Municipal

Originally, pertaining to or governing a city or other distinct local community or body within a state, but having large rights of self-government. The municipium of Koman times vpas an independent city as respected local afiairs, united by voluntary political ties to the republic as regarded general interests and sovereignty. From this origin we have derived "municipal," applying it, in an earlier history, to cities and incorporated towns, and, more recently, in somewhat more extended uses, varying or growing with the gradual progress of modern institutions of government. It is used with different shades of meaning, in different connections. Municipal signifies that which belongs to a corporation or a city. The term includes the rules or laws by which a particular district, community, or nation is governed. It may also mean local, particular, independent.

Horton v. Mobile School Commissioners, 43 Ala. 598.

Municipal claims

In the Pa. Stat. 1866, repealing the laws requiring advertisement of " municipal claims," does not apply to registered taxes. Philadelphia «.

Scott, 72 Pa. St. 92.

Municipal corporation

A term embracing that class of corporations which are created to administer local government, subordinate to the general porated towns, and villages, and some other forms of public corporations.

Municipal corporationa act

A general statute, the 5 & 6 Wm. IV. ch. 76, passed in 1835, prescribing general regulations for the incorporation and government of boroughs. By this act, the corporate towns or boroughs enumerated in the schedules annexed (comprising, with the exception of London and a few other places, all those in England and Wales) were placed under one uniform plan of government. The act defined what householdei's within a borough shall be considered burgesses. It further provided, that in every borough there shall be elected, annually, a mayor, and, periodically, a certain number of aldermen, and of councillors, who together.shall constitute the council of the borough; that they shall be respectively chosen from among persons on, or entitled to be on, the burgess list, and otherwise qualified as in the act described; that the councillors shall be elected by the burgesses, and the mayor and aldermen by the council; that the council shall meet once a quarter (and oftener, if due notice be given), for transaction of the general business of the borough, and make their decisions according to the majority of the members present (if those present amount to one-third of the whole), and that the mayor, or other member presiding in his absence, shall have a casting vote; that at any meeting at which twothirds at least of the whole shall attend the council may make by-laws for the good rule and government of the borough, for the prevention and suppression of nuisances, and for the imposition of fines on persons in that behalf offending; that the burgesses shall annually elect from among those qualified to be councillors two auditors and two assessors, the former to audit the accounts of the borough, the latter to assist in revising the burgess list; and that the council also may appoint a town clerk and a treasurer (neither of whom is to be a member of the council), and such other officers as have been usual, or shall be necessary, and shall be emsessions, shall also appoint a coroner and a clerk of the peace. It also ppvided, subject, however, to certain exceptions, that the council shall not sell or mortgage the land or public stock of the borough, or demise them for more than a certain term; and that the rents, profits, and interest of all corporate property shall be paid to the treasurer, and carried to the account of the borough fund, which, after discharging debts, shall be applied to the payment of salaries, the expenses connected with the corporate elections, prosecutions, jails, and maintenance of offenders, and other public purposes; that the surplus, if any, shall be expended for the public benefit of the inhabitants, and the deficiency, if any, made up by a rate; and that the accounts shall be at all times open to inspection, and regularly audited and printed for the use of the ratepayers, and submitted to the secretary of state, and laid before both houses of parliament. The act distinguished between the rights newly conferred by it, and the former rights of the corporators, with regard to the corporate property, and to voting at parliamentary elections; both which former rights are expressly reserved; it being provided that every inhabitant, and every person admitted a freeman or burgess, and the wife or widow or son or daughter of any freeman or burgess, and eveiy apprentice, shall enjoy the same share and benefit of the lands and public stock of the borough as he might have enjoyed in case the act had not been passed; subject to the limitation, however, that the total amount to be divided among such persons shall not exceed the surplus which shall remain after payment of the expenses, by the act charged upon the borough fund; also, that every person who, if the act had not been passed, vs'ould have enjoyed as a burgess or freeman, or might thereafter have acquired in respect of birth or servitude, the right of voting in the election of members of paiiiament, shall be entitled to enjoy or acquire such right of voting The act abolished the customs and by-laws of various boroughs, that no person not being free of the borough, or of certain guilds, mysteries, or trading companies therein, should keep a shop for merchandise, or use certain trades or occupations for gain within the same; and enacted that every person may in future keep any shop, and use every lawful trade and occupation theiein, any such custom or by-law notwithstanding. The municipal corporations act of 18.59 is the Stat. 22 Vict. ch. 35, which introduced extensive amendments in the mode of conducting borough elections under the act above condensed.

Wharlon.

Municipal court. A name sometimes applied to an inferior court whose territorial jurisdiction is limited by the boundaries of a particular city or other municipality. Such are the municipal criminal court of San Francisco and the municipal courts in Maine and Massar chusetts.

Municipal la-w

In this phrase the word municipal is used somewhat more broadly than the preceding. The term may, indeed, mean the local law of a particular place, but more generally means the law of the state or community united under a single government, in distinction from international or constitutional law. Municipal officer; municipal ordinance. In these phrases " municipal " is used in its stricter sense of a local corporation; the meaning is, an officer of a borough, city, incorporated town or village, or the like.