Smith v. Mathews

This is a proceeding in mandamus and presents only a question of statutory construction. In the year 1907 the petitioner was constable of Little Lake township in Mendocino County, his term of office having commenced in January of that year, and at a time when the compensation for his official services was regulated by section 1 of an act approved March 21, 1905, relating to the compensation of county officers in counties of the fourteenth class (Stats. 1905, p. 671). By that act he was allowed certain fees—but no salary.

On the eighteenth day of March, 1907, the governor approved an act…