Hecht

This is a proceeding by quo warranto, brought in the superior court to determine by what authority the defendants, as individuals or as a board, are acting as a board of fifteen freeholders to prepare and propose a charter for the city and county of San Francisco.

Two several demurrers were interposed to the complaint: one by and on behalf of William B. Bourn and I. W. Heilman, two of the defendants, and the other by all the defendants.

The demurrers, and each of them, were sustained by the court, and the relator declining to amend, final judgment went for the defendants, from which judgment the plaintiffs appeal.

The complaint, which, for the purposes of this case, is to be taken as true, avers in substance as follows:

1. The city and county of San Francisco is, and at all the times herein mentioned has been, a municipal corporation duly organized and existing under and by virtue of an act of the legislature of the state of California, approved April 19, 1856, and the several acts of said legislature amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, and contains a population of three hundred thousand inhabitants.

2. On the eleventh day of September, 1894, the properly…