Supervisors may refuse to locate, etc Further powers. Private roads Width. Public roads. Justice of the Peace,) where the matter shall be heard anew and determined; provided, that in all cases where a viewing and survey of either a new or old road shall be required, the Board of Supervisors may require the party or parties asking the same to pay or secure the payment of the costs thereof; (and, provided, further, that any parties procuring the consent of the owner or owners of lands through which the proposed road or roads run, then the road petitioned for shall be made a public road immediately upon petition and proof being presented.) The proof shall consist of the written consent of all the parties, and shall be filed with the petition. SEC. 3. The Board of Supervisors may, in their discretion, refuse to locate or change any road petitioned for in pursuance of section two of this Act, wherein damages may be claimed, or there is a probability that such may be awarded by the Supervisors of the county, or County Court, in the event that the prayer of the petitioners is granted, unless the petitioners shall execute a bond to The County of San Mateo, signed by two or more sureties, conditioned for the payment of damages and costs awarded by the Board of Supervisors or the County Court in said cases, which bond shall be approved by the Board of Supervisors. The foregoing bond need not be executed unless the Board of Supervisors shall cause to be entered on their journals of proceedings an order requiring the petitioners to execute the same. In case said bond is not required, and the Board of Supervisors shall become satisfied that the public good requires that the prayer of said petitioners should be granted, and that such damages are just and reasonable, and the party or parties claiming damages are willing to accept the same in full satisfaction of such damages, the Board may order such damage to be paid out of the County Road Fund. The Board shall require the party or parties to give a receipt for the same, and to execute a deed or an easement for the land used for road purposes to the Board of Supervisors, for the benefit of the county, on or before the payment of the damages awarded to them. In all cases arising under this Act in which damages are claimed, the Board of Supervisors shall pay no regard to any evidence elicited in such cases relative to damages, unless the same is given under oath. The Board of Supervisors shall always take into consideration the advantage the proposed road will be to the party or parties claiming damages. SEC. 4. Private roads may be laid out in the same manner as public roads, except the expenses of laying out the same, and the damages to be paid in consequence thereof, if any, shall be borne and paid by the parties petitioning for the same. The width of private roads shall not exceed forty feet. All private roads shall be opened and kept in repair by the parties for whose benefit the same were laid out; and said parties shall cause good and substantial gates to be erected and kept in repair across said road where it shall pass through any fence that may surround the inclosure through which such road may pass. SEC. 5. All public highways hereafter laid out shall not be less than the width of sixty feet, nor more than eighty feet. SEC. 6. Any person wilfully obstructing any public or private road, by fencing across the same, or changing the same in any manner, without first having proceeded to change the road in the manner herein before set forth, or shall obstruct any public road by felling any tree across the same, or by placing any other obstruction thereon, or shall injure any bridge or causeway, or Obstructions remove any portion thereof, or by damming, digging, or deepening a creek, or river, or its banks, so as to destroy a ford or crossing, or dig a ditch, and not bridge the same the full width of the road, within twenty-four hours thereafter, by placing good and substantial timbers across the same, not exceeding six feet apart, and planking the same with plank, not less than three inches in thickness and twelve feet in length, unless permis sion shall have been granted by the Road Commissioner of the district to build the bridge of a less size, (but in no case to be less that fourteen feet in width,) shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be liable to a prosecution before any Justice of the Peace, by any Supervisor of the county or Commissioner of the Road District, on behalf of The People of the State of California, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in any sum not exceeding two hundred dollars, and the judgment of the Justice may require that the person be imprisoned in the County Jail until the fine be paid, at the rate of one day for every two dollars fine. After deducting the cost of prosecution, the balance of the fine shall be paid into the County Treasury, and placed to the credit of the County Road Fund. Penalties. in writing. SEC. 7. The Board of Supervisors shall have the power to Testimony order any testimony introduced before them on the hearing of to be taken any petition for the granting of a franchise for ferries, bridges, toll roads, or any public highway, to be taken in writing, and the petitioner or petitioners shall pay the cost of the same, at Payment of the rate of not less than ten cents nor more than twenty-five expenses. cents per folio; and on a final determination of the matter, the Board may order the petitioner or petitioners to pay to the party taking down the testimony said costs, and if not paid on the order of the Board, the party to whom the same is due may sue for and recover the same in any Court of competent jurisdiction. SEC. 8. Any member of the Board of Supervisors shall have oath. power to administer an oath to any witness testifying in cases pending before said Board; they shall have power to make, from time to time, such rules regulating the procedure of parties in cases contested before them, that are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of this State. SEC. 9. The Board of Supervisors of San Mateo County shall Road tax. have power to levy a road tax on all able bodied men between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years, which tax shall not exceed the sum of four dollars per annum, payable in cash. SEC. 10. The Board of Supervisors shall annually appoint Collectors. one responsible person in each township as Road Tax Collector, who shall be a resident thereof, and shall give bonds in such sum as the Board may require for the faithful performance of his duties; said Collectors shall collect the road tax levied in accordance with section nine of this Act. Said Board shall have power Powers of to remove and fill vacancies at any regular session. The Collector of each township shall, immediately after entering upon the duties of his office, proceed and collect said road tax from Board. Road tax receipts. By whom signed. Duties of Per centage allowed. Collectors to of delin quents. each and every person liable to pay such tax living within his township; and failing to perform in a proper manner the duties required by this Act, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be liable to a prosecution therefor, before any Justice of the Peace in said county, on complaint of any Supervisor of said county. SEC. 11. The Board of Supervisors shall cause proper blank road tax receipts to be printed, of a uniform appearance, which shall be numbered consecutively, and signed in writing by the Chairman thereof. No other receipts for road tax than the above mentioned shall be used for the payment of said tax by the Road Tax Collectors. SEC. 12. The Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, after having numbered and signed such receipts as shall be required by the Collector for each township, shall deliver the same to the County Auditor, taking his receipt therefor. SEC. 13. The Auditor shall sign said road tax receipts, and issue to each of the Road Tax Collectors such number of said receipts as may be needed by him. The Auditor shall be furnished with a well bound book by the Supervisors of the county, in which he shall keep a just and true account of debit and credit with the Collector of each township. SEC. 14. It shall be the duty of the Collector of each township to keep a book, in which he shall enter, or cause to be entered, the name of each person from whom he shall collect a road tax, the year, and date of the month so collected, and as minutely as possible, in what portion of the township each tax payer resides. He shall present a written statement, under oath, to the County Treasurer, on or before the second Monday in April, August, November, and January of each year, and pay over to the Treasurer all moneys collected, after deducting his per centage for the collection of the same, for which payment he shall take a receipt and a duplicate of the same from the Treasurer, and file the original with the County Auditor within five days thereafter. The Collector of each township shall, at his annual settlement in the month of December, deliver to the County Auditor all books, papers, and road tax receipts, in his possession belonging to said office, or at such other times as the Board may direct, taking the Auditor's receipt therefor. All such tax receipts shall be placed to his credit in the said Auditor's account. SEC. 15. The Board of Supervisors shall, at the November term of each year, fix, by an order to be entered upon their journal of proceedings, the amount of per centage that each Collector shall receive for the collection of the District Road Tax for the succeeding year, which per centage shall not be less than ten per cent nor more than twenty per cent upon each dollar collected. SEC. 16. Any person liable to pay a road tax levied in purgell property suance of section nine, refusing to pay the same on demand being made by the Road Tax Collector of his district, shall be considered a delinquent, and the Collector is hereby empowered to seize upon any property belonging to said delinquent, and shall sell the same at public auction, to the highest bidder, for cash, or so much thereof as shall be necessary to satisfy said delin quent road tax, and three dollars additional, as costs, to the Collector for services of making such sale, after having given one hour's notice to sell the same by a public proclamation; and in case no bidders are present, nor any bid offered for the property at the hour of safe, he shall postpone the sale from day to day, by proclamation, not to exceed five days; provided, Proviso. that any party liable to pay a road tax, as provided in section nine of this Act, shall be allowed to pay the road tax assessed against him in labor, (at the rate of two dollars per day,) on any road in his district, at such time and place as shall be designated by the Road Commissioner for the district in which he resides; provided, said labor is performed immediately upon being notified, otherwise he shall be compelled to pay his road tax in cash, and be proceeded against as provided in this Act for the collection of road taxes. The Collector shall, immediately after the sale, execute to the purchaser or purchasers of the property a certificate of sale, as is required to be given by Sheriffs for sales of property under execution; and if the property so sold shall sell for more than is required to satisfy the road tax and costs, the Collector shall pay the balance to the delinquent tax payer. SEC. 17. The Road Districts shall be coincident with the Supervisors Supervisors' Districts in the county, and each member of the to be Road Board of Supervisors shall act as Road Commissioner in his missioners. respective district. Com SEC. 18. The Road Commissioners shall cause all the public Duties of. highways within their respective districts to be kept clear from obstructions and in good repair, causing banks to be graded, bridges and causeways to be made where the same may be necessary, to keep the same in good repair, and to renew them when destroyed. SEC. 19. It shall be the duty of the said Road Commissioners, when they desire to have labor upon the roads or bridges in their respective districts, to give, in writing, three days notice to each one of any number of persons under his jurisdiction living most convenient to the work to be performed, of the time and place to meet, and if said Commissioners deem it expedient they are hereby empowered to hire laborers at a sum not to exceed two dollars per day for such labor. SEC. 20. The Road Commissioners shall receive for their ser- Salary of. vices the sum of three hundred dollars per year each, payable from the County Treasury, in addition to their salaries as members of the Board of Supervisors; and each Commissioner may, if he shall desire to do so, appoint one or more Deputies, who shall be responsible to the Commissioner appointing him for the faithful performance of their duties, and shall be removable at his pleasure, and who shall be invested with the same powers and duties as are given to the Commissioner himself under this Act; and it shall be the duty of the Commissioner to see that his Deputies perform their duties faithfully, and to pay them for their services, such amount as may have been agreed upon between them, out of the salary allowed by this Act. SEC. 21. The County of San Mateo, from and after the pas- San Mateo sage of this Act, shall be excepted from the provisions of the from certain Act to provide for the establishment, maintenance, and protec- Act. tion of public and private roads, approved May sixteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-one; and all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions of this Act, so far as they apply to the County of San Mateo, are hereby repealed. SEC. 22. This Act shall take effect from and after its passage. Associations, how formed. Trustees to CHAP. CCCCIV.—An Act in reference to Library Associations. The People of the State of California, represented in Senate and SECTION 1. That from and after the passage of this Act it shall and may be lawful for any number of persons, not less than twenty, in any county, city, town, village, or neighborhood of this State, who shall determine and desire to associate themselves together for the purpose of erecting, procuring, and using a public library, to assemble at a day, time, and place to be appointed, to elect and appoint not less than five nor more than fourteen of their number as Trustees, to take charge of the property, both real and personal, and moneys belonging to the corporation thereby erected, and to transact all affairs relative to the same. SEC. 2. That the said election, to be held as aforesaid, shall be elected. be conducted in the following manner, to wit: That whenever two-thirds of the number of persons so desiring to form said library association shall assemble at the time and place previously appointed, they shall proceed to choose a Chairman from among themselves, who shall preside at such election, receive the votes of the members present, and be the officer to return the names of those who, by plurality of votes, shall be elected to serve as Trustees for the said corporation; that the said returning officer shall, within ten days after such election, certify, under his hand and seal, the names of the persons elected to serve as Trustees for said library, in which certificate the style, name, or title of the said corporation (which shall forever thereafter be the style, name, or title by which the said corporation shall be distinguished and known) shall be particularly mentioned and described, which said certificate, being first duly acknowledged or proved by a subscribing witness thereto, in the same manner in which deeds are acknowledged or proved before any Notary Public of this State, or a Judge or Clerk of a Court, having a seal within the county in which said association is to be located, shall be forthwith, and within said ten days, filed with the County Clerk of said county, and recorded in a book to be kept by him for the recording of certificates of incorporation, for which filing and recording he shall receive a fee of two dollars, and no more. Trustees. SEC. 3. That the persons so elected, returned, and registered, shall be and hereby are declared to be Trustees for said library, and that the said Trustees, from the time of the filing of said |