250 "PUBLIC GRANTS TO BE STRICTLY CONSTRUED."

plated beyond those limits would be void), it seems proper, in respect to the act of New Jersey of the 17th of March, 1870, to apply the settled rule of construction adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States," that public grants are to be construed strictly;" that any ambiguity in the terms of this act must operate against the corporation claiming under the ambiguous words; and that such corporation can have nothing but what is clearly given by the act. This rule of construction was distinctly placed on the ground that the interests of the community were concerned in preserving undiminished the power in question. And the principle emphatically applies here, when the pretension is set up that, by a peculiar and artful modus operandi, power, unprecedented and dangerous, has been granted to a company incorporated by another State,-power which, if intended by the legislature of New Jersey, they might be expected to grant in a direct way, in an act incorporating that company, and giving the power in plain and explicit language. Upon a proper construction of the act of March 17, 1870, it must be held to give power to no companies except such as before that day had been already incorporated by the State of New Jersey. Such a construction-confining the power to companies incorporated by New Jersey-seems to me to be sound, and to render it unnecessary to inquire further, whether the Pennsylvania Railroad Company is, within the meaning of the act, "identified in interest," or whether, within its meaning, their works form with those of the "United Companies" mentioned in the act, " continuous or connected lines," or whether the arrangements are within the meaning of the act, "for connection or

THE U. S. CONSTITUTION DEMANDS IT.

251

This view is in accordance

consolidation of business." with the doctrine in New Jersey, in the case of The Camden and Amboy R. R. Co. vs. Briggs, 2 Zabriskie, 623; and it seems to render immaterial the minor point as to the operation of the proviso therein; for the leaning of the court always is so to construe an act, if it can, as to prevent its meaning being in conflict with the Constitution of the State, or the Constitution of the United States; and such conflict will be avoided by the view just taken as to the construction of the act cf 1870.

·CON. ROBINSON.

The Vineyard, near Washington City.

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