App.] and more. Ohio Val. Elec. Ry. Co. v. Hagerty, Aud. This extraordinary power, given so small a proportion of the voting public, it would seem, is not to be exercised by it except by a full and strict compliance with the statute from which that power is derived. It is a grant of a special right to the minority and can not be enlarged by construction. "Where a statute confers a new right, privilege or immunity the grant is strictly construed, and the mode prescribed for its acquisition, preservation, enforcement and enjoyment is mandatory." 2 Sutherland on Statutory Construction (2 ed.), 1142, Section 632. "Every provision of the Constitution as to initiative and referendum is mandatory, and requires that every safeguard against irregular and fraudulent exercise be carefully maintained. "A referendum petition must bear the affidavit of the circulating solicitor, who by implication must be an elector of the county in which he circulated the section [or part of a petition], and signatures must be excluded unless the affidavit affirmatively shows that he was such an elector." Thompson v. Vaughan, Secretary of State, 159 N. W. Rep., 65 (192 Mich., 512). The history of the statute justifies the view above suggested. The first act providing for a referendum in municipal legislation was passed in 1911, 102 Ohio Laws, 521. This act did not contain the restrictive features quoted above, and no reason is now apparent why the petition filed with the city auditor in this proceeding would not have been sufficient in form under the law of 1911. In 1913, Ohio Val. Elec. Ry. Co. v. Hagerty, Aud. [14 Ohio however, the general assembly saw fit to revise the whole statute providing for and regulating the municipal initiative and referendum. This was not required by the constitutional amendment of 1912, but was occasioned by it. Now an amendatory act is construed by a definite rule. It is presumed that when the general assembly deliberately alters an existing statutory provision it thereby expressly declares that a different rule of action is to prevail. In this case it found that the then existing law did not compel those seeking a referendum to file an affidavit showing that those signing the petition did so with knowledge of its contents. The general assembly, seeking to protect the public from the filing of ill-considered petitions, after two years experience, inserted this provision. And we are bound to assume that it did so with the intention of having this and all the other newly prescribed conditions complied with before the legislative powers of the city could be suspended. "The presumption is, that every amendment of a statute is made to effect some purpose." Lytle v. Baldinger, 84 Ohio St., 1, 8. "The old law should be considered, the evils arising under it, and the remedy provided by the amendment, and that construction of the amended act should be adopted which will best repress the evils and advance the remedy. * * * It will be presumed that the legislature, in adopting the amendment, intended to make some change in the existing law, and therefore the courts will endeavor to give some effect to the amendment." 36 Cyc., App.] Ohio Val. Elec. Ry. Co. v. Hagerty, Aud. Section 1f, Article II of the Constitution, provides that the powers of the initiative and referendum reserved to a municipality shall be exercised in the manner provided by law. "By law" means by statute law, in this and the accompanying sections of the constitution. The referendum in question is, therefore, not governed by the constitutional provisions to which we have been cited, but by the statute above referred to. The constitutional provisions are, however, of significance. The amended act for a municipal referendum was passed after the constitutional amendment providing for a referendum of state legislation was adopted. It was deemed undesirable in adopting the constitutional provision that state legislation should be suspended and a referendum had by securing the casual signatures of voters unacquainted with the purport and possible effect of the proposed referendum. This was deemed so important that it was not left to mere statute, nor was it left to be determined by the courts upon extrinsic evidence that the voters were correctly advised of the object of the proposed referendum. It was written in the constitution itself that one of the conditions precedent to an election was that there be attached to the petition an affidavit stating, inter alia, the belief of the affiant that each signing elector so "signed said petition with knowledge of the contents thereof." (Section 1g, Article II, Constitution.) This provision, we think, has both by analogy and by direct pronouncement of the supreme court been determined to be mandatory. In State, ex rel. Gongwer, v. Graves, Secretary of State, 90 Ohio St., 311, the supreme court was Ohio Val. Elec. Ry. Co. v. Hagerty, Aud. [14 Ohio considering the section of the constitution above referred to. A petition had been filed containing some genuine and some fraudulent signatures. The affidavit was regular in form. A liberal construction of the provision would have required that the undoubtedly genuine signatures be given consideration. The court did not, however, take that view, but said that the efficiency of the petition depended upon the affidavit containing certain specified things, among them being a statement that the signers of the petition had knowledge of its contents. The court said at page 322: "These petitions and each separate part thereof depend for their efficiency and their validity upon the affidavit of the circulator that each of the signatures attached to such part was made in the presence of affiant; that to the best of his knowledge and belief it is the signature of the person it purports to be; that he believes the person who signed it to be an elector; that he signed the petition with knowledge of the contents thereof; that each signer signed the same on the date set opposite his name." Another of the terms of Section 1g, Article II of the Constitution, is that the names of signers to a petition for a state referendum shall be written in ink. We can not say that that provision is mandatory, and then say that the provision requiring the affidavit to show that the signers of the petition signed with knowledge of its contents is not mandatory. The two requirements are pari materia and evidently of equal dignity. Now how does the supreme court treat the requirement that on a statewide referendum the signatures shall be written in ink? We think the answer to that is found in App.] Ohio Val. Elec. Ry. Co. v. Hagerty, Aud. State, ex rel. Smith, v. Lloyd, 93 Ohio St., 20. In that case the charter of the city of Columbus required that "each signer to a petition shall sign his name in ink or indelible pencil." If a provision of that character in the charter of the city of Columbus was mandatory, such a provision in the Constitution of Ohio ought to be of an equally imperative nature. So it is interesting to observe that at page 21 of the opinion the supreme court said of this provision in the Columbus charter: "Such provision controls and that requirement must be regarded as mandatory, and therefore signatures not in compliance therewith need not be and should not be considered or counted in determining the sufficiency of a nominating petition." This case, of course, is not cited for the purpose of saying that the petition in the instant case should have been signed only in ink, but it is cited for the purpose of showing the significance given by the supreme court to provisions of the same character as that involved in the case at bar. When, therefore, in 1914, the general assembly, charged with the duty of safeguarding the municipal referendum, observed the restrictions on the exercise of the state-wide referendum placed in the constitution by the people themselves, it concluded to change the law governing the municipal referendum by placing similar provisions in the statute governing the same. It thereupon wrote some, but not all, of those safeguarding constitutional provisions into this statute, and among others so taken from the state constitution was the provision in question in this case. In our opinion there is no doubt that the effect intended, and the effect accom |