Burce

This appeal is from a judgment denying the petition of E. E. Buree for a writ of mandate to compel respondent, as auditor of Calaveras County, to audit and allow the petitioner’s claim for compensation as a justice of the peace of said county.

The judgment is on a demurrer to the petition, and there is no dispute as to the facts. The petitioner presented his claim for services rendered in 1899 as justice of the peace, and it was allowed by the board of supervisors for seven dollars in each of four criminal cases, or an aggregate of twenty-eight dollars. This is the amount that he would be entitled to under the County Government Act of 1893, treating Calaveras County as a county of the thirty-eighth class, as provided by that act. (Stats. 1893, pp. 491-492.)

By the County Government Act of 1897, the population of Calaveras County is declared to be 14,175. (Stats. 1897, p. 454.) The same act places counties having a population of 14,000, and less than 14,400, in the thirty-first class. (Stats. 1897, p. 494.) Thus, by the statutes of 1897, Calaveras County is placed in the thirty-first class. The same act provides that justices of the peace in the thirty-first class of counties…