discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed; no person shall be rendered incompetent to be a witness on account of his opinions on matters of religious belief. But the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be construed so as to excuse acts of licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the State.

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require its suspension.

Excessive bail shall not be required nor excessive fines imposed, nor shall cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted, nor shall witnesses be unreasonably detained.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or infamous crime (except in specified cases) unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury, and in any trial in any court whatever the party accused shall be allowed to appear and defend in person and with counsel. No person shall be subject to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offence; be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public uses without just compensation.

When private property is taken for any public use the compensation to be made therefor, when such compensation is not made by the State, shall be ascertained by a jury, or by a commission. Private roads

may be opened in a manner to be prescribed by law, but in every case the necessity of the road and the amount of damage to be sustained by its opening shall be first determined by a jury of freeholders.

Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects. being responsible for the abuse of that right. In all criminal prosecutions or indictments for libels, if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libellous is true and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted.

No law shall be passed abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government, or any department thereof; nor shall any divorce be granted otherwise than by due judicial proceedings; nor shall any lottery or the sale of lottery tickets, pool selling, bookmaking or any other kind of gambling be authorized or allowed within this State.

The people of the State, in their right of sovereignty, are deemed to possess the original and ultimate property in and to all lands within the jurisdiction of the State; and all lands the title to which shall fail, from defect of heirs, shall revert, or escheat to the people.

No lease or grant of agricultural land, for a longer period than twelve years. hereafter made, in which shall be re served any rent or service of any kind, shall be valid.

Section 16 provides that all laws reabropugnant to this Constitution are gated.

PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE

II.

Every male citizen of the age of twentyone years, who shall have been a citizen for ninety days, an inhabitant of the State one year next preceding an election, for

or

the last four months a resident of the county, and for the last thirty days a resident of the election district in which he may offer his vote, shall be entitled to vote in that district; provided that in time of war no elector in actual military service of the State, or of the United States, shall be deprived of his vote by reason of his absence from such election district. No person who shall receive, accept, offer to receive, or pay, offer or promise to pay, contribute, offer or promise to contribute to another, to be paid or used, any money or other valuable thing as a compensation or reward for the giving or withholding a vote at an election, or who shall make any promise to influence the giving or withholding any such vote, or who shall make or become directly or indirectly interested in any bet or wager depending upon the result of any election, shall vote at such election. The Legislature shall enact laws excluding from the right of suffrage all persons convicted of bribery or of any infamous crime.

For the purpose of voting, no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence, by reason of his presence or ab sence, while employed in the service of the United States; nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of the State or of the United States, or of the high seas; nor while a student of any seminary of learning; nor while kept at any almshouse, or other asylum or institution wholly or partly supported at public expense, or by charity; nor while confined in any public prison.

Registration of voters is required. In cities and villages having 5,000 inhabitants or more, according to the last preceding State enumeration, voters shall be registered upon personal application only; but voters not residing in such cities and villages shall not be required to apply in person for registration at the first meeting of the officers having charge of the registry of voters. The registration must be completed at least ten days before each election.

The next section provides that all elections by the citizens, except for such town officers as may by law be directed to be otherwise chosen, shall be by ballot, or by such other method as may be prescribed by law, provided that secrecy in voting be preserved.

All laws creating, regulating or affecting boards of registry and boards of canvassers at elections require that such boards shall be bi-partisan, except at town and village elections.

PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE III. The Legislature is composed of fifty Senators and one hundred and fifty Assemblymen. The term of Senators elected in 1895 was fixed at three years, and thereafter the term of a Senator is to be for two years. The term of each Assemblyman is one year. Each member of the Legislature shall receive an annual salary of $1,500, and, in addition, one dollar for every ten miles of travel in going to and from the place of meeting. once in each session, by the most usual route. Senators when alone convened in extraordinary session, or when serving as members of a court of impeachment, and such members of the Assembly (not exceeding nine) as shall be appointed man

agers of an impeachment shall receive an additional allowance of ten dollars a day. No person shall be eligible to the Legislature who, at the time of his election, is, or within one hundred days previous thereto has been, a member of Congress, a civil or military officer under the United States, or an officer under any city government.

On and after January 1, 1897, no person in any State prison, penitentiary, jail or reformatory is to be employed at any trade, industry or occupation wherein or whereby his work, or the product or profit of his work, shall be farmed out, contracted, given or sold to any person, firm, association or corporation. This section is not to be construed to prevent the Legislature from providing that convicts may be employed at labor for the State or any part of it, or for any public institution owned or managed or controlled by the State or political division thereof.

A census of the population of the State shall be taken in May and June, 1905, and in the same months every tenth year thereafter. After the enumeration the Legislature, at the first regular session following, shall so alter the Senate districts that each shall contain as nearly as may be an equal number of inhabitants, excluding aliens, and be in as compact form as practicable, and no county shall be divided in the formation of a Senate district except to make two or more Senate districts wholly in such county. No county shall have four or more Senators unless it shall have a full ratio for each Senator; no county shall have more than one-third of all the Senators, and no two counties or the territory thereof, as now organized, which are adjoining counties, or which are separated by public waters, shall have more than one-half of all the Senators. The Senate shall always be composed of fifty members, except that if any county having three or more Senators at the time of any apportionment shall be entitled on such ratio to an additional Serator or Senators, such additional Senator or Senators shall be given to such county in addition to the fifty Senators, and the whole number of Senators shall be increased to that extent.

The members of the Assembly shall be chosen by single districts, and shall be apportioned by the Legislature at the first regular session after the return of every enumeration among the several counties of the State, as nearly as may be according to the number of their respective inhabitants, excluding aliens. Every county heretofore established and separately organized, except the county of Hamilton, shall always be entitled to one member of Assembly, and no county shall hereafter be erected unless its population shall entitle it to a member. The county of Hamilton shall elect with the county of Fulton until the population of the county of Hamilton shall, according to the ratio, entitle it to a member. But the Legislature may abolish the said county of Hamilton and annex the territory thereof to some other county or counties.

The quotient obtained by dividing the whole number of inhabitants of the State, excluding aliens, by the number of members of Assembly, shall be the ratio for apportionment, which shall be made as

follower Ona mamber of Assamblu shall be

apportioned to every county, including Fulton and Hamilton as one county, containing less than the ratio and one-half over. Two members shall be apportioned to every cther county. The remaining members of Assembly shall be apportioned to the coun-! ties having more than two ratios according to the number of inhabitants, excluding aliens. Members apportioned on remainders shall be apportioned to the counties having the highest remainders on the order thereof respectively.

No county shall have more members of Assembly than a county having a greater number of inhabitants, excluding aliens. An apportionment by the Legislature, or other body, shall be subject to a review by the Supreme Court, at the suit of any citizen, under such reasonable regulations as the Legislature may prescribe; and any court before which a cause may be pending involving an apportionment shall give | precedence thereto over all other causes and proceedings, and if said court be not in session it shall convene promptly for the disposition of the same.

The Legislature shall not, nor shall the common council of any city, nor any board of supervisors, grant any extra compensation to any public officer, servant, agent or contractor.

Sections 13 to 25 define the powers of the Legislature in the enactment of laws, as follows:

Sec. 13. Any bill may originate in either house of the Legislature, and all bills passed by one house may be amended by the other.

Sec. 14. The enacting clause of all bills shall be "The People of the State of NewYork, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows," and no law shall be enacted except by bill.

Sec. 15. No bill shall be passed or become a law unless it shall have been printed and upon the desks of the members, in its final form, at least three calendar legislative days prior to its final passage, unless the Governor, or the acting Governor, shall have certified to the necessity of its immediate passage, under his hand and the seal of the State; nor shall any bill be passed or become a law, except by the assent of a majority of the members elected to each branch of the Legislature; and upon the last reading of a bill no amendment thereof shall be allowed, and the question upon its final passage shall be taken immediately thereafter, and the yeas and nays entered on the journal.

Sec. 16. No private or local bill which may be passed by the Legislature shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

Sec. 17. No act shall be passed which shall provide that any existing law, or any part thereof, shall be made or deemed a part of said act, or which shall enact that any existing law, or part thereof, shall be applicable, except by inserting it in such

Providing for changes of venue in civil or criminal cases.

Incorporating villages.

Providing for election of members of boards of supervisors.

Selecting, drawing, summoning or impanelling grand or petit jurors.

Regulating the rate of interest on money. The opening and conducting of elections or designating places of voting.

Creating, increasing or decreasing fees, percentage or allowances of public officers, during the term for which said officers are elected or appointed.

Granting to any corporation, association er individual the right to lay down railroad tracks.

Granting to any private corporation, association or individual any exclusive privilege, immunity or franchise whatever.

Providing for building bridges, and chartering companies for such purposes, except on the Hudson River below Waterford, and on the East River, or over the waters forming a part of the boundaries of the State.

The Legislature shall pass general laws providing for the cases enumerated in this section, and for all other cases which in its judgment may be provided for by gen-. eral laws. But no law shall authorize the construction or operation of a street railroad except upon the condition that the consent of the owners of one-half in value of the property bounded on, and the consent also of the local authorities having the control of, that portion of a street or highway upon which it is proposed to construct or operate such railroad be first obtained, or in case the consent of such property-owners cannot be obtained the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the department in which it is proposed to he constructed may, upon application, appoint three commissioners who shall determine, after a hearing of all parties interested, whether such railroad ought to be constructed or operated, and their determination, confirmed by the court, may be taken in lieu of the consent of the property-owners.

Sec. 19. The Legislature shall neither audit nor allow any private claim or account against the State, but may appropriate money to pay such claims as shall have been audited and allowed according to law.

Sec. 20. The assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each branch of the Legislature shall be requisite to every bill appropriating the public moneys or property for local or private purposes.

Sec. 21. No money shall ever be paid out of the treasury of this State, or any of its funds, or any of the funds under its management, except in pursuance of an appropriation by law; nor unless such payment be made within two years next after the passage of such appropriation act; and every such law making a new appropriation or continuing or reviving an appropriation, shall distinctly specify the sum appropriated and the object to which it is to be applied; and it shall not be sufficient for such law to refer to any other law to fix such sum.

Sec, 22. No provision or enactment shall be embraced in the annual appropriation or supply bill, unless it relates specifically to some particular appropriation in the bill: and any such provision or enactment shall

be limited in its operation to such appropriation.

Sec. 23. Sections seventeen and eighteen of this article shall not apply to any bill or the amendments to any bill which shall be reported to the Legislature by commissioners who have been appointed pursuant to law to rev.se the statutes.

Sec. 24. Every law which imposes, continues or revives a tax shall distinctly state the tax and the object to which it is to be applied, and it shall not be sufficient to refer to any other law to fix such tax or object.

or

Sec. 25. On the final passage, in either house of the Legislature, of any act which imposes, continues or revives a tax, creates a debt or charge, or makes, continues or revives any appropriation of public or trust money or property, or releases, discharges or commutes any claim or demand of the State, the question shall be taken by yeas and nays, which shall be duly entered upon the journals, and threefifths of all the members elected to either house shall, in all such cases, be necessary to constitute a quorum therein.

PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE IV.

There shall be a Governor and a Lieutenant-Governor, who shall be elected for terms of two years. The Lieutenant-Governor is the president of the Senate, but has only a casting vote therein. In case of a vacancy in the Governorship by impeachment, removal from office, death or inability to discharge the duties of his office, resignation or absence from the State, then the Lieutenant-Governor becomes the Governor. In case of the Lieutenant-Govcrnor becoming disqualified to act as Governor the President of the Senate becomes Governor, and next in order is the Speaker of the Assembly.

PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE V.

Provides for the offices of Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer, AttorneyGereral and State Engineer and Surveyor, each of whom shall be elected at the places and times of electing the Governor, and shall hold office for two years, beginning with the election in November, 1898. It also provides for the appointment of Superintendent of Public Works, to be confirmed by the Senate, for the same term as the Governor: a Superintendent of State Prisons for the term of five years; Commissioners of Land Office, who shall be the Lieutenant-Governor, Speaker of the Assembly, Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer, Attorney-General and State Engineer and Surveyor; Commissioners of Canal Fund, composed of the LieutenantGovernor, Secretary of State, Comptroller, Treasurer and Canal Attorney-General; Board, composed of the Commissioners of the Canal Fund, the State Engineer and Surveyor, and Superintendent of Public Works. The powers and duties of the several officers and boards are also prescribed.

Appointments and promotions in the civil service of the State, and of all the civil divisions thereof, shall be made according to merit and fitness, to be ascertained, so far as practicable, by examinations which. so far as practicable, shall be competitive; provided, however, that honorably discharged soldiers and sailors from the Army and Navy of the United States in the late Civil War, who are citizens and residents

of the State, shall be entitled to preference in appointment and promotion, without regard to their standing on any list from which such appointn ent or promotion may be made.

PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE VI.

This article applies to the various courts and justices. The State is divided into four judicial departments, with an Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in each. Once every ten years the Legislature may alter the judicial departments, but without increasing the number thereof. The justices constituting the Appellate divisions are to be selected by the Governor from the justices elected to the Supreme Court.

No Judge or Justice shall sit in the Appellate Division or in the Court of Appeals in review of a decision made by him or by any court of which he was at the time a sitting member. The testimony in equity cases shall be taken in like manner as in cases at law; and, except as herein otherwise provided, the Legislature shall have the same power to alter and regulate the jurisdiction and proceedings in law and in equity that it has heretofore exercised,

The official terms of the justices of the Supreme Court are fixed at fourteen years, from January 1 next after their election.

The Superior Court of the City of NewYork, the Court of Common Pleas for the City and County of New-York, the Superior Court of Buffalo, and the City Court of Brooklyn, are abolished from and after January 1, 1896.

The jurisdiction now exercised by the several courts hereby abolished shall be vested in the Supreme Court.

Circuit Courts and Courts of Oyer and Terminer are abolished from and after December 31, 1895. All their jurisdiction shall thereupon be vested in the Supreme Court.

After December 31, 1895, the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals, except where the judgment is of death, shall be limited to the review of questions of law.

The Judges of the Court of Appeals and the Justices of the Supreme Court shall not hold any other office or public trust. All votes for any of them, for any other than a judicial office, given by the Legislature or the people, shall be void.

The Assembly shall have the power of impeachment, by a vote of a majority of all the members elected. The Court for the Trial of Impeachments shall be composed of the President of the Senate, the Senators, or the majority part of them, and the Judges of the Court of Appeals, or the major part of them. On the trial of an impeachment against the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor shall not act as a member of the court. No judicial officer shall exercise his office, after articles of impeachment against him shall have been preferred to the Senate, until he shall have been acquitted. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, or removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under this State, but the party impeached shall liable to indictment and punishment according to law.

be

The Court of Appeals judges are also elected for the same terms as Supreme Court Judges. Judges of the Supreme Court and of the Court of Appeals may be removed by concurrent resolution of both houses of the Legislature, if two-thirds of the members elected to each house concur therein. All other judicial officers, except Justices of the Peace and judges or justices of inferior courts not of record may be removed by the Senate, on the recommendation of the Governor, if two-thirds of all the members elected to the Senate concur therein. No person shall hold the office of judge or justice of any court longer than until and including the last day of December next after he shall be seventy years of age.

Surrogates' Courts are provided for, and the duties of Surrogates are defined. Surrogates are elected for the term of six years, except in New-York County, where the term continues for fourteen years. In counties where a separate Surrogate is not elected the County Judge acts as such. In counties having a population of 40,000, wherein there is no separate Surrogate, the Legislature may provide for the election of one. No County Judge or Surrogate shall hold office longer than until and including the last day of December next after he shall be over seventy years of age

Justices of the Peace are provided for by election in towns, whose terms of office shall be four years.

PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE VII.

The credit of the State shall not in any manner be given or loaned to or in aid of any individual, association or corporation. The State may, to meet casual deficits or failures in revenues, or for expenses not provided for, contract debts; but such debts, direct or contingent, singly or in the aggregate, shall not at any time exceed $1,000,000, and the money arising from the loans creating such debts shall be applied to the purpose for which they were obtained, or to repay the debt so contracted, and to no other purpose whatever.

The lands of the State constituting the forest preserve shall be forever kept as wild forest lands, and they shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.

The Legislature shall not sell, lease or otherwise dispose of the Erie, the Oswego, the Champlain, the Cayuga and Seneca, or the Black River canals, but they shall remain the property of the State and under its management forever. No tolls shall be imposed on persons or property transported on the canals, but all boats navigating the canals, and the owners and masters thereof, shall be subject to such laws and regulations as have been or may be enacted concerning the navigation of the canals. The Legislature shall annually, by equitable taxes, make provision for the expenses of the superintendence and repairs of the canals.

PROVISIONS OF ARTICLE VIII. Corporations may be formed under general laws; but shall not be created by special act, except for municipal purposes, and in cases where, in the judgment of