Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/529

is not in any city or town, and did not at that time contain 1,000 inhabitants. The title to the land on which the school building is located is not, and never has been, in the defendant, nor sought to be obtained in any way. The book called upon its title page ‘School District No. 39, County of Barnes. District Clerk’s Record Book,’ constitutes the school district records of the defendant. They are what they purport to be, and the minutes therein are what they purport to be—minutes of meetings of the school district—excepting the minutes dated May 12, 1882, and the one immediately following, without date. The latter two are the minutes of meetings of the school board of defendant. The building is 26x36 feet, with 12 foot posts, and is brick-veneered. The building has been used since its completion and up to the present time continuously for all school purposes. School has been held there from the first, and teachers hired by authority of the district, with the knowledge that they would teach in the building in question; and all apparatus provided as appears by the minutes has been placed in that building, and all school district meetings have been held therein. Before the time of the annual meeting held in 1883 by defendant, and shortly after the building was completed, it became generally known to the people of the district that the orders in suit had been issued for the purchase of the building; and many of the people thought that an $800.00 building should have been built instead, as authorized by the first district meeting. The orders inquestion have never been audited by defendant. Aspecial meeting of defendant wasduly called and heldsome time before the annual meeting in 1886, to consider the question of appointing an auditing committee, and bonding for these orders in suit under the special bonding law of 1885. The orders in suit and their amount were stated at that meeting and discussed, and it was decided not to bond for the amount or any other amount, or to appoint an auditing committee. The annual meeting of 1886 was held later than that, on June 29, 1886. The clerk’s record, above referred to, is offered and received in evidence, and marked ‘Exhibit C, it being agreed by counsel that copies of all its records be made and certified to by the clerk of the court at Valley City, and attached hereto, and the book be