power as a district, and that such person acted as a Prudential Committee, without the production of the records, where the questions arise collaterally, and in proceedings to which the district is, in no way, a party.

27-755.

SEC. 13. Where by the pleadings it is admitted that certain persons were, at a particular time, the Prudential Committee of a school district, testimony to show they were not, is inadmissible; but testimony showing the identity of particular persons with those named in the pleadings, is proper. 29-188.

GRANT.

A Legislative grant for the purpose of education cannot afterwards be controlled by the Legislature. 11 Vt. 632.

GRAND LIST.

The Grand List of a town does not become the legal basis of taxation until the majority of the Listers have signed and sworn to a certificate thereon, as required by law. 32 Vt. 285.

OFFICERS OF DISTRICT.

SEC. 14. School district officers, elected at an annual meeting of the district, will hold their offices until others are elected at another annual meeting to supersede them; and it makes no difference whether the second is a few more or a few days less, than one year from the time the first meeting was held. 23-416; 32 Vt.

SEC. 15. It is not necessary that the Moderator chosen at the annual school meeting should preside at all subsequent meetings of the district during the year; the proceedings will be valid if the district should, at a subsequent meeting, elect a moderator to preside over that meeting. 26-503.

SEC. 16. A public officer is entitled to reasonable intendment in his favor, the same as are applied to the proceedings of courts. 26 -503.

PLEADING.

SEC. 17. In an indictment against a town for the neglect of the Selectmen to assess the three cent school tax, under the act of 1827, the duty of the Selectmen, and their neglect should be stated, and also that there was no legal excuse for such neglect, and that the town had no funds equal to any part of the sum to be raised, if the neglect relied on is that the Selectmen neglected to raise the whole tax. 13-565.

SEC. 18. In an action of trespass, where the declaration contains several counts, a plea which commences and concludes in bar of the action generally, and the obvious and natural import of the language. of which should be understood in a plural and distributive sense, as

applying to the different occasions on which the trespasses are charged, must be taken as a plea to the whole declaration.

A plea to the whole declaration, to be sufficient, must appear to contain an answer to all that is alleged as the direct ground and gist of the action, and such answer must be valid and sufficient in law.

Matter of aggravation, correctly understood, does not consist in acts of the same kind and description as those constituting the gist of the action, but is something done by the defendant, on the occasion of committing the trespass, which is to some extent, of a different legal character from the principal act complained of.

But a declaration, which charges the defendant with having struck the plaintiff a great many violent blows with a club, and with a raw hide, and with his fist, and with having, with great violence, shaken the plaintiff, and pulled him about, and with having thrown down the plaintiff and there harshly and brutally kicked him and struck him other violent blows, and with having wounded him, and torn his clothes, exhibits a mere succession of acts of direct trespass, all remediable by an action of the same class, and each requiring some complete justification, or excuse, in the plea.

But a plea to such declaration, which professes to answer the "assaulting, beating, and ill-treating" using the explanatory words “as in the declaration mentioned," will be considered as co-extensive with the alleged cause of action.

But it was held, that a plea to a declaration alleging such acts of trespass, which avers merely that the defendant was a school master and the plaintiff was his scholar, and that the plaintiff was insolent and refused to obey the reasonable cominands of the defendant, and thereupon the defendant moderately chastised him, and which set forth no acts on the part of the plaintiff requiring excessive severity on the part of the defendant, such as resistance by the plaintiff, did not disclose a sufficient justification in law, for the acts alleged in the declaration. Hathaway vs. Rice. 19–112.

SEC. 19. The Supreme Court will not, on exceptions, examine a question not decided by the County Court. 20-495.

SEC. 20. An averment that the listers put the plaintiff's real estate in the Grand List, at a certain sum, is a sufficiently direct and positive averment that he had a Grand List to that amount, for his real estate. 27-221.

SEC. 21. If a material averment is argumentatively made, it can only be taken advantage of by special demurrer. 31-337.

SEC. 22. If a referee find and report the legal existence of a school district merely from parol testimony "that it had been considered as a district for forty years," although such testimony is very indefinite, and open to just criticism on that account, still it is not so fatally defective as to justify a reversal of the referee's report on that ground. 30--273.

PRUDENTIAL COMMITTEE.

SEC. 23. Where a school district, at their annual meeting, have decided, that they will appoint but one prudential committee, and have appointed him; they cannot at a subsequent meeting during the year, warned for that purpose, determine that the committee shall consist of three persons, and proceed to appoint two additional members of the committee. They cannot again act upon the subject, during the year, unless a vacancy shall have occurred by the death, resignation, removal, or disability of the committee first appointed. 20-487 & 23-416.

SEC. 24. The Prudential Committee refusing to do a particular act, in his official duty, in good faith, not believing it to be a duty, will not create a vacancy in the office; but if a new district should be erected, and the Prudential Committee of the old district is included within the limits of such new district, it will create a vacancy in the office. 26-503, 15—657.

The Prudential Committee of a school district have no authority, without a vote of the district to that effect, to employ counsel in the name of the district to defend a suit against an officer of the district, in which the district may be interested.

The fact that the pendency of such a suit, and even the employment of an attorney by the Prudential Committee, without authority, to defend it, are known to the officers of the district, and to the voters therein generally, has no legal tendency to show, on the part of the district, any acquiescence in, or adoption of, the employment of the attorney. 30-154.

SEC. 25. The Prudential Committee man of a school district is its general official agent, and the proper person to see that means are provided to pay the school teacher hired by him, and if, before the close of the school term, and shortly before the service of trustee process on the district as Trustee of the teacher, he, in good faith, pays the teacher his wages, although without the direction or knowledge of the district, and out of his own private funds, there being no funds in the district treasury at the time, the district may rely on such payment as against the teacher, or in its discharge as his Trustee. 33 Vt. 77.

SCHOOL DISTRICT.

SEC. 26. The existence and organization of a school district may be proved by reputation where its organization does not appear of record. All that is necessary in such cases is to show that there is a district, long known and recognized as such. 6-389.

SEC. 27. Districts are required by statute to be defined by geographical limits and should be described by territorial boundaries, and not by the names of the inhabitants. 8-402.

SEC. 28. Districts, Limits of, must be defined by the vote of the

town, or the vote must contain such directions as will render its limits capable of being definitely ascertained. 10-480.

SEC. 29. District. When a school district has been organized, in fact, for a number of years, and has chosen its officers from time to time, the Selectmen cannot organize it again, as an unorganized district, because doubts are entertained of the regularity of the former organization. 11-607.

SEC. 30. After an acquiescence of all concerned, for more than fifteen years in the proceedings of school districts in a town, as such, the regular division of the town into such districts, and the regular organization of such districts will be presumed.

The fact of the existence and continued operation of a school district, for the purpose of raising a presumption of its legal organization, may be shown by witnesses upon the stand, where the loss of the records of the district is shown, and it may be doubted whether such proof would not be sufficient for that purpose, without proof of the loss of the records.

A school district, after the suspension of all its functions for ten years, may properly organize anew, when required so to do by the town; and that without being, by a vote of the town, set off anew and constituted a school district. 16--439.

SEC. 31. A town may by vote annex a portion of its inhabitants to a district in an adjoining town, which shall consent to receive them, but although the effect of this is to extend the corporate jurisdiction of such district, so as to embrace the persons thus annexed, together with the property subject to taxation belonging to them in the particular territory inhabited by them, yet the territory itself is not annexed to the district, as it is in case where a district is formed from territory belonging to the town, by a concurrent vote of both towns.

And the arrangement between a town and a district in an adjoining town, by which the town, by vote, annexes some of its inhabitants to such district, and the district consents to receive them, is not to be regarded as a compact, absolutely and perpetually binding, but as a mere license and temporary consent on both sides, and therefore subject to be revoked or cancelled by either party.

And the town, in such case, may at any time, by vote, resume its jurisdiction over its citizens, and dissolve their connection with the district, without the intervention of a board of three justices of the peace, as is required when a district has been formed from territory in two towns, by a concurrent vote of both towns. 21-402.

SEC. 32. The plaintiffs proposed to sell to defendants, who were a school district, certain land, upon which a school house was to be erected, with the restriction, that the front of the school house, when erected, should be upon a line with the front of a certain meeting house, and that no building should be erected upon the land in front of the school house and meeting house.

This proposition was made in school meeting, and the districts

thereupon voted to instruct their Prudential Committee to purchase the land. The purchase was made accordingly; and in the deed, executed by the plaintiff's to the defendants, the restriction was expressed to be that no erections should be made upon said land between the school house and the highway. In the declaration in an action of assumpsit brought by the plaintiffs to recover the price, which the defendants agreed to pay for the land, this restriction was expressed in the words used in the deed. Held that there was no variance between the contract declared upon and that proved.

At the time the proposal was made for the sale to the district, the land had been unenclosed for some years, and open to the public, and one restriction imposed by the plaintiffs in their proposal, was that the land should be kept open.

In the deed it was expressed that the land should remain as a public common. And in the declaration, the restriction was expressed as in the deed. Held, that this difference constituted no objection to the plaintiff's recovery, that the deed only imposed upon the district the obligation to keep the land free as it then was.

Held, also, that the plaintiffs in such suit were properly allowed by the County Court, to prove the terms upon which they so offered to sell the land to the district.

And, where it appeared, in such case, that the selectmen of the town, in pursuance of a vote of the district, had located the school upon the land in question, and that the district voted "to instruct the Prudential Committee to purchase the land designated by the selectmen for the location of a school house, at the price of $100," and that the Prudential Committee had purchased the land at the special price, but the district should hold the land for the purpose of erecting a school house thereon, and that the school house should be so located, that the front should be upon a line with the front of a meeting house standing near, and that no erection should be placed upon the land, between the school house and the highway, but the land should remain as a public common, it was held, that these restrictions did not defeat or impair the object of the purchase, and that the Prudential Committee had power to accept a deed containing such restrictions, and that the plaintiffs might recover from the district the price of the land under a general count for land sold.

And such deed being executed with covenants of warranty, it was held no defence to such action that there was a defect in the plantiff's title to the land. 22-309.

SEC. 33. Where, after organization into school districts, a town is divided and incorporated into two distinct towns, and by such division, a school district is divided, part falling in the old and part in the new town, neither portion of such district, so severed, can be considered as an entire and several district or can act as such, legally. 23-421.

SEC. 34. When a school district has been formed from territory in