1. Any number of persons, not less than five, may form a company for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and operating a street railroad for public use in the conveyance of persons, mail and express parcels; and for that purpose may make and sign articles of association in which shall be stated the name of the company, the number of years the same is to continue, the city and county in which the road is to be constructed or maintained and operated, the amount of the capital stock, common and preferred, of the company, and the number of shares of which said capital stock shall consist, and the names and places of residence of the directors, not less than five nor more than thirteen in number, who shall manage its affairs for the first year and until others are chosen in their places. Each subscriber to such articles of association shall subscribe thereto his name, place of residence and the number of shares of stock he agrees to take in said company.

2. When one-half of the capital stock shall have been subscribed and ten percent paid thereon in good faith to the directors named in said articles of association, and an affidavit annexed thereto, made by at least three of the directors named therein, that one-half of the stock of the said proposed corporation has been in good faith subscribed, and ten percent of the amount so subscribed has been paid, and that it is intended in good faith to construct or maintain and operate the road mentioned in such articles of association, the said original articles of association shall be recorded in the office of the recorder of deeds of the county or city in which the corporation is to be located and then be filed in the office of the secretary of state, and thereupon the said association shall by the name mentioned in the said articles of association become a body politic and corporate with the powers, rights and franchises, herein specified; provided, the said articles of association shall not be filed and recorded until such association or corporation shall pay to the state director of revenue fifty dollars for the first fifty thousand dollars or less of the capital stock of the corporation, and a further sum of five dollars for every additional ten thousand dollars of the capital stock.