By an act of the legislature of the state of Minnesota approved March 5, 1877, (Gen. Laws 1877, c. 106,) it was enacted by sections 4, 5, 6, and 7 thereof, as is printed in the margin.
Purporting to proceed under sections 4 and 7 of that act, the Plainview Railroad Company, a Minnesota corporation, on the 31st of January, 1878, delivered to the town-clerk of the town of Plainview a proposition in writing, signed by the president and secretary of the company, containing the statements and specifications required by section 4 of the act, and stating that the amount of the bonds of the town desired by the company was $50,000, The town-clerk indorsed on the proposition the date of filing, and transcribed the proposition in his records on March 30, 1878. On the 31st of January, 1878, the company posted in three public places in the town a notice that, after February 6, 1878, a petition to the supervisors of the town, appended to a copy of said proposition, would be presented to the resident tax-payers of the town, asking the supervisors to agree to the proposition. The notice and the proposition were published in a newspaper printed and published in the town.
On the 30th of March, 1878, within three months after the filing of the proposition with the town-clerk, the company delivered to him four petitions, in the form required by section 7 of the act, addressed to the town board of supervisors, stating that the petitioners, being residents of the town and assessed for taxes upon real or personal estate therein, as shown by its last assessment roll, asked the supervisors, as the proper authorities of the town, to agree to the proposition of the company to which the petition was appended. The petitions bore the signatures of a majority of the persons residing in the town who were assessed for taxes on real or personal estate therein, as shown by its then latest assessment roll, and the signatures tures were verlfied by the affidavits of the persons witnessing such signatures; but the petitions were not signed by a majority of the electors or legal voters of the town. Those petitions were the only ones ever made asking the authorities of the town to agree to the proposition of the company, and they and section 7 of the act constituted the only authority had or claimed for the issue of the bonds hereinafter mentioned. No election was held in the town to authorize its supervisors to agree to the proposition or to the issue of any such bonds.
On the 30th of March, 1878, the board of supervisors of the town adopted and placed on file in the office of the town-clerk resolutions which recited the proposition of the company, the posting of the notices, and the presenting of the petitions, with signatures and affidavits, from which it appeared that a majority of the resident tax-payers of the town, assessed for taxes upon real or personal estate therein, as shown by its last assessment roll, had signed the petitions, and that the construction of the railroad by the company, as set forth in its proposition, would promote the general prosperity and welfare of the tax-payers of the town. The resolutions were that the proposition of the company was accepted, so far as related to the issue of bonds; that bonds of the town to the amount of $50,000, with interest coupons attached and payable as requested in the proposition, be issued to the company as soon as it should have its railroad completed, with the cars running thereon; and that the issue of stock to the town by the company, in consideration of the bonds, was waived.
The company constructed its railroad, had the cars running thereon, and performed what was stated in the proposition, except that it never issued to the town any stock of the company.