of sewage may by subsequent statute validly require that it first gain the assent of the township in which the land is to be acquired. State v. South Orange, 55 N. J. L. 257, 26 Atl. 76. Again, it is competent for the legislature to grant to a railway company an easement in certain city streets, as it does not amount to a violation of the trust upon which the property in the streets is held. Portland, etc., Ry. Co. v. City, 14 Or. 193, 58 Am. Rep. 300, 12 Pac. 267; Clinton v. Cedar Rapids, etc., Ry. Co., 24 Iowa, 475. And see State v. Hampton, 2 N. H. 25, note. But it is otherwise if the legislature seek to grant away private lands of the municipality. New Orleans, etc., R. R. Co. v. New Orleans, 26 La. Ann. 478, 482; Town of Milwaukee v. City, 12 Wis. 105, 108. A general statute respecting straying cattle may validly supplant the provisions of municipal charters previously granted; and the official term of a public municipal officeholder may be shortened or the office abolished without violating any constitutional rights of an incumbent. Alexander v. McKenzie, 2 S. C. 91; Demarest v. Mayor, 74 N. Y. 166. See infra, p. 948; Marietta v. Fearing, 4 Ohio, 432. In another case a legislature had enacted that upon the fulfillment of a certain condition by the town of C., the county seat should be permanently located there, and it was held that it might subsequently decline to direct its removal from X., notwithstanding the fulfillment of the conditions. Newton v. Commissioners, 100 U. S. 557, 25 L. 710. A somewhat similar Arkansas statute providing for the payment of comcompensation to property owners in case of the removal of the county seat after four years, was afterwards repealed, and the repealing act sustained on this ground. Moses v. Kearney, 31 Ark. 266. And an Indiana enactment declaring that L. should forever be the permanent county seat of a certain county, subsequently encountered the same fate. Armstrong v. Board, 4 Blackf. 217. Similarly a legislature in providing for the creation of a bonded indebtednesss of a municipality may not add as a term of the contract that no subsequent similar indebtedness shall be authorized by a future legislature. Moore v. New Orleans, 32 La. Ann. 738. A law permitting any ten aggrieved voters in a school district. to appeal against the proposed location of a schoolhouse, may apply to cases where the site was, at the time of the passage of the law, already decided upon. Farnum's Petition, 51 N. H. 382. It is competent for a legislature to direct the transfer of the pubiic moneys from the general fund to the salary fund of the county. Esser v. Spaulding, 17 Nev. 304, 30 Pac. 899. And an act authorizing an issue of municipal bonds may subsequently be repealed. The leading case is cited upon this general proposition of legislative control over municipalities in holding mandamus applicable against a city council. State v. Wilmington City Council, 3 Harr. (Del.) 299.

Limitations upon legislative power over municipal corporations.-Legislative power over municipal corporations, however, has

its limitations. As was said by Mr. Justice Story in his concurring opinion in the Dartmouth College Case, after conceding the existence of legislative control over municipal corporations: "But it will hardly be contended, in respect to such corporations, that the legislative power is so transcendent that it may, at its will, take away the private property of the corporation or change the uses of its private funds acquired under the public faith. * If a municipal corporation be capable of holding devises and legacies to charitable uses, as many municipal corporations are, does the legislature, under our form of limited government, possess the authority to seize upon these funds, and appropriate them to other uses, at its own arbitrary pleasure against the will of the donors and the donees? From the very nature of our government the public faith is pledged the other way." 4 Wheat. 694. These observations were of course dicta, although the citations show that they have been considered sound law, and frequently followed and applied. New Orleans, etc., Ry. Co. v. New Orleans, 26 La. Ann. 521; State v. Foley, 30 Minn. 357, 15 N. W. 378; Town of Milwaukee v. City, 12 Wis. 105, 108; Wooster v. Plymouth, 62 N. H. 225; Grogan v. San Francisco, 18 Cal. 613; Trustees of Aberdeen, etc. v. Mayor, etc., of Aberdeen, 13 Smedes & M. 647; In re Malone's Estate, 21 S. C. 449; Town of Milwaukee v. City, 12 Wis. 101; Bailey v. Mayor, etc., of New York, 3 Hill, 539, 38 Am. Dec. 672; Galveston v. Tankersley, 39 Tex. 657; State v. Springfield Township, 6 Ind. 97. And see 35 Am. St. Rep. 533, note; People v. Hurlbut, 24 Mich. 104, 9 Am. Rep. 112. A discussion of the Dartmouth College Case, however, does not call for an exhaustive statement of the limitations upon legislative power over municipal corporations, and nothing will be attempted here save a brief consideration of the citations on this point for illustrative purposes.

The proposition that legislative power over municipal corporations does not extend to the divestiture of the private property of the municipality, or the taking of its private funds, is clear and unambiguous. The difficulty is in its application. A Louisiana case in which the legislature sought ineffectually to take certain lands belonging to the city of New Orleans, and give them to a railroad company, would seem free from embarrassment. New Orleans, etc., R. R. Co. v. New Orleans, 26 La. Ann. 482. As also a New Hampshire case annulling a statute which sought to take from a municipality certain bonds previously granted to it by the State, by way of recompense for men furnished during the civil war, Spaulding v. Andover, 54 N. H. 56; a Missouri case declaring invalid an attempt to take certain lands from the town of M. and vest them in the city of M., Town of Milwaukee v. City, 12 Wis. 101; and a Texas case where the legislature attempted to divest certain school lands which it had previously granted to a municipality. Galveston County v. Tankersley, 39 Tex. 657. The legislature or municipality may, however, in certain cases, change the use to

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which the proceeds of such a grant are to be devoted, provided the
municipality is still the beneficiary. Prince William School Board
v. Stuart, 80 Va. 80; Trustees, etc. v. Mayor, etc., of Aberdeen, 13
Smedes & M. 647; Mayor of Newark v. Stockton, 18 N. J. Eq. 186, 14
Atl. 635. It has been held that the legislature may not, by chang-
ing municipal boundaries, place the private property of one town
within the limits of another. Town of Milwaukee v. City, 12 Wis.
105, 108. A question of more difficulty is presented where the lands,
or other property, have been granted to the municipality whether
by congress or individuals, or the State itself in trust for educa-
tional or other charitable purposes. It would seem clear, on principle,
that the legislature would have no power to divert them from the
purposes of the trust, In re Malone's Estate, 21 S. C. 449; Montpelier
v. East Montpelier, 27 Vt. 710; S. C., 29 Vt. 20, 67 Am. Dec. 751;
Bd. of Educ. v. Bakewell, 122 Ill. 351, 10 N. E. 384; as by directing
that property which had escheated under existing law to a certain
municipality, to be held in trust for the benefit of an orphan
asylum, should be taken and placed in the general State funds. In
re Malone's Estate, 21 S. C. 449. And it has been further held that
while the general purpose to which a fund was to be devoted under
a proposed enactment, was to remain the same, yet that this may
not suffice to overcome objections based upon constitutional grounds,
if the identity of beneficiaries is even in a measure different. Thus
an Indiana statute sought to take certain lands granted to the
respective townships of the State by congress for educational pur-
poses, and devote them to the use of the school system of the State
at large; and the enactment was declared invalid. State v. Spring-
field Township, 6 Ind. 97. In Vermont it has been held that the
legislature, having granted certain school lands to M. township,
thereafter, in dividing the township, might not vest part of them in
the new township thus created. Montpelier v. East Montpelier, 27
Vt. 710. And it has even been held that the legislature might not
change the trusteeship of a school fund from one municipal board
to another. Trustees v. Bradbury, 11 Me. 122, 124, 125, 126, 26 Am.
Dec. 516, 518, 519, 520. In an early New York case it was held that
a municipal corporation was to be deemed, as respects its private
property quoad hoc, a private person, and liable for negligence in
the same way, and the leading case was cited as an authority in
point. Bailey v. Mayor, etc., of New York, 3 Hill, 539, 38 Am. Dec.
672. And see to same effect, Whitfield v. Carrollton, 50 Mo. App.
102.

Limitations upon the college doctrine continued The right of
eminent domain.- An important limitation upon the doctrine
of the leading case is the proposition that the property of
a corporation protected by an irrepealable charter may yet be taken
for public purposes by virtue of the right of eminent domain; al-
though this very manifest and essential qualification of the rule

was questioned in the Supreme Court of the United States in an early case. West River Bridge Co. v. Dix, 6 How. 541, 542, 543, 548, 12 L. 549, 550, 552. And see Opinion of Justices, 66 N. H. 637, 33 Atl. 1081.

Rule of strict construction.- The Dartmouth College doctrine is further limited by the rule of strict construction. It is necessarily difficult to state satisfactorily this very important limitation. Speaking broadly, the assertion may be hazarded that the niceties of construction are responsible for all of the restrictions with which the courts have hedged in the doctrine of the leading case; but this is manifestly too unwieldy a proposition to admit of treatment as a rule of law. Again, there are many cases citing Dartmouth College v. Woodward, in which the rule of strict construction has indubitably played a controlling part, which yet in no single word or sentence suggest this rule as inducing the conclusions reached. Notwithstanding this, however, there yet remains a very important line of cases following the Dartmouth College Case, in which the rule of strict construction does become a veritable rule of law, repeatedly asserted as such by the courts. These admit of particular consideration. The proposition which they lay down is that when grants of corporate rights, privileges or immunities are in derogation of public right, they are to be construed most strongly against the corporation, and in favor of the State. The principle was first announced by the Supreme Court, in the famous case of Charles River Bridge Co. v. Warren Bridge Co., 11 Pet. 582, 618, 645, 9 L. 832, 852, 863; S. C., 7 Pick. 446. See also St. Louis v. Gas Co., 5 Mo. App. 504; and see 26 Am. Rep. 293, note, and an early case holding contra, Piscataqua Bridge v. N. H. Bridge, 7 N. H. 68. This case held that notwithstanding a grant by the State of Massachusetts for the benefit of Harvard College, of a franchise to maintain a toll-bridge across the Charles river at Boston, the State might yet validly franchise a free bridge at the same point thereafter, and thus practically destroy the value of its first grant. It was strenuously argued that the very evident purpose of this grant was to assist in providing revenue for Harvard College, and, therefore, that one very manifest implied term thereof was that no other bridge should be constructed, and particularly no free bridge, at that point or so near it as to interfere with the earnings of the bridge first authorized. But the court declared that as this was not expressly stipulated in the franchise, it would not be read into it by the courts; that nothing passed by implication, and that the State was entirely free thus to destroy the pecuniary value of its first grant if it chose. This is an obvious and important limitation upon the contract theory; and the courts have, in numerous instances, invoked its aid in an effort to restrict the operation of the Dartmouth College doctrine. The note to that case, which will appear in a subsequent volume of this publication, will be found to show many

and varied applications of this principle. And while it has at times been pressed too far, Chenango Bridge v. Binghamton Bridge, 27 N. Y. 92, reversed, 3 Wall. 51, 18 L. 137; and at other times, perhaps, been disregarded, Citizens' St. Ry. Co. v. City Ry. Co., 56 Fed. 748; Micou v. Tallassee, etc., Co., 47 Ala. 656, its influence has beca undeniably important and salutary.

Relying upon this principle a Maine case held that the grant to a municipal water company of a right to take water from a certain reservoir would not prevent the grant of a similar right to a second. Rockland Water Co. v. Water Co., 80 Me. 561, 15 Atl. 787. And in New York it has been declared that a franchise granted to a municipal water company conferred no exclusive privileges so as to prevent the chartering of another such concern for the same purpose and in the same place. Matter of City of Brooklyn, 143 N. Y. 609, 611, 38 N. E. 986. The right to transfer notes by indorsement has also been held not to be an implied term of a bank's charter. Payne v. Baldwin, 3 Smedes & M. 674, 677.

Its application to charter exemptions from taxation. The rule of strict construction has been frequently applied in evading apparent charter exemptions from taxation. As has been said, a law depriving the State of its taxing power "must be so clear, explicit and determinate that there can be neither doubt nor controversy about its terms or the consideration which renders it binding." Washington University v. Rowse, 42 Mo. 323. A mere affirmative charter provision as to the amount of taxation which a corporation shall pay does not prohibit the subsequent exaction of more. Thus a railroad company's charter providing that it should pay onefourth of 1 per cent. tax, is not a charter stipulation that it shall never pay more than that. Delaware Railroad Tax, 18 Wall. 225, 21 L. 894. Even words that seem absolutely prohibitive have their limitations; and if the charter of a university provide that its lands shall be "forever" free from taxation, this does not mean that they shall be exempt in the hands of third persons. Armstrong v. Treasurer of Athens County, 10 Ohio, 239; affirmed, 16 Pet. 281, 10 L. 965. A charter exemption from the provision of a law reserving the right to alter and repeal, has been held inoperative as against an attempt on the part of the State to exercise its taxing power. Washington University v. Rouse, 42 Mo. 319. While another important line of cases, already considered, requires that exemptions from taxation when not granted contemporaneously with the corporate charter, to be valid as against subsequent legislation, must be supported by some valuable consideration; and that otherwise they are mere continuing gratuities. Grand Lodge v. New Orleans, 166 U. S. 146, 41 L. 952, 17 S. Ct. 524.

And in the regulation of railroad rates and fares.-There is an interesting line of railroad cases in which are construed various charter grants of a right to regulate freight and fares. These cases