his creditors in proportion to their claims, and every provision in any assignment providing for the payment of one debt or liability in preference to another shall be void, and all debts and liabilities (including judgments entered by confession thirty days previous to such assignment) shall be paid pro rata from the assets thereof.
Another act requires railway companies or other corporations, express companies, mining corporations, etc., to give thirty days notice to their employes before reducing their wages that such reduction will take place. A failure to comply is declared a misdemeanor, for which the employe may recover against the offending party by civil action in his own name with costs.
Another most commendable act as to libraries in cities, villages, towns, and townships, provides:
That when one hundred tax-paying voters of any incorporated city, or fifty legal voters of any incorporated village or township, may, by petition, ask that an annual tax be levied for the establishment of a free public library in such city, village, or township, thereupon at the next regular annual election the question shall be submitted and voted, the tax being limited and prescribed, and if a majority of all the votes cast be in favor of the tax, it shall be levied and collected with other general taxes, to be known as the library tax, and be kept separate and apart from other moneys of the municipality. The library is to be established and maintained by a board of nine directors, to be appointed by the mayor, with the legislative branch of the municipal government, no member of which is competent to serve as a director. The foregoing tax is to cease, whenever it is so determined by a majority vote at any regular annual election.
NEBRASKA.
Several noteworthy acts of legislation were passed during the past year in Nebraska. One, declaring that the term "railroad corporation," as used in the act regulating the transportation of
