nances. have power to pass, alter, and repeal ordinances to take pass ordieffect within said city, for the following purposes: To manage, regulate, control, and protect the finances and property of the city, and for building, erecting, and maintaining a town-house, public market-house, workhouse, city prison, and such other buildings as may be necessary for the objects of this act. To establish, regulate, and control a day and night police, and to regulate and define the manner of their appointment and removal, their duties and compensation. To regulate the manner of building dwelling-houses and other buildings, and of constructing and placing engines, chimneys, ovens, flues, pipes, and all matters connected therewith, the manufacture and keeping of gunpowder, fire works and other dangerous and combustible articles; to limit the height and prevent in certain limits to be from time to time prescribed by ordinance, the erection of wooden buildings. To provide lamps for and to light the streets, wharves, docks, and public squares of the city. To make and lay out all streets, squares, and public grounds in said city, and to establish such as have already been laid out, for planting and protecting shade trees, and from time to time to regulate the same; to regulate and govern the levelling and constructing of said streets, and the raising and levelling of all lots of ground for buildings, as well public as private; to prevent and remove all encroachments, incumbrances, and nuisances in or upon said streets; to pave, McAdamize, gravel, or plank and gutter the streets, and to compel the occupiers and owners of lots to curb and flag the sidewalks opposite their lots, and to keep the same and the gutters swept and clean, and clear of snow and ice and other impediments; to prevent horses, cattle, swine, and geese from running at large in the streets, and to provide for the impounding and sale of the same, and the destruction of diseased quadrupeds; to prevent immoderate driving in the streets, and riding or driving over or upon the sidewalks; to regulate the speed and running of locomotive engines and railroad cars through said city; to construct and build sewers and drains in and from the public streets and squares and such alley or passage ways as may be dedicated for draining purposes; to regulate the building of vaults and the laying of water and gas pipes in or under the streets; to appoint a city surveyor and street commissioner, who shall, respectively, hold their offices, perform such duties, and receive such compensation as the common council shall, by ordinance, direct and award; and in every other respect to secure to the public and the adjoining owners the safe and convenient use of the streets. and sidewalks, squares, and public grounds, for the purposes for which they are or may be laid out and dedicated. To declare, by general law, what shall be considered nuisances in lots, streets, docks, and wharves, and to direct, provide for, and enforce their removal. To fix the salary, pay, or compensation of all officers, both elected and appointed, not herein otherwise provided for (except the councilmen), by general ordinance; and the salary of any officer, which has once been fixed, shall not be altered during the continuance of his term in office. To establish, regulate, and control a fire department, provide fire engines, apparatus, and houses therefor, and water for extinguishing fires. To regulate interments of the dead, and to prohibit such interments within certain limits, from time to time to be prescribed. To prevent or suppress fires and provide penalties for raising, maintaining, or aiding in false alarms of fires. To provide health laws, and establish a board of health, and to enact all such ordinances as they may deem necessary to protect the health of the city. To license, regulate, or prohibit inns or taverns, hawkers, peddlers, hucksters, butchers, slaughter-houses, markets, auctioneers, carmen, hack drivers, omnibus drivers, porters, circuses, menageries, and all other shows and exhibitions, on such terms, and under such regulations and penalties, as the common council shall, by ordinance, im pose; To prevent and suppress gaming houses, and to prohibit gaming in all public houses and places; to restrain and punish all mendicants, vagrants, street beggars, and common prostitutes. To suppress riots, disorderly and tumultuous assemblies, and to suppress vice and immorality. To prevent, by fines or imprisonments, all violations of any ordinance authorized by this act, and to provide all means which they may judge necessary to carry into effect the objects and powers provided for by this act; and no fine shall exceed fifty dollars, or imprisonment ten days. To restrain all dogs from running at large, and to authorize their destruction. council may ney. 18. And be it enacted, That it shall be lawful for the said Common common council to borrow money, from time to time, for borrow moall purposes for which, by this act, they are authorized to raise money by tax, and to secure the payment thereof by bond or other instrument, under the common seal of the city and signature of the mayor, or acting mayor, and to provide by tax for the payment thereof; provided always, Proviso. that there shall not be a greater sum than three thousand dollars raised by loan in any one year, and that the said city shall not owe more than five thousand dollars at any one time; and for any amount of indebtedness exceeding said sum of five thousand dollars, the common council, under whose authority the excess shall have accrued, shall be, individually and collectively, responsible, recoverable before any court of proper jurisdiction, for the use of the city, except those who may enter their protest upon the record of their proceedings against such increase. 19. And be it enacted, That the said common council shall, at their first annual meeting, and at every regular annual meeting thereafter, appoint two special police justices from among the electors resident in said city, one for the first Appoint ment of po lice justices. Proviso. Proviso. Confinement of prisoners. and fourth wards, and one for the second and third wards, who shall hold their offices for one year, and shall be at the time of their election, and continue during the term of their office, residents of one of the wards for which they shall be appointed, and shall severally have jurisdiction within the limits of the wards for which they shall be appointed to hear, try and determine all causes and complaints arising from the violation of any city ordinance, and shall have power, on oath, affirmation, or affidavit made according to law, that any person or persons has or have violated any of the ordinances of the city, to issue a process, either in the nature of a summons or of a warrant, as to him may seem most advisable, against the person or persons so violating such ordinance, which process shall, when in the nature of a warrant, be returnable forthwith, and when in the nature of a summons be returnable in five days; such process shall state what ordinance the defendant or defendants, named therein, has or have violated, and in what manner and the time when the same has been violated; on the return of such process, or at the time to which the same shall be adjourned, the police justice who shall have issued said process, shall proceed to hear testimony and to determine and give judgment in the matter, without the filing of any pleadings, and, if judgment shall be rendered for the plaintiff, forthwith issue execution against the goods, and chattels, and person of the defendant or defendants; provided, that in all cases where the fine or penalty shall exceed twenty dollars, or where the punishment may be imprisonment, there may be a trial by jury to be conducted as in cases now triable by jury in the courts for trials of small causes; there may be also an appeal from judgments rendered for fines or penalties only, as in cases where ap peal may be now had from judgments in courts for the trial of small causes; and provided also, that in all cases an appeal may be made to the common council for a remission of any fine or penalty that may be inflicted or adjudged. 20. And be it enacted, That the jail of the county of Middlesex be, and it is hereby constituted, a jail for the con finement of all prisoners of or from the said city of Rahway, until a city jail or prison shall be provided in said city; and all officers of said city, by this act empowered to commit offenders to prison, and all officers having the lawful custody of any prisoner within said city, are hereby authorized to commit, carry, and confine such offenders and persons to and in the said jail of the county of Middlesex; and the keeper of the said jail is hereby required to receive and safely keep every such offender and prisoner so delivered to him in the same manner and under the same penalties as he is or may be required to keep and provide for the prisoners of the county of Middlesex, until such prisoner or offender shall be demanded by the proper officer or officers of the said city of Rahway, or by some other due or legal authority; and said keeper shall be entitled to receive from the common council of the said city such fee and compensation for the support of the prisoners and offenders of said city as are or shall be allowed by the board of chosen freeholders of the county of Middlesex in cases of a similar nature. deliver over ty to succes 21. And be it enacted, That if any person, having been officers to an officer of the said city, shall not, within ten days after city properhe shall have vacated or been removed from the office, and sor. upon notification and request by the city clerk, deliver over to his successor in office all the property, books, and papers belonging to the city, or appertaining to such office in his possession or under his control, he shall forfeit and pay to the city the sum of five hundred dollars, to be sued for and recovered with costs. 22. And be it enacted, That all fines inflicted by ordinances Fines to be shall, when received, be paid into the city treasury. paid into city treasury. to be signed and publish 23. And be it enacted, That every ordinance of the com- Ordinances mon council shall, before it takes effect, be signed by the by mayor mayor, whose duty it shall be to sign the same when pre- ed. sented to him, duly certified by the clerk; and every such ordinance shall be published for the space of one week in at least one newspaper, published or circulated in said city, before said ordinance shall go into effect; provided always, Proviso. |