Settlements have
grown up in various places, constituting in point of population and
business cities of thousands of inhabitants, yet there is no provision
of law under which a municipality can be organized or maintained.
In some localities the inhabitants have met together and voluntarily
formed a municipal organization for the purposes of local government,
adopting the form of a municipal constitution and charter, under
which said officials have been appointed; and ordinances creating and
regulating a police force, a fire department, a department of health,
and making provision for the care of the insane and indigent poor and
sick and for public schools, have been passed. These proceedings and
the ordinances passed by such municipalities are without statutory
authority and have no sanction, except as they are maintained by the
popular sentiment of the community. There is an entire absence of
authority to provide the ordinary instruments of local police control
and administration, the population consisting of the usual percentage
of lawless adventurers of the class that always flock to new fields of
enterprise or discovery, and under circumstances which require more than
ordinary provision for the maintenance of peace, good order, and lawful
conduct.
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