Latest Important Cases

Municipal Corporations. Power to Grant Public Franchises—Ministerial Officers. Mass. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachu setts on May 27 held invalid an order passed by the Boston Board of Aldermen, granting the Metropolitan Home Telephone Company the right to build, equip, and operate a con duit system in Boston. The Court said the statutes of the state contemplated no such pre-emption of public ways as would enable a corporation to locate above and below all present and future streets in Boston. "The conception," said the Court, "of granting to any telephone or street railway company, or any other public service corporation at once, and in advance of its practical operation, the right to occupy all the streets of a munici pality is repulsive to our theory of local and state supervisions and regulation in detail of construction in public ways by such corpora tions. "The power is vested in selectmen and boards of aldermen, not as representatives of the cities and towns, but as independent boards of public offices, who act in a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity respecting the subject-matter. ' ' Municipal Corporations. GasRates— Power to Fix by Contract—"Reasonable Regula tions." Mich. A municipal corporation is held, in Boerth v. Detroit City Gas Co. 152 Mich. 654, 116 N. W. 628, 18 L.R.A.(N.S-) 1197, to have authority to fix by contract the rates which shall be paid by its inhabitants for gas fur nished by a public-supply corporation, under statutory authority to consent to the laying of the gas mains in its streets under such reasonable regulations as it may prescribe. See also Intoxicating Liquors, Sunday Observance, Unfair Trade, Women's Rights. Perjury. See Marriage and Divorce. Riparian Rights. Ownership in Foreshore Limited by Public Rights—Colonial Grants are Conditional. Mass. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in Home for Aged Women v. Commonwealth, decided June 1, held that the establishment by the state of a dam in connection with the improvements in the Charles River Basin was a lawful exercise of the power of the Legislature for the improvement of navigation and other purposes. Another case arising from the same improvements in Charles

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River was decided by the Court, at the same time, namely, Crocker v. Charles River Basin Commission. In rendering the latter decision the Court held that the extension of the boundaries of private ownership below high water mark, in the Colonial ordinance of 1647, did not take away from the state the right to make a change for the improvement of navigation which would deprive the ripa rian owner of access to the land below high water mark, but on the contrary, reserved that right. In the Colonial grant, "the rights of the public to have the benefit of the waters for navigation, fishing, and fowling were reserved." Citing Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53, 89-91, the Court referred to the doctrine embodied in the statutes of the United States as well as in Massachusetts law, and applied the rule enunciated by Mr. Justice Gray in Boston v. Richardson, when he said: "Even a title in flats granted from the Colony or Commonwealth is subject, so long as they have not been built upon, to the authority of the Legislature, for the protection of the harbors and of the public right of navigation, to prohibit the taking of sand or gravel from the shore or the erection of wharves beyond certain lines." Steamship Companies. Removal of Pas senger Supposed to have Trachoma— Burden of Proof on the Company. Mass. Defendant's exceptions were overruled by the full bench of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts May 25 in the suit of Mountford v. Cunard Steamship Co., Ltd. The plaintiff sued for damages for having been removed from the steamship Ivernia, on which she had secured passage from Liverpool to Boston, because the ship's surgeon held the opinion that she was suffering from trachoma. Judge Sanderson, in the lower court, ruled that the burden was on the com pany to show the justification which it had set up in defense to the suit. The Court holds that the ruling was correct, and the plaintiff was not obliged to show that she did not have the disease. Sunday Observance. Sunday-closing Law Invalid—Municipal Ordinance Abortive. N. Y. Supreme Court Justice Greenbaum on May 27 dismissed the suits brought by the city of New York against the Alhambra Theatre Company and Hurtig & Seamon, and held invalid the ordinance forbidding performances