338 LAWS OF MARYLAND.

said Appeal Tax Court, under seal of said City, shall be evidence
in any Court in this State, and the Judge of said Baltimore City
Court shall have full power, in his discretion, to require the cost
of any appeal or any part thereof, to be paid by all or any
of the appellants, or by the City, as the circumstances of
each appeal, in his opinion, shall justify. In no case shall
any such appeal stay or suspend the power or duty of the
City to levy or collect taxes upon the property involved in
said appeal, but such levy and collection shall proceed in
all respects as if no appeal had been taken. If a final judgment
shall not be given in time to enable the assessors or other
officers to make a new or correct statement for the use of the
proper authorities in levying taxes, and if it shall appear from
such judgment that said assessment was illegal, erroneous or
unequal, then there shall be audited, allowed and paid to the
petitioner by the Comptroller the amount, with interest there-
on from the date of the payment, in excess of what the tax
should have been, as determined by said judgment or order of
the Baltimore City Court. And if on the appeal by the City
the Baltimore City Court should decide that the valuation and
assessment was erroneous and less than what it should have
been, or that the property should be assessed, the Baltimore
City Court shall ascertain and fix the valuation and assessment
of said property, then the Comptroller shall audit and charge
the respondent or respondents with the difference in said valua-
tion and assessment as fixed by the Baltimore City Court and
that fixed by the Appeal Tax Court, which amount of differ-
ence shall be a lien on the property involved in the proceed-
ings. An appeal may be taken to the Court of Appeals by
either the petitioner or petitioners or the City within ten days
after the rendition of said judgment or order by the Baltimore
City Court, and the record shall be immediately transmitted to
the Court of Appeals, which Court shall immediately hear and
determine the questions involved in said appeal.

171. In the year eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and
in all succeeding years thereafter, the valuation of the property
subject to taxation in the City of Baltimore, as it shall appear
upon the assessment books of said Court on the first day
of October in each and every year, shall be final and con-