proper subject of regulation by the city government, or of contract between the corporation and its lessees. People v. New York (1860) 32 Barb. 102.

"The corporation of the city of New York is a public corporation, and hence its charter is always subject to amendment or alteration." Section 17 of article I of the Constitution relating to royal charters "is not a restraint upon legislative power, but simply a declaration that the Constitution itself shall not annul such charters." It was therefore competent for the legislature, by the charter of 1873, to abolish the board of assistant aldermen, and to provide that after a specified date the board of aldermen should be the common council. Demarest v. New York (1878) 74 N. Y. 161.

In connection with the erection of the New York courthouse under the act of 1860, chap. 509, certain banks, insurance, and trust companies advanced large sums of money for municipal purposes, the appropriations having been exhausted. These moneys were advanced without authority of law, to meet an emergency, with the expectation that subsequent legislative action would ratify the advance. An act of the legislature (1872, chap. 9) authorizing the payment of such advances was sustained as a valid exercise of legislative power. New York v. Tenth Nat. Bank (1888) 111 N. Y. 446, 18 N. E. 618.

Discussing the method of appointing the commissioner of jurors in New York under the charter of 1873, Judge Andrews, in People ex rel. Taylor v. Dunlap (1876) 66 N. Y. 162, says: "It was competent for the legislature to make it a city or county office, and to vest the power of appointment in city or county authorities;" it could abolish the office or change its character from a county to a city office and provide for a different mode of appointment. In view of the fact that the city and county of New York were then conterminous, Judge Andrews further said there was "no incongruity in committing to the city government and to officers appointed by the city authorities control of the subject of selecting and returning jurors within the territory of the city and county, and certainly there is no defect of legislative power to provide that the jury system should be administered by city officers. It is for the legislature to distribute the powers of local government as between the city and county governments as it may deem best; and this discretion, when not restrained or excluded by some provision of the Constitution, is absolute."

The same principle was applied in Re Allison v. Welde (1902) 172 N. Y. 421, 65 N. E. 263, in which the court sustained the

act of 1901, chap. 602, providing for a commissioner of jurors in counties containing more than a million inhabitants, to be appointed by the justices of the appellate division of the supreme court of the department in which the county is located. The act practically applies only to the counties of New York and Kings, and the case involved the appointment of a commissioner in New York county.

The legislature had power to confer jurisdiction upon the municipal court of the city of New York in actions for the recovery of money only against nonresident natural persons having a place of business in the city. Routenberg v. Schweitzer (1900) 165 N. Y. 175, 58 N. E. 880.

In People ex rel. Pumpyansky v. Keating (1901) 62 App. Div. 348, 71 N. Y. Supp. 97, the court say they see no reason why the legislature may not authorize the use of a portion of a street under the stairway of an elevated railroad station as a news stand. It is a waste portion of the street. The city may thus derive a revenue from it, and it is not an unreasonable invasion of the public right.

Ordinances.-"An ordinance adopted by a municipal corporation, pursuant to authority expressly delegated by the legislature, has the same force within the corporate limits as a statute passed by the legislature itself. . . Where, however, the power to legislate is general or implied, and the manner of exercising it is not specified, there must be a reasonable use of such power or the ordinance may be declared invalid by the courts." Carthage v. Frederick (1890) 122 N. Y. 268, 10 L. R. A. 178, 19 Am. St. Rep. 490, 25 N. E. 480.

The legislature had power to authorize, by the general village law of 1870, chap. 291, a local ordinance requiring peddlers to take out a license; and such an ordinance was sustained in Ballston Spa v. Markham (1890) 58 Hun, 238, 11 N. Y. Supp. 826. See also Stamford v. Fisher (1893) 140 N. Y. 187, 35 N. E. 500, construing a similar ordinance adopted under the authority of the act of 1883, chap. 465.

Parks. The legislature has power to vest in a municipal corporation authority to provide for the protection of its parks and public places, but not to the extent of interfering with the use of private property by prohibiting the posting of any advertisements whatever upon fences inclosing private property fronting on or adjacent to such parks. People v. Green (1903) 85 App. Div. 400, 83 N. Y. Supp. 460.

Public health.-The legislature may authorize local boards of health to enact sanitary ordinances. Polinsky v. People (1875) 73 N. Y. 65; Cartwright v. Cohoes (1899) 39 App. Div. 69, 56 N. Y.

Supp. 731, affirmed in (1901) 165 N. Y. 631, 59 N. E. 1120; People v. Cipperly (1886) 101 N. Y. 634, 4 N. E. 107.

Regulating liability.—“The legislature has the power to determine the form in which the franchises and obligations of municipal government should be conferred upon a city," and may provide that the city shall not be liable in damages for any nonfeasance or misfeasance on the part of the common council or any officer of the city, of any duty imposed on them by the charter; but the remedy of the party shall be by mandatory proceedings against the city or by action against the officer. Gray v. Brooklyn (1869) 2 Abb. App. Dec. 267; Bieling v. Brooklyn (1890) 120 N. Y. 98, 24 N. E. 389.

Towns. A town is created by the legislature and is vested with certain powers relating to self-government, but subservient in all cases to the general government,- that is, the state. As against the town itself its boundaries may be changed at the pleasure of the legislature, or they may at any time be extended, or restricted, or the town itself destroyed by consolidating it with another town or municipality, and this without even the request or consent of any of the inhabitants. The objects and purposes of a town are to exercise and discharge duties of local self-government, and nothing else. It cannot expend money for any other purpose, and in this it is limited by the legislative will. Henderson v. New York (1901) 65 App. Div. 180, 72 N. Y. Supp. 609.

NAVIGABLE WATERS.

"The title to lands under tide waters in this country, which, before the Revolution, was vested in the King, became, upon the separation of the colonies, vested in the states within which they were situated. The people of the state, in their right of sovereignty, succeeded to the royal title, and through the legislature may exercise the same powers which, previous to the Revolution, could have been exercised by the King alone, or by him in conjunction with Parliament, subject only to those restrictions which have been imposed by the Constitution of the state and of the United States. . . . The public right in navigable waters was in no way affected or impaired by the change of title. The state, in place of the Crown, holds the title as trustee of a public trust; but the legislature may, as the representative of the people, grant the soil, or confer an exclusive privilege in tide waters, or authorize a use inconsistent with the public right, subject to the paramount control of Congress through laws passed in pursuance of the power to regulate commerce given by the

Federal Constitution." People v. New York & S. I. Ferry Co. (1877) 68 N. Y. 71; Kerr v. West Shore R. Co. (1891) 127 N. Y. 269, 27 N. E. 833; Saunders v. New York C. & H. R. R. Co. (1894) 144 N. Y. 75, 26 L. R. A. 378, 43 Am. St. Rep. 729, 38 N. E. 992.

The Albany basin is a public highway and is subject to legislative control. Hart v. Albany (1832) 3 Paige, 213.

The legislature has power to authorize the erection of a bridge over a navigable stream used by coasting vessels, provided such a bridge does not essentially injure the navigation of the waters which it crosses. People v. Rensselaer & S. R. Co. (1836) 15 Wend. 113, 30 Am. Dec. 33.

NUISANCE.

"It is a legal solecism to call that a public nuisance which is maintained by public authority. Even an act of a corporation, which would otherwise have been a nuisance, has been deemed lawful because authorized by its charter." Harris v. Thompson (1850) 9 Barb. 350, citing Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837) II Pet. 420, 9 L. ed. 773.

No length of time will legalize a nuisance. "As against the right of the legislature or the common council, under its authority, to make provision for preventing the filling up of the public water channels and harbors, the fact that an owner . . . has, for twenty years or more, done acts upon his own land the effect of which was to fill up such channels and harbors, is clearly no defense. The doing of such acts amounts to a public nuisance. The harbors are for the public use, and the obstructing and filling them up, it cannot be doubted, constitutes a common or public nuisance." Ogdensburg v. Lovejoy (1873) 2 Thomp. & C. 83, affirmed in (1874) 58 N. Y. 662.

The same principle was applied in construing a by-law prohibiting interments in certain parts of New York. It affected property which had been used for this purpose more than a century. Coates v. New York (1827) 7 Cow. 585.

A statute authorizing the erection of an elevated railroad is no defense to an action by an abutting owner against a company for damages caused by the erection and operation of the road. The legislature cannot thus injuriously affect a citizen's property rights. Abendroth v. Manhattan R. Co. (1890) 122 N. Y. 1, 11 L. R. A. 634, 19 Am. St. Rep. 461, 25 N. E. 496.

"It is a familiar law that the shores of navigable rivers and streams and the lands under the waters thereof belong to the state

within whose territorial limits they lie, and may be appropriated by the state to all municipal purposes. The state may authorize the construction of bridges, piers, wharves, or other obstructions in navigable waters, and when such structures are not obnoxious to the regulations of Congress, and do not come in conflict with the paramount authority of the United States, they are not nuisances." Kerr v. West Shore R. Co. (1891) 127 N. Y. 269, 27 N. E. 833.

The legislature has power to authorize the authorities of New York to prevent the pollution of the sources of the water supply for the city, and abate and remove the cause of any such pollution. Kelley v. New York (1895) 89 Hun, 246, 35 N. Y. Supp. 1109.

OBLIGATION OF CONTRACTS.

Albany basin.-The act of 1823, chap. III, authorizing the construction of the Albany basin, and which interfered with the use of certain docks which had been built on land granted by the state, did not violate the provision against impairing the obligation of contracts. Lansing v. Smith (1828) 8 Cow. 146.

Bankrupts.-A state bankrupt or insolvent law which authorizes a discharge on the petition of creditors, in force when a contract is made, does not, in the constitutional sense, impair the obligation of such a contract. The agreement of a contracting party is qualified by the law, and he must be deemed absolved from the contract from the happening of the event specified in the statute; and where, after his discharge under such a statute, an execution was afterwards issued against him on a judgment recovered on such a contract prior to such discharge, the execution was set aside. Mather v. Bush (1819) 16 Johns. 233, 8 Am. Dec. 313. But following Sturges v. Crowninshield (1819) 4 Wheat. 122, 4 L. ed. 529, which held the New York insolvent act of April 3, 1811, unconstitutional as impairing the obligation of contracts, a motion to set aside an execution on a judgment apparently affected by this act was denied. Roosevelt v. Cebra (1819) 17 Johns. 108.

In Kunzler v. Kohaus (1843) 5 Hill, 317, discussing the voluntary branch of the Federal bankrupt act of 1841, Judge Cowen says that the directly granted power over bankruptcies carries the incidental authority to modify the obligation of contracts, so far as the modification may result from a legitimate exercise of the delegated power. "No one will deny that Parliament may modify and discharge the obligation of contracts in exercising its powers over bankrupts and their creditors." The prohibition against such legislation by states VOL. IV. CONST. HIST.-17.