Show UNDER THE NEW LAW following i is the full text of the opinion of the territorial supreme court delivered deciding that the coming city election is to co be conducted under the new law in the supreme court of utah territory the people ex rel rat edward M bynon vs henry page registration officer salt lake city petition for writ of mandate original application blackburn BLACK bl kURN AJ this is a petition by the plaintiff for a peremptory writ of mandate to require the defendant who is the roper proper officer to give election notices for for the coming municipal election in salt bait lake city to put notices of said election stating among other things that there will be chosen by the qualified voters at said election fifteen councilmen one mayor one recorder one trew treasurer aurer one marshal and one assessor and collector and one justice of the peace for each of the five precincts of said city this involves a construction of a portion of the acton act of the last territorial legislature entitled an act for the incorporation of cities the purpose of that act seems threefold alst 1st to incorporate new cities 2nd and to provide a mode by which cities already organized an can reincorporate under this act 3rd ard to apply to cities already in incorporated corp orated certain portions of the act as amendments to their charters without incorporation re the question raised by this petition is does this act require that the officers provided for in it shall be elected at the coming municipal election in salt lake city or shall the officers provided for in the charter of said city be chasen I 1 think the officers provided for in this act are hereafter the proper ones to govern the city section 14 art 1 by express words applies to cities now organized and provides that they shall be divided into three classes all cities having a population of twenty thousand and over shall belong to the first class etc other portions of the act point out the way any city may determine the class it belongs to but the mode mentioned in the act is not exclusive if salt lake city has in fact a population of twenty thousand or over and the court can judicially know that fact it is a city of the first class whether it takes arty any steps to ascertain that factor fact or not courts take judicial notice of all the political acts of the government the census of 1880 shows this city to have a population of over twenty thousand and that is a political act of which the courts take judicial notice therefore I 1 think salt lake city under this act is a city ot of the first class clam without anything done on its part again section 3 of article 20 expressly provides that section I 1 of article 6 among other provisions of this act shall apply to all cities already incorporated although there is no repealing clause in this act yet section 5 of article 20 has hag the effect to make these several provisions amendments to the charters of all cities to which they are applicable bention 1 of article 6 provides that the officers of cities of the alie first class to be elected by the people shall be three councilmen from each municipal ward a mayor a recorder a treasurer an assessor and collector and a marshal another provision of the act provides that cities of the first class shall be divided into five wards and that one justice of the peace shall be elected from each ward both parties having appeared and this application argued at the hearl hearing n 9 there is no need of an alternative writ therefore the peremptory writ will issue as prayed f for or we concur zane C J anderson A J judge henderson was absent at the hearing of this case and took I 1 no part in the decision |