country, and the emergency which leads to their enactment. Cases may occur where the provisions of a law on those subjects may be so unreasonable as to amount to a denial of a right, and call for the interposition of the court." The provision of the Revised Statutes (1 Rev. Stat. 226, § 49) requiring claims for damages on account of land appropriated for canal purposes to be presented within one year after the law took effect was sustained as a valid exercise of legislative power.

"The limitations prescribed by positive law constitute no part of a contract, and legislation which merely alters or limits a remedy, but yet preserves an existing remedy in substance in the ordinary course of justice, is not violative of the organic law." The court sustained the Brooklyn act of 1885, chap. 405, prohibiting an action or proceeding to compel the execution or delivery of a lease on a tax sale made more than eight years prior to the passage of the act, unless such action or proceeding should be brought within six months. It was a short statute of limitations, but it gave tax purchasers a reasonable opportunity to enforce their claims. Wheeler v. Jackson (1886) 41 Hun, 410, affirmed in (1887) 105 N. Y. 681, 13 N. E. 931, (1890) 137 U. S. 245, 34 L. ed. 659, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 76.

An act prohibiting an action to set aside an assessment for a local improvement unless brought within thirty days after the delivery of the warrant was sustained in Loomis v. Little Falls (1901) 66 App. Div. 299, 72 N. Y. Supp. 774.

In Hulbert v. Clark (1891) 128 N. Y. 295, 14 L. R. A. 59, 28 N. E. 638, the court say that "the statute of limitations does not, after the prescribed period, destroy, discharge, or pay the debt, but it simply bars a remedy thereon. The debt and the obligation to pay the same remain, and the arbitrary bar of the statute alone stands in the way of the creditor seeking to compel payment. The legislature could repeal the statute of limitations and then the payment of a debt upon which the right of action was barred at the time of the repeal could be enforced by action, and the constitutional rights of the debtor are not invaded by such legislation" (citing Campbell v. Holt [1885] 115 U. S. 620, 29 L. ed. 483, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 209). In the Hulbert Case an action was brought to foreclose a real estate mortgage under seal, given to secure the payment of promissory notes, on which notes the statute of limitations had run. The court held that the foreclosure action was proper, although an action on the notes could not then have been maintained because of the statute bar, saying “it is a general rule, recognized in this country

and in England, that when the security for a debt is a lien on property, personal or real, the lien is not impaired because the remedy at law for the recovery of the debt is barred."

If, when a statute of limitations affecting a particular claim is enacted, the time for commencing an action on such a claim is unlimited, it is a question for the court whether the time fixed by the statute is reasonable and sufficient to give the claimant a fair opportunity to prepare his claim and present it to the proper tribunal. The legislature has power to cut down the time, but not to such an extent as practically to deny an opportunity to bring an action. Parmenter v. State (1892) 135 N. Y. 154, 31 N. E. 1035; Gilbert v. Ackerman (1899) 159 N. Y. 118, 45 L. R. A. 118, 53 N. E. 753; Green v. Port Jervis (1900) 31 Misc. 59, 64 N. Y. Supp. 547, where an act was held invalid which required a claim for personal injuries to be presented to a municipal corporation within forty-eight hours after the injury occurred. It was an unreasonable limitation. People ex rel. Grout v. Stillings (1902) 76 App. Div. 143, 78 N. Y. Supp. 942; Slocum v. Stoddard (1884) 7 N. Y. Civ. Proc. Rep. 240. The legislature may waive the statute in a particular case. People ex rel. Kellner v. New York (1893) 3 Misc. 131, 23 N. Y. Supp. 1060.

Statutes of limitation need not be uniform throughout the state. Rider v. Mt. Vernon (1895) 87 Hun, 27, 33 N. Y. Supp. 745.

MORAL OBLIGATION.

Replying to the argument that the legislature had no power to legalize and validate a claim which had already been declared invalid by the judicial tribunals, the court, in Wrought Iron Bridge Co. v. Attica (1890) 119 N. Y. 204, 23 N. E. 542, said it was well settled "that claims supported by a moral obligation and founded in justice, where the power exists to create them, but the proper statutory proceedings are not strictly pursued, or for any reason are informal and defective, may be legalized by the legislature and enforced either against the state itself or any of its political divisions through the judicial tribunals." The legislature has the power to legalize defective proceedings of town authorities upon the faith of which the plaintiff acts, and "in this way confer power upon the courts to compel the town to pay those obligations which its officers contracted without observing the necessary steps pointed out by the statute and the benefits of which it had already received and continues to enjoy." The court cited Guilford v. Chenango County

(1855) 13 N. Y. 143, which sustained a statute directing the adjustment and payment of a claim against a town which had already been submitted to the electors at a town meeting and rejected.

So in Cole v. State (1886) 102 N. Y. 48, 6 N. E. 277, the court said it was "unable to find in the Constitution anything which deprives the legislature of the power of giving to the board of claims, or any other proper tribunal, jurisdiction to hear and determine claims against the state which are founded in right and justice, solely for the reason that they could not be enforced against an individual in the courts." In the absence of a positive constitutional prohibition "there is no good reason why the state should be powerless to do justice, or to recognize obligations which are meritorious and honorary, and to provide tribunals to pass upon them." See also O'Hara v. State (1889) 112 N. Y. 146, 2 L. R. A. 603, 8 Am. St. Rep. 726, 19 N. E. 659; Cayuga County v. State (1897) 153 N. Y. 279, 47 N. E. 288.

Where a highway was laid out under an unconstitutional statute, the moral obligation to pay for it was just as complete as it would have been if the requirements of the Constitution upon this subject had been carefully and scrupulously observed. For that reason it was within the power, and it was clearly the duty, of the legislature to provide for the payment of the debts incurred in making the improvement, as it was made in conformity to an invalid act previously enacted by its authority. Knapp v. Newtown (1874) 3 Thomp. & C. 748, I Hun, 268.

Mandamus was held to be the proper remedy against the mayor of New York, who had refused to countersign a warrant for the payment of money raised by tax to defray the city's share of certain improvements required by statute. He was charged with a specific duty as a public officer. The work required of a railroad company in the alteration of a street had been performed, and its money honestly expended, and a plain duty was therefore imposed on the mayor to facilitate the payment of the money so expended, and his failure to discharge this obligation worked gross wrong and injustice. A denial of the writ would have compelled the company to sue the city on a claim which had been audited by the proper officers, and for the payment of which money had already been raised by tax and was in the city treasury. People ex rel. New York & H. R. Co. v. Havemeyer (1874) 4 Thomp. & C. 365, citing People v. Columbia County (1833) 10 Wend. 363.

In Swift v. State (1882) 89 N. Y. 52, 66, involving a claim for extra compensation in the construction of a public building, it was held

that, on the facts disclosed, the state was under no legal or moral obligation to allow extra compensation.

Moral obligation was made the true basis of an appropriation of a percentage of premiums by agents of foreign insurance companies under the act of 1849, chap. 178, and subsequent legislation for the benefit of firemen in cities and villages. The state thus diverted a tax which had been previously paid into the treasury by foreign insurance companies. It was "in no just sense or respect a gift of the public money, or a charity on the part of the state. It was an appropriation of the tax to a proper governmental and public purpose, and was received, not on the ground of poverty or as alms, but as fairly and fully earned and justly paid. .. It was a new and further distribution of the public burdens, with a view of more nearly equalizing their pressure and dividing them more justly." The court sustained the continuance of the appropriation after the services of the firemen were no longer required, saying that the state thereby "recognized an honorable obligation founded upon their past services and the injuries and suffering which those had occasioned;" and even after a paid department had been substituted for a volunteer department, "justice and good faith required that the state should recognize its honorable obligation to keep up the fund as it had done for many years. . . . Since the state cannot be sued without its consent, and acts without legal compulsion, it must be just. It must have honor and conscience. The motives which guide and control it must be those of absolute justice, and in almost every case its action, which is free and not compelled, must be governed by moral and honorable obligations, or solicitude for the public welfare." Exempt Firemen's Benev. Fund v. Rome (1883) 93 N. Y. 313, 45 Am. Rep. 217.

Certain financial institutions advanced to the city of New York funds to be used for municipal purposes after the appropriations for a given year had been exhausted. These advances were made in good faith and with the expectation that appropriate legislation would authorize their repayment. An act requiring such repayment was sustained, the court saying, among other things, that "municipal corporations are creatures of the state, and exist and act in subordination to its sovereign power. The legislature may determine what moneys they may raise and expend, and what taxation for municipal purposes may be imposed; and it certainly does not exceed its constitutional authority when it compels a municipal corporation to pay a debt which has some meritorious basis to rest on." New York v. Tenth Nat. Bank (1888) 111 N. Y. 446, 18 N. E. 618.

So in People ex rel. Kellner v. New York (1893) 3 Misc. 131, 23 N. Y. Supp. 1062, where, by reason of a statute prohibition a transaction of city authorities was technically illegal, the court sustained an enabling act which authorized the city authorities to hear and determine a claim growing out of such transaction, and allow all such sums as they might deem right in equity and justice, and the statute of limitations was not to be deemed a bar to the claim. The city had received the benefit of the contract and was justly bound to pay the claim, although, under the existing law, the claimant could not maintain an action thereon.

There was no moral obligation to reimburse persons called into the military service of the United States by operation of the Federal draft laws, and the drafted men's act of 1892, chap. 664, was declared invalid, because, in effect, it made a gift to the persons included in its provisions. "Every government must possess the inherent right or power to call upon its citizens to perform military duty in time of war. The exercise of this power involves the right of self-preservation, and that right in the government imposes upon the citizen a corresponding duty to render such services whenever the emergency arises, and it is demanded of him. The government must necessarily be the judge of the necessity for requiring the performance of this duty." The individuals selected in the manner provided by the act of Congress "were under obligations to serve, but they were permitted to commute such services, or pay in lieu thereof to the government a specified sum of money." The individuals mentioned in the act have no claim, legal or equitable, against the town or county where the money was to be raised by taxation. "Those who actually served under the conscription only discharged their obligations to the general government. Those who commuted simply paid so much money in order to be relieved from the obligation to render military service," and a tax to reimburse them would be a gift and void. Bush v. Orange County (1899) 159 N. Y. 212, 45 L. R. A. 556, 70 Am. St. Rep. 538, 53 N. E. 1121, citing Taber v. Erie County (1892) 131 N. Y. 432, 30 N. E. 177, where claims for reimbursement presented by persons who had furnished substitutes were rejected.

"If the state, in carrying out a policy of justice through its legislature, appropriates money to pay a debt or to repair an injury inflicted upon an individual or a locality, obligatory upon it in honor and justice, that is but a part of its legitimate functions and duties as a sovereign, and the purpose in such case would seem to be