Opinion of the Court. The proceedings by which the boundaries of the drainage district in question were enlarged by the drainage commissioners were, at least in most of their important features, judicial in their character. The commissioners were required to ascertain and determine from evidence whether the requisite number of the adult owners of land in the district had signed the petition for the annexation of the adjoining lands, and whether the signers were the owners of the requisite proportion of the lands embraced within the district. They were also required to ascertain and determine from evidence whether the lands sought to be annexed to the district were involved in the same system of drainage and required for outlets the drains of the district. When these facts were determined judicially, and not till then, were the commissioners authorized by the statute to enter their order annexing said lands. From their decision no appeal was given, nor were any other means provided by the statute for reviewing their proceedings. In every point of view then the case comes within that class of cases where certiorari is an appropriate remedy. But as the appellants insist that a different rule has been announced by this court in various of its decisions, we will briefly consider the cases to which we are referred as sustaining that contention. Renwick v. Hall, 84 Ill. 162, Keigwin v. Drainage Commissioners, 115 id. 347, Evans v. Lewis, 121 id. 478, and Samuels v. Drainage Commissioners, 125 id. 536, were all cases in chancery, and it was held that there was no jurisdiction in a court of equity for the reason that there was a complete and adequate remedy at law, and that the legal existence of the several corporations involved in those cases could be determined by an information in the nature of a quo warranto. Trumbo v. The People, 75 Ill. 561, People ex rel. v. Newberry, 87 id. 41, Osborn v. The People, 103 id. 224, and Blake v. The People, 109 id. 504, were proceedings for the collection of either school taxes or special assessments, and the principle decided in those cases was, that the various school Opinion of the Court. districts and drainage districts in question in those several suits were at least corporations de facto, and that the legality of the organization of a corporation could not be attacked collaterally. Alderman v. School Directors, 91 Ill. 179, was trespass, and the plaintiffs were directors of a de facto district, and the same rule was there declared. In Hinze v. The People, 92 Ill. 406, it was held that quo warranto would lie against persons who assume to hold offices supposed to be created by a law claimed to be invalid by reason of being in contravention of the Constitution; and in People ex rel. v. Board of Education, 101 Ill. 308, it was held that quo warranto also lies against a corporation which undertakes to exercise powers which it does not possess. There is nothing decided in any of these cases which shows or tends to show the validity of either of the propositions insisted upon by the appellants in this case. All that is determined by those cases may be admitted, and yet non constat that the common law writ of certiorari does not lie in the present suit. No doubt some expressions were used in the opinions. in several of those cases from which it might be inferred that an information in the nature of a quo warranto was the only mode of testing the legality of the formation of an existing de facto corporation, but that question did not arise and was not decided in those cases. However, in the case of Lees v. Drainage Commissioners, 125 Ill. 47, it was expressly held that the common law writ of certiorari can not be resorted to for the purpose of determining whether a corporation has a legal existence, and that the validity of its organization can be questioned only by quo warranto. But there is this marked distinction between that case and this. There the corporate existence itself of a quasi municipal body was sought to be challenged by certiorari, while here such existence is fully admitted, and the only thing sought to be done is, to call in question the validity of an order of a municipal body admitted to be a corporation both de facto Opinion of the Court. and de jure, extending the boundaries of the drainage district. It seems eminently proper, and in consonance alike with the intention of the statute and the rules and analogies of the common law, that a proceeding, the object of which is to forfeit or destroy that corporate life which emanates solely from the sovereign power of the State, should be instituted by the attorney general or state's attorney of the proper county. It is said in section 788 of Angell & Ames on Corporations, citing in that behalf, Rex v. Pasmore, 3 Term Rep. 244, 245, and Regents of the University of Maryland v. Williams, 1 Gill & Johns. 365, that, "a quo warranto is necessary where there is a body corporate de facto, who take upon themselves to act as a body corporate, but from some defect in their constitution, can not legally exercise the powers they affect to use." It appears, however, from the same section, and from the authorities there cited, that where there is a legally existing corporation, capable of acting, which has been guilty of an abuse of power or of its franchises, then, not only will an information in the nature of a quo warranto lie, but scire facias as well. Nor do we perceive any good reason why a municipal body which has exceeded its jurisdiction and has proceeded illegally, may not, on sound legal principles, be proceeded against by quo warranto, by scire facias or by the common law writ of certiorari indifferently, as the one or the other may afford a proper and sufficient remedy. All of these several writs are direct remedies afforded by the law, and in respect to neither of them can it be said that it is a collateral attack upon the legal existence or organization of the corporation. As has been already suggested, this court has expressly held, in Miller et al. v. Trustees of Schools, 88 Ill. 26, that the common law writ of certiorari was an appropriate remedy to bring before the Circuit Court for review the proceedings of a board of trustees of schools consolidating two school districts into one; and that seems to be going quite as far, if not farther than is demanded by the requirements of the present case. Opinion of the Court. Various propositions are submitted by counsel bearing upon the question of the validity of the annexation proceedings, but as we are disposed to view the case, but one of them need be considered. The forty-second section of the Drainage Act of 1885 under which said proceedings were had, provides as follows: "Drainage commissioners may at any time enlarge the boundaries of their district, by attaching new areas of land which are involved in the same system of drainage, and require for outlets the drains of the district made or proposed to be made, as the case may be, on the petition of as great a proportion of the land owners of the district so enlarged as is required for an original district." Said section, in vesting the drainage commissioners with power to enlarge the boundaries of their districts, fails to prescribe the mode of procedure or the notice to be given to the owners of the land sought to be annexed. We can not for a moment entertain the view that it was the intention of the Legislature to leave these matters to the mere discretion of the commissioners, or that it was the legislative intent to vest the commissioners with power to annex to their districts adjoining lands, and thus subject such lands to the extraordinary burdens usually incident to the creation of a drainage system, without securing to the owners a right to notice and an opportunity to be heard. It is only in accordance with the plainest principles of natural justice that the land owners should have. a right to be heard upon the question whether a proper petition has been presented, and whether their lands are involved in the same system of drainage and require for outlets the drains of the district, and an intention to deny such right will not be imputed to the Legislature, at least so long as the terms of the statute are such as to admit of any other conclusion. In all matters pertaining to the original organization of drainage districts, whether of the class which lie entirely in a single town, or of those which include all or parts of two, three or more towns, in the same or different counties, careful Opinion of the Court. and elaborate provisions are made for notice to the owners of the lands sought to be included in the district, such notice varying according to the nature of the district and the class. to which it belongs. It is probable therefore that the Legislature deemed it unnecessary to repeat those several provisions in the section relating to the annexation of new territory to districts already organized, leaving it to the courts to import into that section, as a matter of construction, the rules as to notice applicable to the class of districts to which the one whose boundaries in each particular instance are sought to be enlarged properly belongs. So far as the land annexed is concerned, the annexation proceedings constitute its original organization into a district, and it is therefore in accordance with natural justice, but it is doing no violence to the language of the statute, to hold that the provisions applicable to notice in case of the original organization of special drainage districts lying, as does the one in question here, in three or more towns, in two different counties, should apply to proceedings to enlarge the boundaries of said district. It may be observed that this view is the one apparently taken by the drainage commissioners themselves in conducting the annexation proceedings, as there was a manifest attempt on their part to comply with the requirements of the statute as to notice. The provisions of the statute in relation to the organization. of special drainage districts embracing territory lying in three or more towns, whether in one or more counties, are to be found in section 50 of the Farm Drainage Act of 1885. That section requires notice to be given by posting up notices in at least five public places in each township in which the proposed district or any part of it shall lie, and also by publishing for three successive weeks a like notice in some newspaper in said. county or counties, such notice to contain a copy of the petition, and state the day and term of court when such petition and all persons will be heard. It also provides that "the posting and first publication of said notice shall be at least |