provided for the publication of the resolution of intention. Before passing any resolution for the construction of said improvements, plans and specifications and careful estimates of the costs and expenses thereof shall be furnished to said city council, if required by it, by the city engineer of said city; and for the work of constructing sewers, specifications shall always be furnished by him. Whenever the contemplated work of improvement, in the opinion of the city council, is of more than local or ordinary public benefit, or whenever, according to estimate to be furnished by the city engineer, the total estimated costs and expenses thereof would exceed one half the total assessed value of the lots and lands assessed, if assessed upon the lots or land fronting upon said proposed work or improvement, according to the valuation fixed by the last assessment roll whereon it was assessed for taxes for municipal purposes, and allowing a reasonable depth from such fronta e for lots or lands assessed in bulk, the city council may make the expense of such work or improvement chargeable upon a district which the said city council shall in its resolution of intention declare to be the district benefited by said work or improvement, and to be assessed to pay the costs and expenses thereof. Objections to the extent of the district of lands to be affected or benefited by said work or improvement, and to be assessed to pay the costs and expenses thereof, may be made by interested parties, in writing, within ten days after the expiration of the time of the publication of the notice of the passage of the resolution of intention. The city clerk shall lay said objections before the city council, which shall, at its next meeting, fix a time for hearing said object ons, not less than one week thereafter. The city clerk shall thereupon notify the persons making such objections by depositing a notice thereof in the post-office of said city, postage prepaid, addressed to each objector. At the time specified, the city council shall hear the objections urged, and pass upon the same, and its decision shall be final and conclusive. If the objections are sustained, all proceedings shall be stopped; but proceedings may be immediately again commenced by giving the notice of intention to do the said work or make said improvements. If the objections are overruled by the city council, the proceedings shall continue the same as if such objections had not been made.

SEC. 3. Section four of said act is hereby amended to read as follows:

Section 4. The owners of a majority in frontage of lots and lands fronting on any street, avenue, lane, alley, place, or court, or of lots or lands liable to be assessed for the expense of the work petitioned to be done, or their duly authorized agents, may petition the city council to order any of the work mentioned in this act to be done, and the city council may order the work mentioned in said petition to be done, after notice of its intention so to do has been posted and published as provided in section three of this act.

SEC. 4. Section five of said act is hereby amended to read as follows:

Section 5. Before the awarding of any contract by the city council for doing any work authorized by this act, the city council shall cause notice, with specifications, to be posted conspicuously for five days on or near the council chamber door of said council, inviting sealed proposals or bids for doing the work ordered, and shall also cause notice of said work, inviting said proposal, and referring to the specifications posted or on file, to be published for two days in a daily, semi-weekly, or weekly newspaper published and circulated in said city, designated by the council for that purpose; and in case there is no newspaper published in said city, then it shall only be posted as hereinbefore provided. All proposals or bids offered shall be accompanied by a check payable to the order of the mayor of the city, certified by a responsible bank, for an amount which shall not be less than ten per cent of the aggregate of the proposal, or by a bond for the said amount, and so payable, signed by the bidder and by two sureties, who shall justify before any officer competent to administer an oath, in double the said amount, and over and above all statutory exemptions. Said proposals or bids shall be delivered to the clerk of the said city council, and said council shall, in open session, examine and publicly declare the same; provided, however, that no proposal or bid shall be considered unless accompanied by said check or bond satisfactory to the council. The city council may reject any and all proposals or bids should it deem this for the public good, and also the bid of any party who has been delinquent and unfaithful in any former contract with the municipality, and shall reject all proposals or bids other than the lowest regular proposal or bid of any responsible bidder, and may award the contract for said work or improvement to the lowest responsible bidder at the prices named in his bid, which award shall be approved by the mayor, or a three-fourths vote of the city council. If not approved by him, or a threefourths vote of the city council, without further proceedings, the city council may readvertise for proposals or bids for the performance of the work as in the first instance, and thereafter proceed in the manner in this section provided, and shall thereupon return to the proper parties the respective checks and bonds corresponding to the bid so rejected. But the checks accompanying such accepted proposals or bids shall be held by the city clerk of said city until the contract for doing said work, as hereinafter provided, has been entered into, either by said lowest bidder or by the owners of three fourths part of the frontage, whereupon said certified check shall be returned to said bidder. But if said bidder fails, neglects, or refuses to enter into the contract to perform said work or improvement, as hereinafter provided, then the certified check accompanying his bid and the amount therein mentioned shall be declared to be forfeited to said city, and shall be collected by it, and paid into its fund for repairs of streets; and any bond forfeited may be prosecuted, and the amount due thereon collected and paid into said fund. Notice of such awards of contract shall be posted for five days, in the same manner as herein before provided for the posting of proposals for said work, and shall

be published for two days in a daily newspaper published and circulated in said city, and designated by said city council, or, in cities where there is no daily newspaper, by one insertion in a semi-weekly or weekly newspaper so published, circulated, and designated; provided, however, that in case there is no newspaper printed or published in any such city, then such notice of award shall only be kept posted as herein before provided. The owners of three fourths of the frontage of lots and lands upon the street whereon said work is to be done, or their agents, and who shall make oath that they are such owners or agents, shall not be required to present sealed proposals or bids, but may, within ten days after the first posting and publication of said notice of said award, elect to take said work, and enter into a written contract to do the whole work at the price at which the same has been awarded. Should the said owners fail to elect to take said work, and to enter into a written contract therefor within ten days, or to commence the work within fifteen days after the first posting and publication of said award, and to prosecute the same with diligence to completion, it shall be the duty of the superintendent of streets to enter into a contract with the original bidder to whom the contract was awarded, and at the prices specified in his bid. But if such original bidder neglects, fails, or refuses, for fifteen days after the first posting and publication of the notice of award, to enter into the contract, then the city council, without further proceedings, shall again advertise for proposals or bids as in the first instance, and award the contract for said work to the then lowest regular bidder. The bids of all persons and the election of all owners, as aforesaid, who have failed to enter into the contract as herein provided, shall be rejected in any bidding or election subsequent to the first for the same work. If the owner or contractor who may have taken any contract do not complete the same within the time limited in the contract, or within such further time as the city council may give them, the superintendent of streets shall report such delinquency to the city council, which may relet the unfinished portion of said work, after pursuing the formalities prescribed herein before for the letting of the whole in the first instance. All contractors, contracting owners included, shall, at the time of executing any contract for street work, execute a bond to the satisfaction and approval of the superintendent of streets of said city, with two or more sureties, and payable to such city, in such sums as the mayor shall deem adequate, conditioned for the faithful performance of the contract; and the sureties shall justify, before any person competent to administer an oath, in double the amount mentioned in said bond over and above all statutory exemptions. Before being entitled to a contract, the bidder to whom the award was made, or the owners who have elected to take the contract, must advance to the superintendent of streets, for payment by him, the cost of publication of the notices, resolutions, orders, or other incidental expenses and matters required under the proceedings prescribed in this act, and such other notices as may be deemed requisite by the city council, And

in case the work is abandoned by the city before the letting of the contract, the incidental expenses incurred previous to such abandonment shall be paid out of the city treasury.

SEC. 5. Section seven of said act is hereby amended to read as follows:—

Section 7. Subdivision one. The expenses incurred for any work authorized by this act (which expense shall not include the cost of any work done in such portion of any street as is required by law to be kept in order or repair by any person or company having railroad tracks thereon, nor include work which shall have been declared in the resolution of intention to be assessed on a district benefited) shall be assessed upon the lots and lands fronting thereon, except as hereinafter speeifically provided; each lot or portion of a lot being separately assessed, in proportion to the frontage, at a rate per front foot sufficient to cover the total expense of the work.

Subdivision two. The expense of all improvements, except such as are done by contractors under the provisions of section thirteen of this act, until the streets, avenues, street crossings, lanes, alleys, places, or courts are finally accepted, as provided in section twenty of this act, shall be assessed upon the lots and lands, as provided in this section, according to the nature and character of the work; and after such acceptance the expense of all the work thereafter done thereon shall be paid by said city out of the street department fund.

Subdivision three. The expense of the work done on main street crossings shall be assessed at a uniform rate per front foot of the quarter-blocks and irregular blocks adjoining and cornering upon the crossings, and separately upon the whole of each lot or portion of a lot having any frontage in the said blocks fronting on said main streets, half way to the next main street crossing, and all the way on said blocks to a boundary line of the city where no such crossing intervenes, but only according to its frontage in said quarter-blocks and irregular blocks.

Subdivision four. Where a main street terminates in another main street, the expenses of the work done on one half of the width of the street opposite the termination shall be assessed upon the lots in each of the two quarter-blocks adjoining and cornering on the same, according to the frontage of such lots on said main streets, and the expense of the other half of the width of said street upon the lot or lots fronting on the latter half of the street at such termination.

Subdivision five. Where any alley or subdivision street crosses a main street, the expense of all work done on said crossing shall be assessed on all lots or portions of lots half-way on said alley or subdivision street to the next crossing or intersection, or to the end of such alley or subdivision street if it does not meet another.

Subdivision six. The expense of work done on alley or subdivision street crossings shall be assessed upon the lots fronting upon such alley or subdivision streets on each side thereof, in all directions, half-way to the next street, place, or court, on

either side respectively, or to the end of such alley or subdivision street if it does not meet another.

Subdivision seven. Where a subdivision street, avenue, lane, alley, place, or court terminates in another street, avenue, lane, alley, place, or court, the expense of the work done on one half of the width of the subdivision street, avenue, lane, alley, place, or court opposite the termination shall be assessed upon the lot or lots fronting on such subdivision street, or avenue, lane, alley, place, or court so terminating, according to its frontage thereon, half-way on each side, respectively, to the next street, avenue, lane, alley, court, or place, or to the end of such street, avenue, lane, alley, place, or court, if it does not meet another, and the other one half of the width upon the lots fronting such termination.

Subdivision eight. Where any work mentioned in this act (man-holes, cesspools, culverts, cross-walks, piling, and capping excepted) is done on either or both sides of the center line of any street for one block or less, and further work opposite to the work of the same class already done is ordered to be done to complete the unimproved portion of said street, the assessment to cover the total expenses of said work so ordered shall be made upon the lots or portions of the lots only fronting the portions of the work so ordered; and when sewering or resewering is ordered to be done under the sidewalk on only one side of a street for any length thereof, the assessment for its expenses shall be made only upon the lots and lands fronting nearest upon that side, and for intervening intersections only upon the two quarter-blocks adjoining and cornering upon that side.

Subdivision nine. Section one of chapter three hundred and twenty-five of the laws of this state, entitled "An act amendatory of and supplementary to 'An act to provide revenue for the support of the government of this state,' approved April twenty-ninth, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven," approved April nineteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, shall not be applicable to the provisions of this section; but the property herein mentioned shall be subject to the provisions of this act and be assessed for work done under the provisions of this section.

Subdivision ten. It shall be lawful for the owner or owners of lots or lands fronting upon any street, the width and grade of which have been established by the city council, to perform at his or their own expense (after obtaining permission from the council so to do, but before said council has passed its resolution of intention to order grading inclusive of this) any grading upon said street to its full width, or to the center line thereof and to its grade as then established, and thereupon to procure, at his or their own expense, a certificate from the city engineer setting forth the number of cubic yards of cutting and filling made by him or them in said grading and the proportions performed by each owner, and that the same is done to the established width and grade of said street, or to the center line thereof, and thereafter to file said certificate with the superintendent of streets, which certificate the super