Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-10-13

| the acts or inferable from their opera
! ton, considered with reference to the
condition of the country or existing
legislation. The motives of the legis-
| latOrS, considered as the purposes
they had in view. will always be pre-
sumed to be to accomplish that which
follows as the natural and reasonable
! effect of their enactment; and we must
not suppose the Legislature to have
acted improperly, unauyiSedly, or from
any other than public motives, under
any circumstances when acting within
! the limits of its authority" 81 Wis,
! 500. In other words, in so far as the
, legislature keeps within the limits of
/ its powers, the motives of its members
cannot be inquired into, and its diScre-
/ ton is not subject for review in the
! courts; but whenever and to the ex-
! tent that the legislature transcends its
powers, it is cOncluSively presumed,
! that it intended to so transcend the
! same, and hense parol evidence of good
motives or other considerations, cannot
be allowed to Obviate the effect of such
unlawful intent. In the same connec-
/ ton he further said: An issue of fact
cannot be framed and tried by a Jury or
otherwise with = view of determining
! by its results the validity of an act of
! the legislature, but the court is to be
( confined to the matters of which it may
| take judicial notice; for otherwise a
! jury might find on the issue one way
| today, and another way tomorrow. and
! this would beget Il distressing condition
, MT L.
! established that courts will take judicial
notice of a census, whether taken under
! the authority of the state or United
States. The apportionment is to be
! according to the number of Inhabitants
and made at the next session after the
! state or United States enumeration,
and the enumeration is evidently in
! tended rs the basis of apportiOnment.
! The court will take judicial knowledge
of the location, general boundaries, and
! the juXtaposition of the sew
eral counties, towns and wards
| mentioned in the act in
/ in question, and of matters of common
knowledge" 81 Wis, $40. These prop
ositiOns are there supported by the eta
| ton of numerous authorities See also
! Prieger V. ms Co, Wis, 80; Swain
! V. COmStOck, Is Wis. 1853; Woodward
! V. R'y, 21 Wis, 300; SauzvilIe V.
State, 60 Wis, 17S. Thus it is very
, obvious, under the rulings of this court
! in the previous case, that it is not per-
missable for the defendant here, to
allege and prove that in making the
last appOrtiOnment, the legislature acted
/ upon the theory that the counties of
! Chippewa, Florence, Forest, Oneida,
Langlade, Price and Taylor contained
: 12,777 more inhabitants than appears
/ from the census of 1890; for to do so
would open the door on the other side
to prove, that the other counties of the
state, or some of them, contained less
inhabitants than appears from the cen
SuS; besides, if proved, it would only
show that the legislature purpOseIy
disregarded the standard of population,
thus cOnclusively fixed by the cOnsti-
! tuition, and based their action upon
/ other computations, estimates or con-
SideratiOns. The same may in substance
be said, in relation to that part of the
proposed answer, to the effect, that the
legislature were induced to make the
! fourth senate district, rs they did, by
reason of the excessive wealth therein
and the nature and character of its
population and business interests. But,
as we shall in another part of this
opinion undertake to show, such c0nsid-
eratiOns cannot justify Il disregard of
the standards Of population, fixed in
the constitution, in making a senate
district out of only 30,732 inhabitants,
which is 20,3S5 less than the unit, and
n considerably less than One-half Of
either the ninth, the seventeenth, or
the thirty-tirSt senate district For the
reasons thus substantially stated in the
former case, we have rejected the pro-
posed answer.
4. This does not exclude from con-
sideratiOn the several former appor-
tiOnment acts from 1852 to 1887 inclu-
sive, in so far as they may have any
legitimate bearing. In fact, they We're
freely used on the argument Of the
demurrer and motions by counsel for
the defendant, without any objection.
In the former case, it was StrcnuOuSly
cOntended, that the constitutional pro-
vision requiring assembly districts to be
bounded 10y county, town or ward lines,
did not preVnt the legislature from
, crossing county lines in the formations
, of such districts; and it has been said,
that such views have been entertained
! by some men especially learned in
grammar and philolOgy. To meet such
contention, and on the theory that such
constitutional requirement might be re-
garded as ambiguous and doubtful,
Mr.. Justice Pinney traced the history
of the provision Isl Wis, 512-5f5); and
the present chief justice for the same
purpose considered the former appOr-
tionment acts. 81 Wis, 523. If such
provision of the constitution was thus
ambiguous and doubtful, then such his
tory and former appointments were
. entitled to their proper weight in the
construction given. If, on the contrary,
such provision was not ambiguous nor
doubtful then such history and former
appointments were irrelevant and
without any legal significance in a court
of law. This must be So because it is
a well established rule, recognized by
all courts and applicable to cOnstitu-
tons as well as statutes, that where
the language Of the instrument is plain
and unambiguOuS, whether it be eX-
pressed in general or limited terms, the
trainers thereof should be intended to