6   FEDERAL REPORTER.
cerned, and so far as relates to any revenue which, though springing
from a tax, had come to have the qualities of property,--ii. c., so far as
relates to this surplus, and the other property about which this con-
tention is made,—the legislature had no power to make any transfers
or assignment which should not be ratable among all the creditors
similarly situated as to the absence of liens. This provision of the
statute guarantying to all the creditors this impartial distribution
had entered into all these transactions on both sides, both as a limit
and a guaranty, and had the force and effect of a paramount law,
and restricted the old bondholders from taking, merely by virtue of
the act authorizing the issue of these new obligations, any portion of
the property of the debtor, which would leave any class of creditors
then existing without a proportionate provision or means of payment
out of the debtor’s property.
Did the act of 1882, if construed as it is contended for by the com-
plainant, do this ? Using words in a general sense, the debtor had no _
property upon which a writ of jicri fcicias could operate. The act of
1876 had, so far as the matter was capable of legislative restriction,
_ limited the authority of the city to levy taxes to 15 mills on the dollar.
Five mills of this had been devoted to the premium bonds. By the
act of 1882 five mills, if necessary, had been devoted to these ex-
tended bonds and coupon certificates. The alimony of the city, using
that word to include only the expenses absolutely necessary to enable
the city government to discharge its purely public functions or duties,
has been abundantly established to consume at the very least iive
mills. ‘
The judgment creditors had been deprived by article 1 of the mis-
cellaneous ordinances, subdivision 3, of the constitution of 1879, of
all opportunity of using their judgments in the payment of taxes.
The hollow and delusive provisions of the act of 1870, N o. 5, had been
judicially declared to be satisfied by the annual devotion on the part
of the city of an amount merely nominal for the payment of hundreds
of thousands of dollars of judgments. Unless, then, the judgment
creditors could participate in that portion of the {ive-mill premium
bond tax which remained after all who had any right thereto had been
paid, they were left with a debtor who had been stripped of every
means of paying any portion of these judgments. If, then, it was
the intention of the legislature, as is contended by the complainants,
by the act of 1882 to transfer to the extended bond and coupon cer·
tificate holders all of this surplus, and that intention should have
operation, it would result that where there were two classes of cred-
itors, with already existing debts, the legislative act could, by a trans-
fer or appropriation of a debtor's property, give to one class a prefer-
ence to the exclusion of the other class, to such a degree as to give to
one class an immediate and annual source of payment, and postpone
to the other all payment for possibly a period of 40 years. I think
the judicial decisions of all courts, and especially of our own, have