Grogan

— This is a proceeding by certiorari to review the action of the county court in proceedings pending before it for the extension of Montgomery and Connecticut streets, in the city of San Francisco, under an act passed in 1864, authorizing the board of supervisors to extend streets: Stats. 1863-64, 347. At the time when the writ of certiorari issued from this court the proceedings in the county court *618 were in fieri; the court having proceeded no further than the appointment of commissioners to assess the damages and apportion them on the property to be benefited by the improvement. Bat the commissioners had not made their report, and it is claimed on behalf of the relator that the county court never acquired jurisdiction of the proceeding, and that it exceeded its jurisdiction in undertaking to appoint commissioners. It is this alleged excess of jurisdiction which is sought to be corrected in this proceeding.

In reply, the respondents claim that the writ of certiorari cannot properly issue in such a ease, because, as they allege, section 456 of the Practice Act defines the only cases in which the writ can issue, to wit, where the inferior court, board or officer has exceeded…