The local government of Illinois includes both county and township systems. The earliest American settlers came from the Southern States and naturally introduced the county system; but the increase of population from the New England and Middle States led to a recognition of township organization in the constitution of 1848, and this form of government, at first prevalent only in the northern counties, is now found in most of the middle and southern counties. Cook county, although it has a township system, is governed, like those counties in which townships are not found, by a Board of Commissioners, elected by the townships and the city of Chicago. A general law of 1872 provides for the organization of municipalities, only cities and villages being recognized, though there are still some "towns" which have failed to reorganize under the new law. City charters are granted only to such municipalities as have a population of at least 1000. Requirements for suffrage are age of 21 years or more, citizenship in the United States, and residence in the state for one year, in the county ninety days, and the election precinct thirty days preceding the exercise of suffrage. Women are permitted to vote for certain school officials and the trustees of the State University. Disfranchisement is brought about by conviction for bribery, felony or infamous crime, and an attempt to vote after such conviction is a felony. The relation of the state to corporations and industrial problems has been a subject of important legislation. The constitution declares that the state's rights of eminent domain shall never be so abridged as to prevent the legislature from taking the property and franchises of incorporated companies and subjecting them to the public necessity in a way similar to the treatment of individuals. In 1903 the legislature authorized the municipal ownership of public service corporations, and in 1905 the city of Chicago took steps to acquire ownership of its street railways--a movement which seemed to have spent its force in 1907, when the municipal ownership candidates were defeated in the city's elections--and in 1902 the right of that city to regulate the price of gas was recognized by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Railways organized or doing business in the state are required by the constitution to have a public office where books for public inspection are kept, showing the amount of stock, its owners, and the amount of the road's liabilities and assets. No railway company may now issue stock except for money, labour, or property actually received and applied to purposes for which the corporation was organized. In 1907 a law went into effect making two cents a mile a maximum railway fare. An anti-trust law of 1893 exempted from the definition of trust combinations those formed by producers of agricultural products and live stock, but the United States Supreme Court in 1902 declared the statute unconstitutional as class legislation.