to be printed as Part I and "general and public acts" as Part II. The separate publication of these two bodies of law ceased in 1876.

Not until 1888 did printed statutes again appear according to some sort of classification. After 1890 they were grouped in such well-defined classes as "general acts", "appropriation acts", "legalizing acts", "private, local and temporary acts", or "special acts". The Code of 1897, moreover, makes a reference to "acts of a private nature" and "acts of a general nature".21 Finally, the General Assembly decided that only the statutes of a "general and permanent nature" enacted in 1915 and future years should find a place in the biennial cumulative supplement, and "No appropriation acts, legalizing acts or joint resolutions of a private nature shall be printed in the code supplement, but said acts, except legalizing acts, shall be printed in a separate volume bound in paper covers and distributed as other laws".22

The various qualifying adjectives and phrases used above are doubtless somewhat confusing to most persons; and so some explanations and simple examples will be given to illustrate distinctions.

"General acts" or "public acts" have been defined as affecting "either the whole community, or large and important sections, the interests of which may be considered identical with those of the whole body." The following are examples of statutory provisions of a general or public character:

It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to bring into, or cause to be brought into the state of Iowa, any apiary or honey bees infected with foul brood or other infectious disease, or bee-destroying insects.23

That all persons shall be regarded as practicing dentistry within the meaning of this act who, for a fee, salary, or reward, paid directly or indirectly, either to himself, or some other person, shall diagnose, or profess to diagnose, or treat, or profess to treat, any of the diseases or lesion of the oral cavity, teeth, gums, or maxillary bones, or who shall extract teeth, or prepare or fill cavities in the human teeth, correct, or attempt to correct, malposition of teeth or jaws, or supply artificial teeth as substitutes for natural teeth, or administer anaesthetics, general or local, or give prophylactic treatments, or engage in any other practice included in the curricula of recognized dental colleges.

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"Appropriation acts", as the name indicates, provide for grants of money from the State treasury. Some of these acts are temporary in character, while others are permanent, as the following extracts clearly show:

To the state board of education for telephone messages, telegrams, express charges, stenographers and other necessary items to be expended by said board during the biennial period ending July 1st, 1915, the sum of five hundred dollars ($500.00), which sum is to be paid in accordance with the provisions.

That there be and is hereby appropriated out of any funds in the state treasury, not otherwise appropriated, for the further support of the State University in its several departments and chairs, and in aid of the income fund, and for the development of the institution, the sum of twelve thousand, five hundred dollars ($12,500) annually hereafter.

"Legalizing acts" aim to give permanent force to official or non-official acts of doubtful legality or known illegality. These statutes are usually special in their nature; but they sometimes affect a considerable portion of the public. Examples of this sort of legislation are:

That all acts of the city council of the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and of the auditor, treasurer and board of supervisors of

said Linn county, Iowa, in assessing and levying against the taxable property of said city in the year 1908 four mills on the dollar for the park fund of said city be and the same are hereby legalized and made valid as though the law had been fully complied with, provided, however, that this act shall not affect pending litigation.

The said First Congregational Church of Toledo, Tama County Iowa, is hereby declared to be Incorporated and the acts of said society in reincorporating, and [are] hereby legalized and said reincorporation of said Church on December 14th 1877, is hereby declared to be legal and to be as effectual as though the same had been made within the term of Twenty years from its original organization.

"Temporary acts" are passed to meet emergencies and become inoperative when their provisions have been complied with. Particular occasions have been prepared for by the creation of special commissions such as the "Iowa Columbian Commission" to make a creditable exhibit of the State's resources at the Chicago World's Fair, and the "Code Supplement Supervising Committee" of 1913. When the persons constituting such commissions or committees had performed their duties, the laws had spent their force.

"Special acts" include "those which are called private, local or personal, as they relate to private interests, and deal with the affairs of persons, places, classes, or other bodies which are not of a public character."25 The area or population of the State which they affect is very limited. Statutes legalizing invalid elections and the incorporation of towns are illustrations of local acts, as also is the following:

That the name of the county seat of Boone County Iowa shall be known and designated as Boone Iowa instead of Boonsboro,

"Private acts" simply concern a private corporation or person, as for example:

A right of way is hereby granted to the Omaha, Council Bluffs & Suburban Railway Company over and across the lands of the Iowa school for the deaf, located near the city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, subject to the conditions of this act as hereinafter provided.

That the governor of the state of Iowa and the secretary of state be, and they are hereby authorized, empowered and directed to issue to said Albert Husa a land patent in the usual form to lot seven (7), block fifty-five (55) of Iowa City, Iowa, which shall constitute an absolute conveyance of all right, title and interest which the state of Iowa may have in and to said premises.

III

FORMAL FEATURES OF LEGISLATIVE

UTTERANCES

PREFIXED to every Iowa statute in accordance with provisions of the State Constitution are two essential features: the title and the enacting clause. Many laws, moreover, reveal a third formal feature, one which in no case is necessary to establish the validity of the act, namely, the preamble. (For a discussion of the formal features of legislative utterances viewed from the standpoint of the process of law-making see Mr. Patton's paper on the Methods of Statute Law-making in Iowa in this volume, pp. 199–203.)

UNOFFICIAL TITLES

A glance at any volume of session laws discloses the fact that practically every resolution or statute has two headings or titles. The first is usually printed in capital letters, indicates the general subject on which the legislature has expressed its will, and is unofficial in the sense that it was selected by the editor of the volume and not by the lawmakers. Of this short, descriptive title one finds such examples as Constables, Divorces, Education, Ferries, Gaming, Mills and Millers, Roads, Steamboats, Itinerant Venders of Drugs, Display of United States Flag, Minimum Wage for Teachers in Public Schools, Prohibiting Candidates from Making Political Promises, and Establishment of Laboratory for Manufacture of Hog Cholera Serum.

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