill. 425.

Forty cents on the $100 of this road and bridge tax is further objected to on the ground that the certificate of the highway commissioners to the auditors and assessor does not state the existence of a contingency, within the meaning of section 14 of chapter 121, Hurd's Revised Statutes of 1905. This certificate recites that in the opinion of the commissioners the additional levy is necessary "in view of the contingency that it is necessary, on account of their destruction, to re-build immediately nine bridges." The location. of each bridge is then given, and it is further stated that to repair them will cost the town $1890, and that it will take all of the levy of sixty cents to pay for other repairs and road work. It is urged against this certificate that the necessity of re-building bridges that have been destroyed does not create a contingency unless the bridges were destroyed by storm or fire or some like event, and that the certificate is entirely consistent with the destruction of the bridges by the natural processes of decay, in which event, it is urged, no additional levy is authorized by the law.

In Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railroad Co. v. People, 226 Ill. 557, we said the contingency contemplated is something that does "not occur regularly in the ordinary course of events." In People v. Peoria and Pekin Union Railway Co. 232 Ill. 540, one of the contingencies mentioned in the certificate was the necessity of providing for the protection of the piers of a certain bridge. We held this did not show the existence of a contingency; that if the necessity arose from the action of such high water as occurs occasionally every year, or from the wash of ordinary rainfall or other like causes, no contingency existed, while if the necessity resulted from a change in the course

of the stream, or from some other like unexpected cause, a contingency did exist. Tested by these cases the certificate now before us does not satisfy the statute. Whether the destruction of the bridges creates a contingency depends entirely upon the character of the forces which worked the ruin, and this the certificate fails to show.

Appellee demurred to the objections. Upon the demurrer being overruled it moved to strike the objections from the files. Upon the denial of that motion it moved to compel the appellant to elect upon which of its several objections it would proceed. This motion was also overruled. The appellee by assignment of cross-error questions each of these three rulings. These various dilatory steps taken by appellee seem to have been the result of its view that the objections were "double;" that the objections to each tax should be tried in a separate proceeding distinct from the trial of the objections to each other tax, and that the objections to the several taxes should not be joined in the same proceeding. Where there is but one application by the taxing power, and all objections, as in this case, are made by the same property owner, the objections may properly be joined and heard in the same proceeding although several taxes be involved. Such has been the universal practice for more than thirty years, and it will not be changed The statute provides that these objections shall be heard and determined "in a summary manner, without pleadings," and the courts should not allow applicants to interfere with the right so conferred upon the property owners by pleading as at common law or by the interposition of technical rules of the common law which do not go to the merits of the objections. Illegal taxation is unjust taxation. The man who is illegally taxed has placed upon him an unfair burden. He must either pay the wrongful charge or bear the expense of litigating its validity in a suit with the public. In the conduct of that suit technical opposition by the applicant to the objections should not receive consideration.

now.

The judgment of the county court will be reversed and the cause will be remanded, with directions to sustain the objections as to forty cents on the $100 of the road and bridge tax of the town of Otto, to overrule the objections in every other respect and to enter judgment accordingly. Reversed and remanded, with directions.

THE VILLAGE OF DOWNERS GROVE, Appellee, vs. JOHN FINDLAY et al. Appellants.

Opinion filed December 15, 1908.

I. SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS-when publication of ordinance within a reasonable time after its passage is sufficient. Where a special assessment ordinance for an improvement estimated to cost less than $100,000 provides that it shall "take effect from and after its passage, approval and publication" but fixes no time for such publication, it is sufficient if the ordinance is published within such a reasonable time after its passage and approval that no inference against the ordinance or the intention that it should take effect upon publication can arise out of the lapse of time.

2. SAME when distribution of cost between inside lots and corner lots is unjust. If the weight of the evidence upon the question of the distribution of the cost of a local improvement between inside lots and corner lots shows that the relative proportion of the benefits to such lots will be the same percentage of their present value, which value is fixed by the majority of the witnesses at the ratio of 7 to 10, the assessment as between the inside lots and corner lots should be spread at that ratio, and a mere reduction of ten per cent on corner lots, leaving their assessment $378 as against $180.70 for inside lots, is unjust and unauthorized.

APPEAL from the County Court of DuPage county; the Hon. W. L. POND, Judge, presiding.

JOSEPH H. FITCH, for appellants.

G. H. BUNGE, for appellee.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE CARTWRIGHT delivered the opinion of the court:

John Findlay and forty other owners of lots in the village of Downers Grove appealed from the judgment of the county court of DuPage county confirming a special assessment against their property, levied by said village to defray the expense of curbing with concrete curbs and gutters and paving with brick the roadways of a district including nine streets.

The objections which were interposed to the assessment and overruled by the court were what are termed in the Local Improvement act legal objections, and the first one was, that the ordinance for the improvement never took effect. The ordinance was passed on April 7, 1908, and approved the same day, and section 9 was as follows: "This ordinance shall be in force and take effect from and after its passage, approval and publication." It was not published until June 19, 1908, more than two months after it was passed, when it was published in a newspaper in the village. The estimated cost of the improvement was a little less than $100,000, and the ordinance did not come within the provision of section II of the Local Improvement act, requiring publication in the proceedings of the board of trustees before its passage. It did not impose any fine, penalty, imprisonment or forfeiture or make any appropriation, and therefore did not come under the provision of section 3, article 5, of the City and Village act, requiring publication within one month after passage, but it was within the provision of that section that all other ordinances shall take effect from and after their passage, unless otherwise provided therein. It was otherwise provided and the ordinance was not to take effect until the publication, but there was no limitation, either by statute or ordinance, as to the time when the publication should take place. The publication made was within such a reasonable time that no inference against the ordinance or the intention that it

should take effect upon publication could arise out of the lapse of time. The court did not err in overruling that objection.

The other objection relied upon by the property owners - and concerning which a great number of witnesses testified both for the village and the objectors was made under section 47 of the Local Improvement act, which requires the court, upon objection, to inquire whether or not the assessment as made and returned is an equitable and just distribution of the cost of the improvement among the parcels of property assessed. The assessment against property aggregated $96,848.37 and the public benefits were fixed at $152.25, showing scrupulous and conscientious care to ascertain the exact amount of benefit which would accrue to the public. Upon the trial it was proved that Downers Grove is a suburban village of about three thousand inhabitants, twenty-one miles from Chicago, with cheap transportation, and the district assessed is a residence section about one-half built up with frame dwellings occupied mainly by persons of moderate means employed in Chicago. The improvement is of a very expensive nature as compared with the character of the property and there was much evidence on that subject, but the question raised and argued on this appeal is whether the distribution between the inside lots and corner lots was equitable and just. The assessment on inside lots was $180.70 each and on corner lots $419 each. The court, after hearing the evidence, reduced the assessment on the corner lots ten per cent and confirmed it as so reduced, but our search of the record for any evidence sustaining the conclusion of the court that the assessment as reduced was a just and equitable distribution of the cost of the improvement as between the corner lots and inside lots has been entirely fruitless. It is true that a few of the witnesses gave testimony that corner lots would be benefited $419, or even more, and that lots worth $500 would be doubled in value. Perhaps the judgment of the court