170 CONSTITUTION OF MARYLAND. [ART. XT

Sec. 9. The General Assembly may make such changes in
this Article, except in Section 7th thereof, as it may deem
best; and this Article shall not be so construed or taken as to
make the political corporation of Baltimore independent of, or
free from the control which the General Assembly of Maryland,
has over all such Corporations in this State
Pumphrey v. Mayor, etc., 47 Md 145.

Amendments to this Article by the new Charter of Baltimore City.
In pursuance of the power conferred by Section 9, the
General Assembly by the Act of 1898, Chapter 123, commonly
called the New Charter of Baltimore City, changed the tenure,
qualifications and time of election of the Mayor and members
of the City Council, as follows, viz:

MAYOR.
1898, ch. 123.

16. The inhabitants of the City of Baltimore qualified to
vote for members of the House of Delegates shall, on the
Tuesday next after the first Monday in May, eighteen hundred
and ninety-nine, and on the same day and month in every
fourth year thereafter, elect by ballot a person of known
integrity, experience and sound judgment, over twenty-five
years of age, a citizen of the United States, and five years a
resident of said City next preceding the election, and assessed
with property in said City to the amount of two thousand dol-
lars, and who has paid taxes thereon for two years preceding
his election, to be Mayor of the City of Baltimore; but the
Mayor chosen at the first election under this section shall not
enter upon the discharge of the duties of the office until the
expiration of the term for which the present Mayor was
elected; unless the said office of Mayor shall become vacant
by death, resignation, removal from the State or other disqual-
ification of the present Mayor.

LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT.

209. The Legislative Department of the Mayor and City
Council of Baltimore shall be vested in the City Council, which
shall consist of two Branches, one of which shall be the First
Branch and the other the Second Branch.

210. The First Branch shall consist of one member from
each ward of the City, who shall be a citizen of the United-
States, above the age of twenty-one years, a resident of the
City three years preceding his election, and for the same time