value of the property subject thereto (being one-third of the full value thereof) as equalized according to law. In reducing the rate per cent of any tax levy, as herein before provided, the rates per cent of all tax levies certified to the county clerk for extension as originally ascertained and determined under section one of this Act, shall be used in ascertaining the aggregate of all taxes under this section: Provided, that no reduction of any tax levy made hereunder shall diminish any amount appropriated by corporate or taxing authorities for the payment of the principal or interest on bonded debt, or levied pursuant to the mandate or judgment of any court of record. And to that end every such taxing body shall certify to the county clerk, with its tax levy, the amount thereof required for any such purpose. In case of a reduction hereunder any taxing body whose levy is affected thereby and whose appropriations are required by law to be itemized, may, after the same have been ascertained, distribute the amount of such reduction among the items of its appropriations, with the exception aforesaid, as it may elect. If no such election be made within three months after the extension of such tax, all such items. except as above specified, shall be deemed to be reduced pro rata. APPROVED June 25, 1917. VALIDATION OF TAX LEVIES FOR 1916. § 1. Tax levies for 1916 validated. (HOUSE BILL No. 902. APPROVED JUNE 26, 1917,) AN ACT to make legal and valid annual appropriation bills for the fiscal year A. D. 1916, and taxes levied and extended thereon in counties by law required to adopt an annual appropriation bill in the first quarter of the fiscal year and to publish the annual appropriation bill in a newspaper, and to validate court proceedings now hereafter to be brought for the collection of such taxes. of money pending or SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly: That when any county board by law is required within the first quarter of the fiscal year to adopt and. heretofore within the first quarter of the fiscal year A. D. 1916, has adopted a resolution termed the annual appropriation bill in and by which resolution such county board has appropriated such sums as might then be necessary to defray all necessary expenses and liabilities of such county to be by such county paid or incurred during and until the time of the adoption of the next succeeding annual appropriation bill, which said appropriation bill, by the provision of any law then in force, should not take effect until after it had been once published in a newspaper, and which said appropriation bill was not published in such a newspaper or in such manner or time as was then required by law, then in each and every such case, such annual appropriation bill and all tax levies based thereon and heretofore passed or adopted by such county board and the county taxes extended on the collector's warrant pursuant to such tax levy or levies, and all court proceedings now pending of hereafter to be brought to enforce the collection of such taxes, are each and all hereby declared to be as legal and valid from the beginning as they, each and every of them would have been if such annual appropriation bill had been duly published in such a newspaper and in the manner and at the time then required by law: Provided, that nothing herein contained shall have the effect to validate more than one sufficient levy for the same appropriations in said fiscal year A. D. 1916, and where heretofore more than one levy has in fact been made or attempted to be made for the same appropriations in said fiscal year the taxes extended thereon shall have the same force and validity in the same amounts and to the same extent as they would have had if one sufficient levy had been made for said appropriations and the taxes extended thereon. APPROVED June 26, 1917. ROADS AND BRIDGES. ACT OF 1913 AMENDED. § 1. Adds new section 104a. § 104a. Improvement associa - (SENATE BILL No. 487. APPROVED JUNE 25, 1917.) AN ACT to amend an Act entitled: “An Act to revise the law in relation to roads and bridges," approved June 27, 1913, in force July 1, 1913, as subsequently amended, by adding thereto a new section, to be known as section 104a. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That an Act entitled: "An Act to revise the law in relation to roads and bridges," approved June 27, 1913, in force July 1, 1913, as subsequently amended, be, and the same is hereby amended, by adding thereto a new section, to be known as section 104a, to read as follows: $104a. Any association organized to promote the improvement of highways may, upon application to the Department of Public Works and Buildings, have registered in the office of the department, the name, detailed route, color combination and design used in marking any route laid out by such association. The board of highway advisors shall have power to determine priority of right in the use of any such name, color combination and designs. The application for such registration shall be in the form prescribed by the Department of Public Works and Buildings and shall be properly acknowledged by the president and secretary of the association before a notary public or other officer authorized to take acknowledgment of deeds. Such application shall be accompanied by a registration fee of five dollars ($5.00), which fee shall be returned to the association, if the application be not granted. If the department shall, after investigation, adjudge the application meritorious and the route to be worthy of the protection of this Act, it shall issue to the association a certificate, which shall designate in detail the name, the starting and the terminal point, the color combination and designs used in marking the route, all of which facts shall be recorded as a part of the permanent records of the department, in a book to be kept for that purpose. It shall be unlawful for any person or association of persons other than those granted the privilege, as provided herein, to use for similar purposes, the name or any recorded color combination or design so registered. Any person who shall injure or deface any sign board, design or other markings designating routes so registered, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be fined not less than five dollars ($5.00) nor more than one hundred dollars ($100). When any such highway association ceases to exist, or when the interest in the route name and markings has ceased, the Department of Public Works and Buildings may, after proper investigation, cancel the records and registration of any such registered route and reassign the name, color combination, designs or other markings to any other association making application for their use, as provided herein. Any person or officer of any association violating any of the provisions of this Act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof, may be fined not less than five dollars ($5.00) nor more than one hundred dollars ($100.00). APPROVED June 25, 1917. AN ACT to amend an Act entitled, "An Act to revise the law in relation to roads and bridges," approved June 27, 1913, in force July 1, 1913, as subsequently amended, by adding thereto three new sections to be known as section 75a, section 145a and section 145b. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois represented in the General Assembly: That an Act entitled, "An Act to revise the law in relation to roads and bridges," approved June 27, 1913, in force July 1, 1913, as subsequently amended by adding thereto three new sections to be known as section 75a, section 145a and section 145b, to read as inserted at length herein. 75a. Whenever the State Public Utilities Commission, or its suc cessor, shall find and certify to the highway commissioners of any town or road district, that the reconstruction, alteration, relocation improvement or abolishment of any crossing of the track of any railroad company across any highway or public road, is necessary to preserve or promote the safety of the public or of the employees or passengers of such railroad, and that for that purpose it is necessary to relocate, divert or establish any highway or public road, it shall be the duty of such highway commissioners to relocate, divert or establish such highway or public road in accordance with such findings. The proceedings for that purpose shall be in accordance with the provisions of subdivision VI of this Act, except that the petition mentioned in section 75 shall not be necessary, but the findings and certificate of said commission shall stand in lieu of such petition. § 145a. At all grade crossings of public highways over railroads outside the corporate limits of any city or village, the highway commissioners shall remove, or cause to be removed from the highways all removable obstructions to the view of such grade crossings, such as brush and shrubbery, and trim, or cause to be trimmed, all hedges and trees upon the highway for a distance of not less than three hundred (300) feet from each side of such crossings. It shall be the duty of the highway commissioners to erect and maintain such signs as the Public Utilities Commission may prescribe alongside the roadway on the highway at a distance of three hundred (300) feet on either side from every grade crossing located in the various townships or road districts of the State, designated as "extra hazardous" by the Public Utilities Commission. Such signs shall be erected upon a substantial post or pedestal at a height of approximately five (5) feet above the level of the highway at the point where such sign is located. No advertising or other signs shall be placed upon the highway or upon the railroad right-of-way within fifty (50) feet of any signs required by law to be placed at or near grade crossings. It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to place, or to cause to be placed, any sign at a public highway within a distance of three hundred (300) feet of any grade crossing, except signs or signals required by law or the Public Utilities Commission for the protection. of such crossings. Any person who unlawfully removes, throws down, injures or defaces any sign required by law to be maintained at or near any railroad crossings on the public highway, shall be liable to a fine of not less than ten dollars ($10) nor more than one hundred dollars ($100) for each offense. If, in the case of any such crossing it appears that the presence of such signs is unnecessary, the Public Utilities Commission, on petition of the highway commissioners of the township or road district in which such crossing is situated, may release such township or road district of the obligation of placing or maintaining such signs on the highway near such crossing. It shall be the duty of the highway commissioners to maintain any and all signs placed or erected on any such highway by or through the order of the Public Utilities Commission of this State. With respect to State aid roads, the duties hereby imposed on the highway commissioners shall be performed by the authorities in charge of such State aid roads. Any official who shall fail or neglect to perform any duty created by this section shall be liable to a fine of not less then ten ($10) dollars nor more than one hundred ($100) dollars for each such offense. § 145b. Upon approaching any highway crossing a railroad at grade, the person controlling the movement of any self-propelled vehicle shall reduce the speed of such vehicle to a rate of speed not [to] exceed ten (10) miles per hour. At all grade crossings at which "Stop" signs are placed, the person controlling the movement of any self-propelled vehicle shall bring such vehicle to a full stop at such "Stop" sign before proceeding over the rail-road tracks. Failure to bring such vehicle to a full stop at such a crossing before passing over the tracks of the railroad, as herein provided, shall be deemed a misdemeanor and the person guilty of such misdemeanor shall be subject to a fine not to exceed ten dollars ($10); the proceeds of fines so collected to be paid into the county treasury and used to maintain the highways of such county. FILED June 29, 1917. This bill having remained with the Governor ten days, Sundays excepted, the General Assembly being in session, it has thereby become a law. Witness my hand this twenty-ninth day of June, A. D. 1917. LOUIS L. EMMERSON, Secretary of State. APPEAL FROM DECISION OF COMMISSIONERS OF HIGHWAYS. § 1. Amends sections 77 and 91, Act of § 77. As amended, provides any 91. As amended, provides any three petitioners, who signed the petition for laying out, vacating or widening any road may appeal from the final order of the commissioners. (SENATE BILL No. 200. APPROVED JUNE 21, 1917.) AN ACT to amend sections 77 and 91 of an Act entitled, “An Act to revise the law in relation to roads and bridges," approved June 27, 1913, in force July 1, 1913, as amended by subsequent Acts. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, rep resented in the General Assembly: That sections 77 and 91 of an Act entitled, "An Act to revise the law in relation to roads and bridges," approved June 27, 1913, in force July 1, 1913, as amended by subsequent Acts, be and the same hereby are amended so as to read as follows: § 77. In case the commissioners of highways shall deny the prayer of the petition, any three of the petitioners may appeal from such deci sion to the county superintendent of highways by joining in a notice of such appeal and filing the same in the office of the town or district clerk within ten days after the date of the decision appealed from. The clerk shall thereupon transmit the original petition for the altering, widening. vacating or laying out of such road, together with the said notice of appeal to the county superintendent of highways. Upon receipt thereof the said county superintendent of highways shall thereupon fix a time and place for a public hearing thereof, giving notice thereof and render his decision thereon in the manner hereinbefore provided in the case of the hearing upon said petition by the commissioners of highways of the |