ceived by the treasurer, not belonging to any other fund specified by this act shall be kept as a separate fund, to be called the general city fund.

Sec. 84. On or before the first day of March in each year the board of control, and such committees of council and officers of the city having to deal with municipal expenditures as council may by ordinance designate, shall separately estimate in detail the expenses and the income of their respective departments for the next fiscal year and report the same to council. Council shall also make a statement by items of such expenses as it may expect to incur for the public benefit for the next fiscal year, and shall cause all of such estimates, or a fair synopsis thereof, to be published in one or more newspapers of the city, one week before the first regular meeting of council to be held in the month of April; at that meeting or any meeting to which an adjournment may be had not later than the fifteenth day of April following, council shall revise and determine all such estimates, and declare the amount necessary to be raised to defray the expenses of the city for the ensuing fiscal

year.

Council shall immediately upon determining all of the estimates, levy the necessary tax for the ensuing year, not exceeding seventyfive cents upon every one hundred dollars for the public works and the general city funds, besides a tax sufficient to pay the interest and any installment of the principal falling due within the year upon all bonds of the public debt of the city. The county assessor shall thereupon extend the taxes on the assessment books, and deliver the same to the treasurer and a copy thereof to the auditor, who shall charge the treasurer with the aggregate of such taxes.

When any loan ordinance of the city heretofore passed requires money to be paid to or by the city collector or city receiver, it shall be paid to the treasurer or by the treasurer to the auditor as may be appropriate, and where any such ordinance requires any amount to be kept or audited by the city clerk, it shall, where appropriate to the duties of the auditor, be kept or audited by him.

Sec. 85. Taxes, real or personal, shall become due on the first day of October in each year, and bear interest from the first day of January thereafter at the rate of six per cent per annum until paid.

Sec. 86. If any person against whom or upon whose property any tax shall be lawfully assessed for the benefit of said city shall

not wholly pay such tax on or before the first day of July after the same shall become due, it shall be lawful for the officer authorized to collect such tax to take reasonable distress of any personal property in said city belonging to said delinquent, or in which he or she shall have any right or interest and sell such property, right or interest at public auction in said city, having given ten days' notice of the time and place of sale by advertisement posted in some public place in the city, and published or posted in such other manner as may be prescribed by ordinance of said city, if council shall, by ordinance, require any other or more ample advertisement, and out of the proceeds of such sale, after defraying all proper expenses, to pay to said city the said tax or so much thereof as shall be delinquent, and return the remainder, if any, to the owner of the property so levied on and sold.

Sec. 87. All taxes assessed upon real estate for the benefit of said city shall remain a lien thereon, bearing interest at the rate of six per cent per annum until the same be fully paid; such lien may be enforced by the leasing or sale of such real estate, under the order of any court having equity jurisdiction in Ohio county. Where the amount involved exceeds fifty dollars, suit is to be brought in the circuit court of Ohio county. If the amount involved in less than fifty dollars, suit may be brought before any justice of the peace of Ohio county, and the judgment obtained enforced by a suit in equity in the circuit court of Ohio county.

Sec. 88. Water rates shall be distrained for and collected in the same manner in which the collection of taxes owing to the city may be enforced. The collection of water rents shall also be enforced by shutting off the supply of water among delinquents, and the refusal thereafter to furnish water to delinquents until all arrearages are paid.

Sec. 89. In addition to all other means for the collection thereof, all taxes and water rates, as well as all other demands due to the city may be recovered by any appropriate suit or proceeding in the name of the city, before any justice in Ohio county, if the amount be within his jurisdiction, or in the circuit court of said. county.

Sec. 90. Neither the auditor nor the treasurer nor any other disbursing officer of the city shall issue any order or check for the payment of money for any indebtedness contracted by council or any officer or board of the city, which shall have been contracted

wholly, or in part, in excess of the amount which shall have been previously set by ordinance or resolution as the limit of expenses of the department within which indebtedness is sought to be created. The foregoing provision of this section is ordained as a restraining provision only, and it is further declared that no act of such auditor, treasurer or other disbursing officer shall be in any wise held to render valid any debt contracted by or on behalf of the city in violation of the constitution and laws of the state. If any such officer of the city, as is mentioned in the first sentence of this section, shall violate the provision thereof, he shall be disabled from holding such office and shall forfeit and pay therefor to the city, a fine of not less than twenty dollars nor more than one hundred dollars, or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding one year, or both.

Sec. 91. No debts other than those authorized by this act, shall be contracted by or on behalf of the city in any manner, unless all questions connected with the incurring of such indebtedness shall have first been submitted to a vote of the people, and have received three-fifths of all the votes cast for and against the same; nor shall any debt be contracted by the city, without at the same time providing for the collection of a direct annual tax, sufficient to pay annually the interest on said debt and the principal thereof within thirty-four years. No debt shall be incurred, even with the consent of the voters, to an amount, including existing indebtedness, in the aggregate exceeding five per centum on the value of the taxable property in the city, as ascertained by the last previous assessment for state and county taxes.

Sec. 92. The act of the legislature of West Virginia, "authorizing municipal corporations to issue bonds," passed December second, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, is intended to remain applicable to the city of Wheeling except so far as this act is inconsistent therewith. Council shall provide that city bonds be signed by the mayor and auditor of the city.

Sec. 93. Council shall on or before the first Monday in June of each year, cause to be published once in a daily newspaper, printed in said city, a statement of the receipts and expenditurs of said city, and of the debts due to the same. This, however does not contemplate a statement of each order, but a fair synopsis of the receipts and expenditures of the several departments.

Public Streets and Franchises Therein.

Sec. 94. In respect to the custody and control of the streets, council and the board of control are the agents of the people at large. No permission shall be given, or if attempted to be given, shall be effective, allowing to any persons or corporations the permanent exclusive use or occupancy of any street or alley of the city or any part thereof, including sidewalk space, for private purposes; but where such street or alley is, by reason of its location, wholly useless to the public, it may be placed in the possession of a private person, on terms precluding adverse possession and ownership by him, and allowing the city to resume possession at will. The foregoing provisions of this section are not to be construed as giving by implication or otherwise, legislative sanction to any nuisance that may exist in or upon any street at the time of the passage of this act, or as, by implication, rendering valid any unauthorized official consent that may heretofore have been given to the wrongful appropriation of any street, or part thereof to private uses, or as exempting any corporation, or person from responsibility for damages occasioned by any such nuisance.

Sec. 95. Franchises, grants, rights or privileges may be granted by council, allowing to persons or corporations, for a limited time, such occupancy of portions of the streets as may be necessary for works of public utility and service, such as steam railway tracks, street railway tracks, poles and trolley wires, telephone and telegraph poles and subways, electric light and other electric poles, wires and subways, and gas and steam pipe lines. But no such franchise, grant, right or privilege shall hereafter be granted by council, except under the following restrictions and conditions:

First-No ordinance granting any restrictions, franchise, grant, right or privilege, for the use of the streets, alleys, or public grounds of the city, for any of the purposes of public utility above named, or for any other purpose of like nature, shall be passed unless it shall have been first proposed in council and notice of the object, nature and full extent of such franchise shall have been published at least thirty days, by the applicant, in some daily newspaper published in the city of Wheeling, before being acted upon. The vote thereon shall be taken by ayes and noes and the same entered upon the journal of each branch of council.

Second-Every grant of any franchise shall be for a limited pe

riod of time. If no time be expressly provided in the grant, the franchise shall be valid for one year only. In no case shall the franchise extend for a period exceeding fifty years.

Third-No grant of any franchise shall be made without, at the time of making it, providing that the grantee shall indemnify the city against all damages caused by the construction or maintenance of such works. All reasonable additional provisions and conditions may be made for the protection of the public from unnecessary damage or inconvenience by reason of such works and the operation thereof.

Fourth-No grant of any such franchise, grant, right or privilege shall be made without, at the time of making it, providing that the city shall receive in consideration therefor, a compensation, to be paid annually during the whole period. Provided, however, that the principle of competition shall be employed by council where the same is offered, so that the franchise, grant, right or privilege with prescribed terms and conditions as to its extent, and as to the rates to be charged the public by it for its services will be given to the person or corporation bidding or agreeing to pay therefor to the city the highest compensation, or so that the franchise, grant, right or privilege with prescribed conditions as to its extent, and the compensation that must be paid therefor, will be given to the person or corporation that will agree to render service to the public at the lowest rates. But where revenue or tolls to be charged the public and revenue to the city are joint points of deliberation, council may take both points into consideration with. probable good or ill service of competing applicants, and grant any such franchise to such applicant as it shall determine will result in the greatest benefit to the larger number of citizens of the city.

Fifth-Council shall, in suitable practicable terms, make it an express condition of the grant of any such franchise, grant, right or privilege, where it is for a work that is useful chiefly to the local public, that at the expiriation of such franchise, grant, right or privilege, the grantee shall, if required by council, sell to the city, the physical plant, at what it is then worth, independent of any value based upon the earning power thereof, and may also provide a means by arbitration or otherwise for determining what such value may be.