intendent of buildings is a totally different proposition from whether or not the city is liable to workmen employed by that official. The practical situation is that, under the city ordinances, the superintendent of buildings, in the exercise of a police power in certain emergencies, is expressly authorized to employ assistance, and where certain steps have been taken the city may recoup itself in an action against the property owner. In the latter case the propriety of the exercise of such authority as between the city and the property owner is made to depend upon a proceeding that is more or less judicial in character, but the right of the superintendent to employ a mechanic to assist him in the administration of an emergency police power is necessarily not of a judicial nature. The city ordinances do not, in our opinion, lay down a hard and fast rule by which a day laborer or mechanic, when called upon by the proper city official to assist him in an emergency involving the public safety, is required to examine into and pass judgment upon the legal propriety of such administrative act as between the city and the property owner, and, accordingly as he may decide such legal question, either refuse to render the required assistance or to render it at the peril of getting no pay for it. Such a rule would be impracticable, and is not imposed by the city ordinances reasonably construed.

The broader question decided in Car Spring and Rubber Co. v. Jersey City, 35 Vroom 514, and Jersey City Supply Co. v. Jersey City, 42 Id. 631, does not arise here if the distinction between the right of a property owner and that of an employe, as recognized by the city ordinances, is valid.

The nonsuit that was ordered being, in our opinion, erroneous, the judgment of the First District Court of the city of Newark must be reversed.

THE MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF JERSEY CITY AND H. OTTO WITTPENN v. WILLIAM H. SPEER, JUDGE OF THE HUDSON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT, ET AL.

Argued November 10, 1908-Decided April 8, 1909.

1. The supplement of April 14th, 1891 (Pamph. L., p. 393), to the Martin act of 1886 re-enacts the provisions of said original act as of such later date; its effect therefore is to invest the commissioners appointed under such original act with jurisdiction to adjust arrearages of taxes existing at the date of such supplemental act as if such taxes had been so in arrears at the date of the original act; it does not purport to enact any radical departure from the provisions of the parent act or to engraft upon them any new provision, hence it does not invest the commissioners with a prospective jurisdiction to deal independently with future arrearages.

2. Where the provisions of a parent act map out a definite line of public conduct touching a given matter a supplemental act "extending" such provisions is fully satisfied if such provisions are carried forward intact to the date of such supplement; if the purpose be to engraft a radically new provision upon those of the original act some other word than "extended" must be employed.

On certiorari.

This writ, which is directed to the judge of the Circuit Court of Hudson county, brings up an order of said judge confirming report No. 113 of the commissioners of adjustment of Jersey City. The commissioners are those appointed under the Martin act of 1886, and the report in question covers unpaid taxes on specific lots of land aggregating, after adjustment, more than $500,000, as follows:

Point Breeze Ferry Co., from 1874.....

Morris & Cummings Dredging Co., from 1883,

$146,206 34

17,066 97

Daniel J. O'Leary, from 1883....

108,239 20

National Docks Railway Co., from 1891.....

59,485 93

N. J. Warehouse and Guarantee Co., from 1892,

147,662 11

These adjustments were made under the authority of the Martin act and the supplement thereto passed on April 14th, 1891, entitled "A supplement to an act entitled 'An act concerning the settlement and collection of unpaid taxes, assessments and water rates or water rents in cities of this state, and imposing and levying a tax assessment and lien in lieu and instead of such arrearages, and to enforce the payment thereof, and to provide for the sale of lands subjected to future taxation and assessment,' approved March 30th, 1886, and the operation thereof." Gen. Stat., p. 3384.

The supplement reads as follows:

"Section 1. That the provisions of the act to which this act is a supplement be and the same are hereby extended to include all cases where any tax, assessment or water rate shall have been levied or imposed, or attempted to be levied or imposed on any land in any city of this state subsequent to the passage of the act to which this act is a supplement, and where such tax, assessment or water rate shall remain unpaid and in arrears for the period of one year.

"Section 2. That all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act be and the same are hereby repealed."

This supplement the Circuit Court construed as investing the commissions with a prospective jurisdiction to adjust "future as well as the pre-existing arrearages."

The reasons filed by Jersey City and the other prosecutor of this writ attack this prospective jurisdiction of the commissioners upon three grounds, as follows:

First. Because the said adjustment commissioners had no authority or jurisdiction to adjust the taxes, water rents or assessments on any piece of property against which there are no municipal liens accrued prior to the year 1886..

Second. Because the act of 1891, purporting to extend the jurisdiction of the adjustment commissioners (being chapter 204), is unconstitutional in that it provides for matters not properly within the scope of the title of the act to which it is a supplement.

Third. Because if said act of 1891 is constitutional, then the adjustment commissioners had no authority to adjust, act

upon or consider taxes, assessments or water rents levied and imposed subsequent to the 14th day of April, a. D. 1891, on any piece of property against which there are no municipal liens accrued prior to that date.

Before Justices GARRISON, PARKER and VOORHEES.

For the prosecutors, Warren Dixon and James J. Murphy.

For the National Docks Railway Company and Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, Collins & Corbin.

For the Morris & Cummings Dredging Company, McDermott & Enright.

For the New Jersey Warehouse and Guarantee Company, Vredenburgh, Wall & Carey.

For Daniel J. O'Leary, Merritt Lane.`

For the Point Breeze Ferry Company, Mungo J. Currie.

For E. Caulfield, Clarence Kelsey.

For H. T. Lilliendohl and Christian Kaiser, Howard R. Cruse.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

GARRISON, J. There are two contentions as to the proper construction of the supplement to the Martin act, approved April 14th, 1891 (Pamph. L., p. 393), i. e., two opposing views as to what was enacted by such supplement. The first of these is that such supplement re-enacted the provisions of the parent act of 1886 as of April 14th, 1891, and hence operated at such later date as did the original act, only where arrearages had accrued prior to the date of its approval. This is the contention of Jersey City and the other prosecutor.

The other contention is that said supplement enacted a new provision not in the original act by which the commissioners appointed under the original act were invested with a prospective jurisdiction to deal independently with future arrearages of taxes, i. e., to adjust taxes levied after the approval of such supplement even though no arrearages of taxes existed at the date of the approval of such supplemental act. This is the contention of the defendants and was the conclusion reached by the judge of the Circuit Court.

As between these two contentions our conclusion is with the prosecutors, viz., that the effect of the supplement of 1891 is to re-enact the provisions of the original Martin act of 1886 as of such later date, and that it does not enact a new provision, not in the original act, by which the commissioners are invested with prospective jurisdiction to adjust future arrearages of taxes where none existed at the date of the approval of the supplemental act.

I. That this is the proper construction of this supplement appears, we think, from the language of the supplement itself, whose enacting clause is that "the provisions" of the original act shall be "extended" to cases where taxes shall have been levied subsequent to the passage of such original act. That such original act did not apply in the case of future arrearages where none existed prior to the passage of such act is an admitted fact, and was judicially declared in the case In re Commissioners of Elizabeth, 20 Vroom 488.

A fundamental provision therefore of the original Martin act was that its provisions as to the adjustment of arrearages of taxes should have no operation excepting where arrearages existed at the time of its passage.

This being so as to the provisions of the original act touching the adjustment of arrearages of taxes, and the sole expression of the legislative will contained in the supplemental act of 1891 being that the provisions of the original act should be extended to taxes levied subsequently to the passage of such original act, it follows that one of the provisions of the original act so extended was that which confined the adjustment of arrearages of taxes to cases in which arrearages ex