It was held that the legislature may create a tribunal to determine, at least in a quasi judicial manner, the desirability of enlarging boundaries by annexation, and to order such annexation if deemed desirable."

TERRITORIAL LIMITS OF POWERS OF MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.

SECTION 57. It may be stated as a general rule that a municipal corporation cannot exercise its corporate powers beyond the city limits; in other words, it cannot give is ordinances an extra territo ial effect, except so far as it may be clearly authorized so to do by the legislature.

However, the legislature may, and often does grant to municipal corporations the right to exercise certain powers beyond their corporate limits.

In the case of Chicago Packing, etc. vs. City of Chicago, 88 Ill., 221, the court said: "There can be no doubt that the General Assembly may, for police purposes, prescribe the limits of municipal bodies. It may enlarge or contract them at pleasure, and may define the limits within which their general powers may be exercised, and extend or limit the boundaries in which special powers may be performed." The court said further in justifying the power granted to municipal bodies to pass ordinances to prevent nuisances, to operate beyond their boundaries: "Whilst it is extremely difficult, in large and crowded cities, with their various commercial, manufacturing and other pursuits clashing each with the other, to so adjust the laws as to alike protect every right and interest, all must, to some extent, have his rights restricted for the benefit of all its people.

"What in an open or thinly settled country would

• Powers vs. Comms. of Wood Co., 8 Ohio St., 286.

be innoxious as a business, would in the heart of a city be a terrible nuisance, producing death, destroying property, and highly injurious to health and destructive to comfort. Persons, then, desiring to engage in particular avocations in or near to cities, must submit to have their pursuits limited and controlled, at least as far as the preservation of health, and to a reasonable extent the comfort, of the people may require, nor can the inhabitants of a city expect to be free from the tainted atmosphere produced by a thousand causes that do not exist in the country or in places less densely populated.

"Whilst trade, manufactures and commerce have large claims on the law for protection, theirs are not the only, nor are they the highest, claims. The lives, the health and the comfort of the people are the highest, and demand the first and greatest protection."

WATER BOUNDARIES.

SECTION 58. Where municipal corporations are situated upon a river or other stream, their jurisdiction, as a rule, extends to the center thereof, providing the charter or act of incorporation does not restrict such jurisdiction to the edge or margin of such river or stream.

It is held that where two towns are situated on opposite sides of a river and both are bounded by the river, the line between them is the center of the river measured from bank to bank."

• Boscawen vs. Canterbury, 23

N. H., 188; State vs. Canterbury, 28 N. H., 195; "An act extending the limits of a town over adjacent navigable waters does not thereby grant the land covered by the water to the town, but merely confers civil and criminal jurisdiction thereover." Palmer vs. Hicks, 6

Johns (N. Y.), 133. In Connecticut, the jurisdiction of each town bordering on the Connecticut river, for the service of process and the enforcement of the laws, extends by ancient and invariable usage to the center of the river; Pratt vs. State, 5 Conn., 388. Hayden vs. Noyes, 5 Conn.,391.

ANNEXATION AND CONSOLIDAITON.

SECTION 59. It is familiar law that the legislature, in the absence of constitutional restrictions, may not only fix the boundaries of municipal corporations when incorporated, but enlarge or diminish the same at its pleasure as the public convenience and interests seem to require; and this power may be exercised with or without the consent of the inhabitants of the territory affected, although modern legislation favors the submission of the question of the extension or reduction of municipal boundaries to a vote of the inhabitants of the territory to be affected thereby.

The legislature may and frequently does place the matter in the hands of the municipality affected or some appropriate board."

Where the legislature, by direct legislation, exercises its powers to enlarge or diminish municipal boundaries, it may annex any lands which it deems proper to be included within the limits of the municipality, but where the legislature delegates its powers, it is usually restricted to contiguous and adjoining lands.®

Where two municipal corporations are consolidated, or where a new corporation is created out of an old, the legislature usually provides for an equitable adjustment.'

'Blanchard vs. Bissell, 11 Ohio

6

St., 960. It is competent for the legislature to provide that the authority of a city shall not be extended over territory newly annexed thereto but upon the expressed consent of the people. Morford vs. Unger, 8 Iowa, 82; Graham vs. Greenville, 67 Tex., 62.

Delphi vs. Startzman, 104 Ind., 343.

Graham vs. Springfield, 21 Me.,

61: "Where a municipality is dissolved and its territory is divided and annexed to two others by a legislative act, unless the legislature regulate the rights and duties of the two latter corporations, they succeed to all the property and immunities of the extinguished municipality, and become liable for all the debts previously contracted by it, and are vested with the power to raise revenue

LOCAL SUBDIVISIONS OF MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.

SECTION 60. For the purpose of convenience in local government, the legislature may divide the municipality into wards, and this power is usually delegated to the common council, and in the division the principle of equality of representation must be observed as far as practicable.

wherewith to pay them by levying taxes upon the property transferred and the persons residing within the annexed territory." Town of Mt.

Pleasant vs. Beckwith, 100 U. S., 514; See Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, Vol. 15, page 1016, and cases cited.

CHAPTER VII.

CORPORATE PROPERTY.

SECTION 61. In considering the powers of municipal corporations respecting the acquisition and holding of property, a rather brief reference to their capacity, in this particular, in the earlier times might not be wholly unprofitable or uninteresting.

"The Roman jurisprudence seems originally to have denied to cities a capacity to inherit, or even to take by donation or legacy. They were treated as composed of uncertain persons, who could not perform the acts of volition and personality involved in the acceptance of a succession. The disability was removed by the Emperor Adrian in regard to donations and legacies, and soon legacies ad ornatum civitatis and ad honorem civitatis became frequent. Legacies for the relief of the poor, aged, and helpless, and for the education of children, were ranked of the latter class. This capacity was enlarged by the Christian Emperors, and after the time of Justinian there was no impediment. Donations for charitable uses were then favored; and this favorable legislation was diffused over Europe by the canon law, so that it became the common law of Christendom."

This law, however, encountered subsequently some modification in Europe, due to the acrimonious strife between the clergy and the temporal authority; but those changes were never introduced into our systems of jurisprudence and, therefore, a municipal corporation in this country possesses, as a rule, the ' McDonough Will Case, 15 How. (U. S.), 367.