of the City of Ft. Payne, Alabama, a city which exceeded 2500 in population according to the 1950 Federal Decennial Census.
The petition was verified and the court entered an order requiring the clerk to issue the alternative writ. Appellants filed a motion to quash the writ, and the motion to quash was stricken on motion of the appellee. Then the appellants filed a plea in abatement challenging the appellee's authority to file the proceedings because it sought the recovery of real property, and asserting that the City of Ft. Payne was the proper authority to maintain said action, and on the further ground that the court was without authority to entertain the proceedings since the writ did not inform the appellants of the facts upon *760 which theWilliams, 231 Ala. 137, 163 So. 802. This cause is, therefore, *761 not within the terms of Tit. 52, § 161, Code of 1940.
Title 52, § 148, as amended, defines a "city," for educational purposes, as a municipality having a population of 2500 or more inhabitants according to certain censuses, including the Federal census. Ft. Payne's population exceeded 2500 in 1930 and, in 1950, was 6,226 inhabitants.
Title 52, § 158, Code 1940, provides:
"The city board of education is hereby vested with all the powers necessary or proper for the administration and management of the free public schools within such city and adjacent territory to the city which has been annexed as a part of the school district which includes a city having a city board of education."
The appellants