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Prohibition. On the twentieth day of September, 1915, the city council of the city of Bakersfield adopted an ordinance relating to the regulation and control of the operation of automobile buses within that city. Within thirty days thereafter there was filed with the city clerk an instrument protesting against the passage of the ordinance. This protest was signed by 880 electors of the city. The council having declared this protest sufficient to require a referendum vote upon said ordinance, have ordered an election and referendum thereon to be held on the eleventh day of January, 1916. The petitioner claims that the protest is insufficient to authorize such election or to cause a suspension of the ordinance, and in support of this claim alleges that the protest does not contain the names of a sufficient number of electors. The respondents have filed a general demurrer to the petition herein, and it has been stipulated that the case may be disposed of in accordance with our decision upon that demurrer.

The present charter of the city of Bakersfield was adopted by the electors of that city at an election held on the seventh day of November, 1914, and, after its approval by the…