5. To provide for lighting, watering and cleaning the city, and protecting it against fire;

6. To license and regulate hacks, cabs and carts, omnibusses, railway cars and all other vehicles; butchers, porters, pawnbrokers, peddlers, showmen, and junk shop keepers, theaters, and all other places of public amusement;

7. To regulate the keeping and use of animals, and the keeping and use of gunpowder and other dangerous substances;

8. To suppress gaming, gambling-houses and other disorderly houses, nuisances of every description, and all kinds of vice and immorality;

9. To prohibit the burial of the dead within the city, except at such places and in such manner as the common council may determine;

10. To establish and regulate a police department, except within the limits of the metropolitan police district;

11. To establish and regulate a fire department;

12. To impose penalties for the violation of the city ordinances; but no single penalty can exceed a fine of fifty dollars or imprisonment for thirty days, or both. The common council may, however, require any land or building to be cleansed, at the expense of the owner or occupant, and upon his default may do the work and assess the expense upon the land or building;

Annual re

port.

Powers of mayor.

13. To pass all ordinances which may be necessary or proper for carrying into effect the foregoing

powers.

§ 955. The common council shall, once a year and at least twenty but not more than thirty days before the annual city election, publish, in at least one newspaper printed and distributed in the city, a detailed statement of the receipts and expenditures of the city for the year ending on the first day of November last preceding.

§ 956. The mayor shall have

shall have power:

1. To nominate, and, with the consent of the board of aldermen, appoint all officers of the city; but the common council may, by ordinance, vest the appointment of inferior officers in the heads of the executive departments, or any of them;

2. To suspend, and, with the consent of the board of aldermen, remove any of the officers of the city, stating in the suspension or removal the cause thereof;

3. To cause the ordinances of the city to be executed, and to supervise the discharge of official duty by all subordinate officers:

4. To communicate to the common council at the beginning of every session, and oftener if he deems it expedient, a statement of the affairs of

the city, with such recommendations as he may think proper.

office of mayor.

§ 957. Whenever there shall be a vacancy in Vacancy in the office of mayor, the presiding officer of the board of aldermen shall perform the duties of the office until the commencement of the year next after the first city election which shall take place subsequent to the vacancy.

cities not affected.

§ 958. Nothing contained in the preceding pro- Existing visions of this title shall affect any city heretofore incorporated.

CHAPTER III.

ACTIONS AGAINST CITIES.

959. An action to restrain the common council Actions to

restrain city author.

or any executive officer of the city from a viola- ities.
tion of official duty to the injury of the property
or finances of the city or the increase of pecuniary
burdens upon the citizens, to call such body or
officer to account for misbehavior in office to the
prejudice of the city property or finances or the
increase of pecuniary burdens upon the citizens,
may be maintained by any citizen who during
the year preceding the commencement of the
action shall have paid taxes to the amount of
one hundred dollars into the city treasury, or upon
eal or personal property in the city.

TITLE IV.

GOVERNMENT OF TOWNS.

CHAPTER I. The town as a corporate body.

II. Town meetings.

III. Town officers.

IV. Strays.

V. Legal proceedings by and against towns.
VI. Town charges.

VII. Division and alterations of bounds of towns.

Every town is a body corporate.

Enumera tion of pow

ers.

CHAPTER I.

THE TOWN AS A CORPORATE BODY.

SECTION 960. Every town is a body corporate.
961. Enumeration of powers.

962. Conveyances.

From 1 R. S., 643.

§ 960. Every town is a body politic and corporate, and as such has the powers specified or necessarily implied in this title or in special statutes, and no others.

§ 961. It has power:

1. To sue and be sued in the town name;

2. To purchase and hold lands within its limits and for the use of its inhabitants, subject to the power of the legislature;

3. To make such contracts, and purchase and hold such personal property as necessary to the exercise of its powers;

4. To make such orders for the disposition or use of its property as the interests of its inhabitants require.

§ 962. All acts or proceedings by or against a town, in its corporate capacity, shall be in the name of the town; but a conveyance, authorized by subdivision two of the preceding section, made in any manner, for the use of its inhabitants, shall have the same effect as if made to the town by

name.

ances.

CHAPTER II.

TOWN MEETINGS.

ARTICLE I. Annual and special town meetings.
II. The conduct of town meetings.

III. Elections.

ARTICLE I.

ANNUAL AND SPECIAL TOWN MEETINGS.

SECTION 963. Time and place of annual town meeting.

964. General powers of town meeting.

965. Erection of a town house.

966. Conveyance of site and erection and control of town-house.
967. First meeting in new towns.

968. Special town meetings.

969. Notice of meetings.

970. Directions and regulations to remain in force till repealed.

971. Service of process.

§ 963. The board of supervisors of each county Time and

shall fix a day, after the thirty-first day of January and before the second day of May, for the annual town meetings of all the towns in the

place of annual

town meet

ing.