STREET RAILWAYS-Transportation
of Letter Carriers - Constitutional
Law

.

155

171

261

St. 1897, c. 500, § 10, providing that the Boston
Elevated Railway Company may establish a
five-cent fare, and that such fare shall not be
reduced by the Legislature for a period of
twenty-five years, constitutes a contract be-
tween the Commonwealth and the company.
A bill, therefore, requiring all street railways
within the Commonwealth to furnish transpor-
tation to letter carriers on duty, upon pay-
ment to such companies by the United States
of a fixed annual allowance, would be unconsti-
tutional, if it reduced fares below five cents, in
so far as it related to the Boston Elevated Rail-
way Company, as a law impairing the obliga-

tion of contracts.

362

2.

473

532

Legislation authorizing street railway com-
panies to use their tracks in the public highway
as common carriers of goods, wares and mer-
chandise, imposes no new servitude upon the
owner of the fee of such highway, and is there-
fore constitutional.

112

58

Not representing Cost of Construction 155
See BOSTON, CAPE COD & NEW
YORK CANAL COMPANY.

way-Expense

See STATE HIGHWAY. 2.

420

420

See FOREIGN CORPORATION. 5.

See METROPOLITAN WATER AND
SEWERAGE BOARD. 2.

335

Salary

See SALARY.

SWAN POND RIVER — Regulations of
Fisheries in Construction of

Statute

-

32

52

532
St. 1895, c. 203, § 1, authorizing the selectmen
of the town of Dennis to prescribe the times,
places and manner of taking herring or ale-
wives, perch, salmon, eels and trout in Swan
Pond River, and certain tributaries thereof,
does not vest in the selectmen of Dennis any
power to make rules or regulations which are
inconsistent with the general statutes relating
to fisheries, whether or not such statutes were
enacted after the passage of St. 1895, c. 203.

TAX-Upon Boston Elevated Railway
Company, for Use of Locations-
Constitutional Law

See BOSTON ELEVATED RAILWAY
COMPANY.

Legacy Tax

See LEGACY TAX ACT.

TAXATION - Real Estate Trust - Valu-

-

426

373

402

ation of Corporate Franchise -
Deduction of Stock and Bonds
Shares of stock in a real estate trust, so called,
which represent the rights of the beneficiaries
in real estate, under a declaration of trust pro-
viding that no right, title or interest in such
real estate shall vest in the shareholders, are
personal property, and, as such, are not to be
deducted by the Commissioner of Corporations
in ascertaining (under the provisions of R. L.,
c. 14, § 38) the valuation of the corporate fran-
chise of a corporation owning such shares, for
the purpose of taxation.

With the bonds of such trust, however, which
are secured by real estate owned by the trustees,
it is otherwise, and the value of such bonds may
be deducted from the aggregate value of the
shares of the corporation in determining the
taxable value of the franchise.

2.

493
St. 1903, c. 437, § 75, imposing an excise tax
upon foreign corporations admitted to transact
business within this Commonwealth under the
provisions of section 58 of such statute, is not
applicable to an express company organized
under the laws of a foreign State and receiving
no goods in Massachusetts for delivery within
the Commonwealth, the business transacted by
such company being interstate commerce, and
as such exempt under the Constitution of the
United States, Article I, § 8, from State regu-
lation and control.

Under the provisions of St. 1903, c. 437, §§ 72,
74, in part relating to deductions from the value
as ascertained by the Tax Commissioner of the
corporate franchise of a corporation liable there-
under to an excise tax upon such franchise, de-
posits in savings banks within the Common-
wealth and certificates of interest in voluntary
associations and trusts, as well as notes receiv-
able, are to be deemed "securities" within the
meaning of section 72, and are to be deducted
from the value of such corporate franchise.

The phrase "machinery and merchandise,"
as used in St. 1903, c. 437, §§ 72, 74, includes
boats, steamboats, vessels, carts, wagons, horses,
furniture and fixtures which are not part of the
real estate, owned by a domestic corporation.
5.

Corporation - Tax on Corporate
Franchise Assessment-.
-Appeal
- City or Town Party aggrieved 628
Under R. L., c. 14, § 65, establishing a Board
of Appeal from the decision of the Tax Com-
missioner in the assessment of taxes upon cor-
porate franchises, and providing that "any
party aggrieved" by a decision of such com-
missioner, as therein specified, may, within ten
days after notice of his decision, appeal to such
Board, a city or town has no such interest in
the assessment of the tax in question as to
constitute it a party aggrieved" within the
meaning of the statute above cited.

TELEPHONE AND ELECTRIC

LIGHT COMPANIES- Con-

tinued.

ring to ways laid out under the provisions of
R. L., c. 48, § 65, such way is in fact a public
way; and the Legislature may authorize the
grant of locations for poles and wires upon or
along private ways, without provision for com-
pensation for damages occasioned thereby.

If, on the other hand, the term is used as
referring to ways or lands held by private indi-
viduals, a statute assuming to authorize the
location of poles and wires thereon, without
provision for the recovery of damages by the
owners, is unconstitutional.

40

MISSION - Boundary Lines
The Topographical Survey Commission have
no authority, under Res. 1897, c. 88, to change
any portion of the boundary line between
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as fixed by
a decree of the Supreme Court of the United
States, in compliance with the wishes of cer-
tain adjacent inhabitants, who supposed they
lived in Rhode Island, but who find upon the
marking of the line that they live in Mas-
sachusetts.

Quære: Whether Rhode Island, by exercising
jurisdiction over a portion of Massachusetts
territory since the decree, and in face of the
injunction therein, could gain any prescriptive
right of jurisdiction over such territory.

TOWNS- Public Library - Support

316

A library, situated in a town, to which the
inhabitants thereof have free access, and of
which they have the use, although it is not

TREE WARDENS - Authority of . 191
St. 1899, c. 330, a codification of the laws rel-
ative to the preservation of shade trees, which
makes it obligatory upon towns to elect a tree
warden, supersedes the authority over such
trees conferred by earlier statutes upon select-
men or other town officers.

Since chapter 330 defines public shade trees
as "all shade trees within the limits of any
public way," it has the effect to relieve the
Board of Agriculture from the obligation, im-
posed by St. 1890, c. 196, to supply M spikes to
towns for the purpose of designating such shade
trees as are to be considered public shade trees.

Duty as to Public Shade Trees - Au-
thority of Massachusetts Highway
Commission

See PUBLIC SHADE TREES.

TRUST COMPANY-Loan to Single

Individual

244

190

Under St. 1888, c. 413, § 17, a trust company
may not loan to one individual, whether a per-
son, firm or corporation, more than twenty per
cent. of the capital stock of the company, even
though a portion or the whole of the indebted-
ness is secured by pledge of marketable collat-

eral.

3.

Bounties

-

Constitutional Law

584
House Bill, No. 992 entitled "An Act to au-
thorize the payment of money to certain vet-
erans of the civil war," providing in section 1
that the persons therein specified shall receive
from the treasury of the Commonwealth the
sum of $125, "as a testimonial of the sense
that the Commonwealth entertains of his pa-
triotism and faithful service," in effect requires
the payment from the public treasury of a sum
of money in the nature of bounty to such veter-
ans of the war of the rebellion as have never
received bounties, and cannot in principle be
distinguished from St. 1904, c. 458. The pro-
posed act is therefore unconstitutional.

2.

ASSOCIATION, UN-

INCORPORATED - Returns to
Gas and Electric Light Commis-
sioners

See GAS COMPANY. 1.

WACHUSETT MOUNTAIN STATE
RESERVATION-Specific Ap-
propriation Unexpended Bal-

ance

513

8

383

The purpose of the appropriation under St.
1901, c. 496, was expressly limited to the ac-
quisition of land and the construction and
repair of the roadway on the Wachusett Moun-
tain State reservation, and an unexpended bal-
ance remaining therefrom may not be expended
for the erection of a house for the use of the
superintendent of such reservation.

-

WARRANT Fees for Service
See COUNTY ACCOUNTS. 1.

20

Article in Town - Union of Towns to
employ Superintendent of Schools 78
See SCHOOLS. 2.

For Payment of Money from Treas-
ury of Commonwealth -Delega-
tion by Executive Council of
Authority to approve

See EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.

WATER SUPPLY - Rules and Regula-
tions for protecting Sources of
Water Supply - Publication ·
Expense

-

See STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 2.

Danvers Insane Hospital - Contract
with Town of Danvers - New
Buildings

See DANVERS INSANE HOSPITAL.'
Great Ponds - Rules and Regulations
of State Board of Health - Duty
of Commissioners on Fisheries and
Game to stock with Food Fish
See GREAT PONDS. 5.

597

357

463

552