ury. But quasi-private rights and property are not thus subject to arbitrary disposal.

33. Franchises.-Public franchises held by a municipal corporation under legislative grant may be altered or revoked at the legislative will. All municipal franchises are subjects of legislative grant, and, whether granted to third persons or to the corporation itself, may be revoked before the grantee has performed the public service imposed as a condition of the grant. For example, the right to construct waterworks, gasworks, or electric plants, and to supply the city and its citizens with these public utilities necessary for an urban population in modern times, may be granted either to the municipality or to a private corporation organized for that purpose.

34. Municipal obligations-Vested rights.-The legislative power of the state over the contracts and obligations of municipalities is limited by the vested rights of third parties, and the prohibitions found in many of the state constitutions. Subject to these limitations, the state has control over the contracts and obligations of a municipality. Parties who have become creditors of a municipal corporation upon faith of the taxing power granted to it to meet its obligations may enforce the execution of this power by appropriate process. The taxing statute is thus held to be a part of the contract whose obligation cannot be impaired; but the mode of taxation may be altered if the change does not materially affect the creditors' security. So, too, certain property may be made exempt from, which was originally subject to, taxation. But where credit has been given

to a municipality upon the faith of a statutory provision that no further bonded indebtedness shall be contracted by the city, an injunction has been granted to restrain an increase of bonded indebtedness, upon the ground that it would impair the obligation of a contract. So, also, creditors may acquire a vested right in a sinking fund provided for their security, so as to authorize them to call upon the courts to prevent any material change in its character, or diversion of it to other uses.

35. Imposed obligations. Upon the elementary principle that duty imposes obligation, the legislature has authority to impose upon the corporation without its consent, and even against its protest, such obligations as will enable it to perform its public functions. A city may be compelled to pay a debt in excess of a legislative limit of indebtedness; to levy and collect taxes and appropriate them to the building and repair of highways, bridges, and canals; also to expend money for the improvement of docks, wharves, and levees; also to collect and appropriate money for the support of public schools of the city, and even to provide for the distribution of money raised by taxation for school purposes after its collection; also to compel the payment by a public corporation of a just debt not enforcible in law or equity; and in a leading case the Supreme Court of New York has carried this doctrine to the extent of sustaining a statute passed levying a tax upon the property of a corporation, and appropriating the same to the payment of a private demand against the town, which had been expressly rejected by the

voters of the town at an election held under legislative authority for that purpose, and intended as a settlement of the right. But it is equally well settled by repeated decisions that it rests with the inhabitants of a municipality to determine conclusively whether a debt shall be incurred for purely municipal purposes; and in the celebrated Detroit Park Case it was ruled that a public park was a matter of municipal concern, and that the levy of a tax for the purchase and improvement of such parks could not be enforced by the legislature without the consent of the municipality.10 But the people of Philadelphia were unwillingly compelled to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the erection of the city hall" upon a scale of magnificence better suited for the capital of an empire than the municipal buildings of a debt-burdened city, and well described as "surpassing in extent and grandeur the town halls and cathedrals of the Middle Ages."

36. Property.-Public property held by a municipality for the benefit of the general public may be controlled and administered by the state as supreme trustee for the public; but property which has been actually acquired by a municipal corporation in the course of administration, and held for the benefit of the municipality, is not subject to the absolute control of the legislature.

In Michigan, Judge Cooley says: "It is immaterial in what way the property was lawfully acquired,

9 Town of Guilford v. Cornell, 18 Barb. 615 (N. Y.)..

10 People v. Detroit, 28 Mich. 228.

11 Perkins v. Slack, 86 Pa. 270.

whether by labor in the ordinary vocations of life, by gift, or by descent, or by making profitable use of a franchise granted by the state; it is enough that it has become private property, and it is then protected by the law of the land." 12 It is hardly proper, in other states where home rule is not so highly favored, to speak of any municipal property as private property. It is, however, essentially trust property, the municipality being the trustee, and the people of the locality the cestuis que trustent of strictly municipal property. In New York, too, it was decided that certain real estate held by the city in fee simple absolute under ancient grant, upon which at great expense the city had constructed reservoirs, could not by any legislative action or proceeding be converted into a public park without compensation to the city.13

37. Public highways.-The legislature has general control over all streets, canals, rivers and bridges and other public thoroughfares, and may compel the municipality to make such expenditures thereon for their improvement as it deems best for the public welfare.

In Massachusetts it has been held that the legislature may charge the cost of an authorized public improvement upon the municipal corporation chiefly benefited thereby. In Maryland and some other states, so important is this duty to maintain streets and highways that it may be enforced by mandamus

12 City of Detroit v. Detroit & Howell Plank Road Co., 43 Mich. 140, 5 N. W. 275.

13 People v. Ingersoll, 56 N. Y. 1, 17 Am. Rep. 178, LEADING ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.

at the suit of a private person without showing special interest or injury. The power of the legislature over streets is so great that it may, so far as the public is concerned, determine to what use they may be put, even to the authorization of a nuisance in them. As a consequence of this, street railways are operated in every city of the country, some by horses and others by electricity.