EMERSON C. HARRINGTON, GOVERNOR. 587

skilled and unskilled, and also such advisers and consultants as
it may deem requisite for the performance and execution of the
powers and duties imposed and conferred by law, and shall
fix their respective compensations, but such employment, except
as the secretary of said Commission, shall be subject to all the
laws with respect to the Board of Examiners for the State
Roads Commission, and the rules adopted by that Board. Said
Commissioners shall have power to exact from any person em-
ployed by it such indemnity bond for the faithful perform-
ance of duty as the Commission may deem proper, and said
commissioners may remove any of said persons from their
positions, but only in the manner hereinafter provided. And
said Commission may also rent or lease all proper and neces-
sary offices and other places which it may deem proper and
necessary for the performance of its duties and the purposes of
law. The said Commission shall keep a journal in which shall
be entered all its proceedings in detail, the correctness of the
same to be attested at each succeeding meeting by the Presi-
dent and Secretary of the Commission. Said Commission
shall also keep books showing in detail all expenditures of
money in every County of the State in connection with the
establishment, improvement or maintenance of roads, and in
connection with all work whatsoever of the Commission, which
books and records shall be open to the inspection of any tax-
payer of the State, at any time. No member of said Commis-
sion shall become pecuniarily interested in any contract for
work done or materials provided in connection with any of
the work of said Commission. The Commission shall at the
time of its organization, as aforesaid, and thereafter from
time to time, adopt such by-laws and rules of procedure for the
conduct of its business as it may deem necessary. It shall an-
nually compile and publish maps and statistics relating to the
public roads of the State and showing the progress and status
of the work done or entered upon by it and separately for the
several counties. All maps, plans and statistics made, col-
lected and compiled under its discretion shall be preserved in
its office and shall be open to the inspection of any taxpayer
of the State. All bills or claims on account of any of the work
of the said Commission or in any way relating to its duties or
transactions shall be passed upon by the Commission at a meet-
ing of its members, and no claim involving the expenditure of
more than fifty dollars, and no contract involving a larger ex-
penditure than fifty dollars, shall be allowed or made except