Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the judge of the municipal court of the city of Alton shall have power, and is hereby authorized, to issue writs of habeas corpus, writs ne exeat, writs of injunction, and writs certiorari, within the jurisdiction of said court; and the same proceedings shall be had thereon before said judge and court as may be had in like cases before the circuit judges and circuit courts of this State, respectively.

Sec. 2. The judge of the municipal court of the city of Alton shall hold two terms of said court in each year for the

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transaction of civil and criminal business; and shall continue each term of said court until the business before it shall be disposed of. The said terms shall, respectively, commence on the first Mondays of May and November: Provided, That the common council of said city shall have power to alter the time of holding said terms of court, by giving four weeks’ notice thereof in some newspaper in said city: And provided, further, That the common council shall so order and arrange the time of holding the terms of the municipal court so that they shall not be held during the regular sitting of the Madison circuit court.

Sec. 3. In all criminal cases hereafter depending in the said municipal court, the defendant may make application for change of venue, as now provided by law, setting forth in the petition the particular facts on which the application is grounded; and which application and petition shall be sworn to, and shall be addressed to the sound discretion of the court or judge, who shall allow such applications, if the ends of justice shall be thereby promoted.

Sec. 4. In all cases where it shall become necessary to commit any person or person, by virtue of the criminal laws of the State, for offences committed within the jurisdiction of said municipal court, such person or persons shall be committed to the city jail of the city of Alton; and in all cases of conviction for a criminal offence in said court, and where, by the laws of this State, a part of the punishment is imprisonment in the county jail, said convicted person or persons shall be imprisoned in the city jail of the city of Alton.

Sec. 5. Hereafter no lands lying within the corporate limits of the city of Alton, not laid out into town or city lots of less size than ten acres, shall be taxed by said corporation at a higher rate, in proportion to their value, than other lands are taxed lying out of said city, and within the county of Madison.

Sec. 6. There shall be a poll opened at every place of holding an election in the city of Alton, at the August election, in eighteen hundred and thirty-nine; at which election the legal voters of said city may vote for or against abolishing the municipal court of the city of Alton; which votes shall be returned to the common council, and counted as is now provided by law; and if a majority of all the legal votes given at said election are in favor of abolishing said court, then the said court shall be, and the same is hereby, abolished.2

Sec. 7. That in the event that the said court is abolished by the vote of a majority of the citizens of Alton, all suits or matters, both in law and in equity, now pending and undetermined in the said municipal court, shall be heard, tried, or prosecuted to final judgment and execution, in the circuit court of the county of Madison, in the same manner as they would be if the said suits had been originally made returnable or had in the circuit court for the said county of Madison;

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and all records, dockets, and papers belonging to, arising from, or connected with, the said municipal court, shall, by the clerk of the said municipal court, be transferred and delivered over to the clerk of the circuit court for the said county of Madison: Provided, That this section shall be construed as a release of errors that might have been taken advantage of in said municipal court: Provided, further, That it shall be no ground of error in or to any judgment heretofore rendered in the said municipal court, that it does not appear, by the record or proceedings, that the defendant resided in the county of Madison.

Sec. 8. That it is hereby made the duty of the sheriff of Madison county to make returns of all process of summons, executions, or of whatever name or nature, to the said circuit court of the county of Madison; which said circuit court is hereby invested with the same powers to enforce a compliance with the law in this behalf that it would have had if the process had been originally issued from the said circuit court; and execution, hereafter to be issued upon any judgment rendered in the said municipal court, shall be directed to the sheriff of Madison county.

Sec. 9. That the transcript of any record of the said municipal court, of any judgment rendered thereon, may and shall be furnished by the clerk of the circuit court of said county of Madison; and every such transcript shall (have) the same force and effect, to all intents and purposes that the same would have had if the suit, process, or proceedings, whether in law or equity, had been originally commenced or instituted in said circuit court.

Sec. 10. That the clerk of the said municipal court, if the same shall be abolished by the votes of a majority of the legal voters of the city of Alton, shall deliver over the records, dockets, and papers, as provided in the seventh section of this act, within six weeks after the first Monday of August, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine: Provided, Nothing in this act contained shall prevent the clerk of the said municipal court from collecting his fees in the manner now provided by law.

Sec. 11. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after the first Monday in June next; and any thing contained in the act to which this is an amendment, and which is inconsistent with the foregoing amendments, is hereby repealed.

Approved, March 2, 1839.