(having stated the case ). We think it manifest that the funds in the count}' treasurer’s hands are withdrawn from the control of the committee of the former school district, and at the time when they undertook by their order to appropriate the required sum to the plaintiff’s demand, their authority had ceased, and that money, as well as that derived from other sources, was intended to be used in the support of the supplanting graded school with its greatly improved advantages for gratuitous education. This is certainly so, unless a different result is produced by the qualifying words following the transfer of the funds collected under the general law, “not applicable to contracts heretofore legally made.” Does this clause save the present contract and warrant its payment in the manner adopted ?

In our opinion the committeemen were disabled to engage a teacher or to pay one after the act of 1883 was passed, the evident purpose of which is to adopt the facilities for a better education, supplied by a graded school, which, with the means at the disposal of the trustees, it was hoped would be kept up for forty weeks in the year; ch. 220, sec. 4.

It could not have been intended to cripple the latter by a continuance of the former district school and the use of the funds in its support. All the resources for the maintenance of the substituted graded school were required, and hence the action of the committee in keeping in operation the other school was unauthorized.

Besides, this section simply means not that the funds shall remain in the defendant’s hands for disbursement in meeting pre-existing valid contracts, but that such contracts must be paid before the moneys can be used for the graded school. The transfer is subject to the incumbrance. Still it must pass into the hands of the new depository, and in his hands *9 is first applicable to the antecedent obligations incurred, and then to the use of the graded school. Hence, there was no breach of the defendant’s bond in refusing to recognize the authority of the committee to direct the payment whose functions had been wholly withdrawn.

If the plaintiff has any redress she has not pursued the proper course to obtain it, but should make her demand of the trustees, and we do not mean to intimate that her claim upon the fund is valid.

We therefore concur in the ruling of the Court that the plaintiff cannot recover, and in dismissing the action at the appellant’s costs.

No error. Affirmed.