217.] These proceedings are easy to follow and to understand.

The demands made upon a township are in general plain and accurately defined; they consist in a simple fact without any complication, or in a principle without its application in detail.

*x But the difficulty increases when it is not the obedience of the township, but that of the town officers which is to be enforced.

All the reprehensible actions of which a public functionary may be guilty are reducible to the following heads: [Footnote x: There is an indirect method of enforcing the obedience of a township.

Suppose that the funds which the law demands for the maintenance of the roads have not been voted, the town surveyor is then authorized, ex officio, to levy the supplies.