which it has not levied a tax to raise. As to future levies, the fund cannot be said to be a fund provided, but is a fund to be provided in the future. The contract price for the school house in question was $6,000, or over 30 per cent of the assessed valuation of the district. If this contract were valid, those inhabitants who were not willing that such an expense should be made would be forced to pay over 30 times the maximum tax that can be levied for that purpose in any one year, or the future taxing power of the district for that purpose would be anticipated and destroyed for years to come. The evils of an indebtedness in the form of warrants to be paid in the remote future is illustrated in this case. These warrants were sold at seventy cents on the dollar; and every contra¢ter with a district whoexpects pay in warrants all of which cannot possibly be paid until after the lapse of years, and who is faced with the necessity of raising money upon them by a sale at a discount, must, to save himself, charge the district, in excess of what he would otherwise charge it, enough to make good his loss and in this way the loss becomes the loss of the district. Moreover, such warrants bear a higher rate of interest than bonds which can be sold usually at par, bearing a moderate rate of interest.
That this evil was intended to be prevented by this statute, and that our interpretation of the statute isin harmony with the will of the legislature, is evinced by chapter 24 of the laws of 1881, which authorizes school districts to bond for the building of a school house. This act was doubtless passed to enable a school district to raise immediately for that purpose a sum which in many districts could be brought together only after years of maximum taxation. And this act contains a positive restriction against every district not in a town or city containing more than 1,000 inhabitants, limiting its authority to bond to the amount of $1,500. No other district can bond for more than 5 percent. of its assessed valuation. Why this limitation, if every district could build a school house costing many times the sum limited, and create a valid indebtedness for such amount by the issue of warrants ? These warrants in this case, if valid, created when issued a present liability, which could have been put in judgment to hang over the district as an incubus, forever in the absence of
