Appeal from the District Court, Seventeenth Judicial District, County of Los Angeles.

The case was thus: The city of Los Angeles owned water works for supplying its citizens with pure water, consisting of pipes, reservoirs, etc., and also owned the right to divert water from the Los Angeles Eiver. On the 20th day of July, 1868, the city entered into a contract with John S. Griffin, Prudent Beaudry, and Solomon Lazard, by which, in consideration of said parties releasing a demand they had against the city for the repair of the water works, and of the payment of the sum of $1,500 per annum, and for the further consideration that such parties should lay down pipes in the streets of sufficient capacity to supply the inhabitants with water, and construct such works as would secure a constant supply of water for domestic purposes, the city granted to said parties, for the term of thirty years, the use and possession of the water and water works, with the right to sell the water and enjoy the rents and profits. The contract contained other clauses, by which, at the end of the term, the city should pay the parties the value of the improvements they made, to be ascertained by arbitration, and the city had the right to regulate water rates to be charged, and the parties of the second part were to pay all State and County taxes levied and assessed upon the water works, and were to deliver up the property to the city at the end of the term. The contract also adopted a clause contained in a former lease to J. L. Sansevain, by which the parties of the second part were to bear all expenses of the water works except State, City and County taxes. Said parties assigned their interest in the contract to the defendant. The property, in 1871, was assessed for City taxes at'fifteen thousand dollars. The Board of Equalization (the City Council) raised the assessed value of the property fifteen thousand dollars, making thirty thousand. No complaint was filed, and the only notice given to the defendant of the proposed action of the Board, was a notice in writing, deposited in the Post-office by the Clerk of the Council, postage paid, addressed to the defendant. This was an action to recover the tax on the value as raised by the Board of Equalization. On the trial, the parties stipulated to the facts, and, among other things, stipulated that there was, among the archives of the city, a book endorsed, “Delinquent Tax List of Los Angeles City for 1871 and 1872,” with the certificate of the City Marshal attached thereto that “the foregoing delinquent tax list is correct,” and that the Marshal delivered the same to the Clerk of the Council on the first day of March, 1872. In this book the defendant was delinquent for the tax on said property. The facts in regard to raising the assessment by the Board of Equalization were also admitted. The Court rendered judgment for the tax on the value of the property as raised by the Board of Equalization, and the defendant appealed.

The other facts are stated in the opinion.