Section 45. A de facto municipal corporation is one that is acting under color of law, although there may have been some irregularity in its organization, and it is familiar law that its authority while so acting will be recognized until dissolved by the State on a judgment of ouster.

Municipal corporations are created for the public good - are demanded by the wants of the community, and it would seem incompatible with good faith, and against public policy to hold them not bodies corporate on account of irregularities that may have intervened in their organization. In the case of Jameson vs. People ex rel., 16 III., 257, it was held, that where a municipal corporation has been recognized by enactments of the general assembly, all inquiry into the original organization of the corporation is precluded. If was further held, that in such cases, after long continued use of corporate powers, and acquiescence of the public in them, the law will indulge in the presumption in support of their legal existence.8

7 Mendenhall vs. Burton, 42 Kan., 570; State vs. Jenkins, 25 Mo.

App., 484; Hill vs. Kahoka, 35 Fed. Rep., 32.