To keep the permanent school funds at interest. To report annually to the trustees, all sums received, paid out, and in hand.

To settle twice a year with the directors, making a sworn statement that will show the amount each district is entitled to.

To report under oath, on or before September 30, annually, to the county superintendent the condition of the township funds.

To report to the county superintendent such facts as are called for by the State superintendent.

HIGHWAY COMMISSIONERS.

Q. What are the duties of highway commissioners? A. To choose one of their number treasurer.

To divide the town into a suitable number of road districts.

To lay out new roads and alter old ones, and to build new bridges, when they deem such acts necessary. To keep roads and bridges in repair.

To put up guide boards at forks and crossings.

To levy a road tax and see that it is collected, or an equivalent amount of work done on the roads of the town.

To give directions to overseers of highways about the work in their respective road districts.

OVERSEERS OF HIGHWAYS.

Q. What is the duty of overseers of highways? A. To superintend the road work done in their re spective districts.

POUNDMASTER AND COMMISSIONER OF CANADA

THISTLES.

Q. What is the poundmaster's duty?

A. To shut up stock found running at large, and hold it till the owners take charge of it.

Q. What is the duty of the commissioner of Canada thistles?

A. To destroy all Canada thistles found growing in the town.

JUSTICES AND CONSTABLES

Q. What are the duties of justices of the peace?

A. To try civil causes when the sum in dispute is not more than $200.

To try criminal causes, when the punishment is by fine only and the fine is not more than $200.

To try offenders in cases of assault and battery, and in some other cases.

To examine those accused of offenses punishable by imprisonment in the county jail or penitentiary, and if the evidence shows their guilt, to hold them to bail or send them to jail, to remain till the meeting of the grand jury.

Q. What are the duties of constables?

A. To stop all disorderly conduct that they witness, and to execute the orders of justices of the peace and other magistrates.

CIVIL CAUSES.

Q. What is a civil cause?

A. It is a suit in court to compel the defendant to pay the plaintiff a sum of money for a debt due or an injury done to the plaintiff, or to recover possession of property.

CRIMINAL CAUSES.

Q. What is a criminal cause?

A. It is a suit brought to secure the punishment of some person who has offended against a public law. Q. What is a fine?

A. It is a sum of money to be paid into the public treasury by an offender against law as a punishment for his offense.

Q. What is an assault?

A. An attempt by one person to strike another. If the act is done, the offense becomes assault and battery.

HOLDING TO BAIL.

Q. What is "holding to bail?”

A. It is compelling a prisoner to produce a certain number of persons who will promise in writing to pay into the public treasury a given sum of money, if the prisoner, being set at liberty, does not afterward appear in court on a certain day.

PAY OF TOWN OFFICERS.

Q. What can you say of the pay of town officers ? A. Some are paid by the day, others partly by the day and partly in fees. Those paid by the day receive from $1.25 to $2.50 per day. The fees vary widely in amount, and are fixed by State law.

Q. What is a fee?

A. A certain sum to be received for a certain service. For example, the clerk receives twenty-five cents for posting a notice of a town meeting.

SPECIAL TOWN MEETINGS.

Q. Can there be more than one town meeting in the same year?

A. Special town meetings may be held when the supervisor, clerk, and a justice of the peace, or any two of these officers, together with at least fifteen voters,

sign a written statement that a special town meeting is necessary, and file this statement in the town clerk's office. This statement must describe the object of the meeting.

Notice must then be given as for other town meetings, the notice stating the object for which the meeting is called. No business can be done at a special town meeting, except such as is described in the statement filed with the clerk and contained in the clerk's notice of the meeting.

THE NATURE OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.

Q. What three kinds of acts are done in governing a town?

A. Legislative, executive and judicial.

Q. Who do the first?

A. The voters at town meeting, when they vote on motions during the transaction of miscellaneous business. The motions that they adopt become laws for the government of the town.

Q. Who do the second?

A. The supervisor, school trustees and highway commissioners. They see that the laws made at town meet ing (and also State laws) are put into effect, or executed. Q. Who perform the third kind of acts?

A. Justices of the peace and constables. They enforce obedience to the laws by punishing those who break them.

As in the town, so in the village, the city, the county, the State, and the United States, we shall find these three departments of government, and only these, namely; the legislative or law-making, the executive, or that which puts the law into operation, and the judicial, or law-enforcing.

Q. What kind of a government is that of a town?
A. A pure democracy. The people themselves make

the laws.

Q. What kind of a government is that of an unorganized township?

A. A representative democracy. The local laws for the township (except in school matters) are made by representatives chosen by the people; namely, the county commissioners.

(It is to be remembered that over the laws made as above described, are the general laws made by the State legislature for towns and townships alike.)

OFFICERS OF TOWNSHIPS.

Q. Do unorganized townships have the same officers as towns?

A. They have three school trustees, but no other officers, one trustee being elected on the second Saturday in April each year.

In counties under township organization, if any townships do not coincide with the bounds of organized towns, such townships also hold their election for school trustee on the second Saturday in April. And if a township lies partly in two or more counties, it nevertheless elects school trustees, and is governed in school matters as if it lay wholly in one county and was not coincident in its bounds with an organized town.

In counties not under township organization, the county board divides the county into election precincts. Each precinct elects as many justices and constables as a town of equal population.

Q. How many kinds of townships are there in Illinois ?