or alleged informalities or defects in the contract for the sole purpose of avoiding the payment for light used by it. The courts have held in some cases that granting the invalidity of the contract there will still exist an implied contract on the part of the public corporation to pay a reasonable price for whatever commodity it may have used.1234 § 477. Public wharves and ferries. Because of the geographical location of certain public corporations, it may be either convenient or necessary for them to acquire and control both public wharves and ferries. These properties, it has been held, can be acquired by them either by virtue of their proprietary or business powers, or because of the necessity for a public control of these facilities.1235 A public wharf has 592, 8 L. R. A. 487; Bullmaster v. City of St. Joseph, 70 Mo. App. 60. See authorities cited in § 556; also authorities cited and a discussion of the subject in section 131 of Tiedeman, State & Fed. Control of Persons & Prop. (2d Ed.) On National, State and Municipal Monopolies. 1234 Brush Elec. Light & Power Co. v. City Council of Montgomery, 114 Ala. 433, 21 So. 960. "The contract obliged the plaintiff to furnish and maintain and the defendant to pay for 100 lights only, without regard to the purposes for which they were used,-whether for lighting the streets or for that purpose and for the lighting of the public buildings. The undisputed fact is that a larger number was furnished and maintained, of which the city had the use and benefit, and the more important question is whether a contract on the part of the defendant to pay for them may be implied. * * Corporations not by the statutes creating or governing them restrained or limited to a particular mode of contracting, may be bound by implied contracts. The keeping within the line of the capacity to contract conferred, by the law of their creation, implications will be indulged against them whenever under like circumstances, they would be indulged against natural persons fully sui juris. defendant had notice that compensation for the use of them was demanded as matter of right and had opportunity to refuse or continue their further use. Refusing to designate the lights which should be removed or discontinued, reducing the number to one hundred, or its equivalent, and notifying the plaintiff not to remove or discontinue any of them, common justice requires that a promise to pay for the benefits it was claiming and receiving should be implied." But see El Paso Gas, Elec. Light & Power Co. v. City of El Paso, 22 Tex. Civ. App. 309, 54 S. W. 798. 1235 Harbor Master & Port Wardens v. Southerland, 47 Ala. 511; Coal-Float v. City of Jeffersonville, 112 Ind. 15, 13 N. E. 115; First Municipality v. Pease, 2 La. Ann. 536; City of Baltimore v. White, 2 Gill been defined as "A public wharf, in the full sense of the term, is one which is owned by the state or one of its local subdivisions and held by it or its lessee for the accommodation of public business; or one which, although erected by a private individual, has been erected upon condition that it shall be used by the publie." 1236 If wharves and ferries are acquired or constructed through the latter reason, the courts are agreed that in common with the exercise of municipal or governmental powers, before it can be legally done, there must have been the delegation of the authority from the state or the sovereign power. 1237 The right to construct wharves, control them and make charges for their use will not be implied from a general grant of authority. If a public corporation acquire such through the expenditure of funds not derived through the power of taxation, or in its capacity as a private corporation and as private property, express legislative authority is still necessary to the legality of such action.1238 If, (Md.) 444. The exercise of the power may be delegated. Horn v. People, 26 Mich. 224. 1236 Gregory v. Jersey City, 34 N. J. Law, 390, following and citing Ketchum v. City of Buffalo, 14 N. Y. (4 Kern.) 356; People v. Lowber, 28 Barb. (N. Y.) 65. City of St. Louis v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 88 Mo. 615; Bell v. City of New York, 77 App. Div. 437, 79 N. Y. Supp. 347. 1237 Minturn v. Larue, 23 How. (U. S.) 435. A grant to the trustees of a town to lay out ferries, etc., and to authorize the construction of the same does not necessarily convey an exclusive power. The Geneva, 16 Fed. 874; Webb v. City of Demopolis, 95 Ala. 116, 21 L. R. A. 62; Town of Newport v. Batesville & B. R. Co., 58 Ark. 270; Snyder v. Town of Rockport, 6 Ind. 237; City of Muscatine v. Keokuk N. L. Packet Co., 45 Iowa, 185. Under the grant of power "to build wharves and regulate the landing, wharfage and dockage," the right to establish and construct wharves and collect a reasonable compensation for their use will be implied. Spengler v. Trowbridge, 62 Miss. 46. But the grant of the right to "erect, repair and regulate public wharves and docks" will not confer on a city the power to construct a harbor. Verplanck v. City of New York, 2 Edw. Ch. (N. Y.) 220; Marshall v. Guion, 4 Denio (N. Y.) 581; Thompson v. City of New York, 11 N. Y. (1 Kern.) 115; Alexander v. Wilmington & R. R. Co., 3 Strob. (S. C.) 594; State v. City Council of Charleston, 4 Rich. Law (S. C.) 286; Christie v. Town of Malden, 23 W. Va. 667. 1238 Fennimore v. City of New Orleans, 20 La. Ann. 124. Wiswall v. Hall, 3 Paige (N. Y.) 313; Thompson v. City of New York, 11 N. Y. (1 Kern.) 115; Christie v. Town of Malden, 23 W. Va. 667. in the acquirement of these facilities or their construction, enlargement or operation, private property is taken, just compensation must be made to the owners.1239 Charges for use of such facilities. The right of a public corporation owning such facilities acquired through the expenditures of public moneys to make charges for their use is not always clear or unquestioned.1240 It has been held under some circumstances that political corporations have no right to levy addi * 1239 Avery v. Fox, 1 Abb. 246, Fed. Cas. No. 674; City of San Pedro v. Southern Pac. R. Co., 101 Cal. 333, 35 Pac. 993. "The plaintiff is a municipal corporation of the sixth class. * As such municipal corporation, it is only one of the agencies of the state to aid it in the discharge of its political duties, and although the lands upon which the defendants were driving the piles are within the corporate limits of the plaintiff, the plaintiff has not, for that reason any proprietary interest in these lands, nor is it the owner of the soil or clothed with any riparian rights. Its right to construct a wharf rests upon the provision ** by which it has authority to construct, maintain and operate on any lands bordering on any navigable bay within the corporate limits of such city or contiguous thereto, wharves, piers, etc. The authority given in this section, does not however, clothe the plaintiff with an absolute right to construct a wharf at any point on its water front which it may select, irrespective of the rights of others; but it is intended to confer upon it the same authority to do the acts therein enumerated which a natural person would possess and to give to its acts a sanction which they would not otherwise have. A municipal corporation can exercise only such powers as are conferred upon it by the legislature, and in the absence of the authority above conferred the plaintiff would not be authorized under any circumstances to erect or maintain a wharf; but the authority thus given does not authorize it to prevent the erection of a wharf by another person, who has a right therefor, or who does not infringe upon any of plaintiff's rights." Laflin v. City of Chicago, 48 Ill. 449; Grant v. City of Davenport, 18 Iowa, 179; Belcher Sugar Refining Co. v. St. Louis Grain Elevator Co., 10 Mo. App. 401. 1240 City of Chester v. Hagan, 116 Fed. 223; Murphy v. City of Montgomery, 11 Ala. 586; People v. Broadway Wharf Co., 31 Cal. 34; Keokuk Northern Line Packet Co. v. City of Quincy, 81 Ill. 422; Snyder v. Town of Rockport, 6 Ind. 237; City of Muscatine v. Hershey, 18 Iowa, 39; City of Muscatine v. Keokuk N. L. Packet Co., 45 Iowa, 185; Carrollton R. Co. v. Winthrop, 5 La. Ann, 36; Ellerman v. McMains, 30 La. Ann. 190. The grant to a municipal corporation by the legislature of the right to collect wharfage becomes vested and cannot be arbitrarily impaired or abrogated by a subsequent legislative act. tional taxes upon the public for the use of these properties.1241. The right, however, to make and enforce regulations for their use is not withheld.1242 When the right is granted or assumed to make a charge for the use of the facilities, the rule seems to be that such charges and the regulations as well in respect to them must be reasonable and uniform in their application. The state or any of its delegated agencies cannot discriminate in theserespects.1243 $478. Power to sell or lease wharfage privileges. Where the property has been acquired by a public corporation through the exercise of any governmental power, it cannot be disposed of without legislative authority to a private individual under such terms as will destroy or diminish the right of the publie generally to use the facilities without discrimination eitheras to service or votes; the principle being that one applying to the disposition of all property acquired by a public corporation in its capacity as such, namely, that it has acquired and holds it as trustee for the public.1244 The majority of the authorities seem to hold that under whatever conditions or authority acquired, a public corporation develops and operates its wharfage privileges in its capacity as a private or quasi private corporation.1245 The usual method of handling these properties is either through private individuals or corporations who develop and operate them subject to the right 1241 Russell v. Empire State, 1 works Co. v. Smith, 47 N. J. Law, Newb. 542, Fed. Cas. No. 12,145. 1242 City of New York v. Rice, 4 E. D. Smith (N. Y.) 604; Galveston Wharf Co. v. City of Galveston, 63 Tex. 14. 1243 Ellerman v. McMains. 30 La. Arn. 190; Wharf Case, 3 Bland (Md.) 383. See, also, Cannon v. City of New Orleans, 87 U. S. (20 Wall.) 577. 1244 Roberts v. City of Louisville, 92 Ky. 95, 13 L. R. A. 844; City of St. Louis v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 88 Mo. 615; Bacon v. Mulford, 41 N. J. Law, 59; Atlantic City Water 473; Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. For ty-Second St. & G. St. Ferry R. Co.,. 39 Misc. 27, 78 N. Y. Supp. 838; Fuller v. Edings, 11 Rich. Law (S.. C.) 239. 1245 Farnham, Waters, § 123a. "But the right to construct wharves is not held by the municipal corporation in its public or governmental capacity; the erection and maintenance of such structures are merely a business enterprise in regard to which the municipality acts in its private capacity." of the public corporation to control and regulate the manner of service and the rates to be charged.1246 This plan is regarded as the most feasible as well as expedient because, otherwise, large sums of money would be necessarily expended by the public corporation which, in many cases, could not be made because of some constitutional limitation or provision, and also because of the general principle which obtains that it is not advisable for public corporations to engage in the development of privileges or of property or to engage in enterprises which properly should be left to private individuals or corporations, so long as the power is ever present and inherent in them to prevent discrimination and extortion either in respect to the manner or time of service or the rates charged. § 479. Payment of debts. The payment of debts is considered not only a public purpose but a praiseworthy one, and the use of public moneys for the liquidation of debts of whatever form is a proper expenditure of such funds.1247 It is a duty which not only devolves upon the public corporation, but also one, which it has been held, the sovereign power can compel where there is a failure to perform this duty.1248 To further emphasize the duty and necessity for such action, the courts have held many times that the grant of the power to incur a debt carries with it the implied power to levy taxes sufficient for its liquidation.1249 1246 Leathers v. Aiken, 9 Fed. 679; Bain v. The Minnie L. Gerow, 48 F'ed. 836; First Municipality v. Pease, 2 La. Ann. 538; City of St. Louis v. St. Louis & N. O. Transp. Co., 84 Mo. 156. City of New Orleans v. Estate of Burthe, 26 La. Ann. 497; Youngblood v. Sexton, 32 Mich. 406; Bridges v. Sullivan County Sup'rs, 92 N. Y. 570. 1249 See authorities under § 303. 1247 See authorities under §§ 172 Von Hoffman v. City of Quincy, 71 and 222. 1248 Cooley, Taxation (2d Ed.) pp. 685, 687; City of New Orleans v. Clark, 95 U. S. 644; People v. McCreery, 34 Cal. 432; Dunnovan v. Green, 57 Ill. 63; Decker v. Hughes, 68 Ill. 33; Decatur County Com'rs v. State, 86 Ind. 8; Lycoming County v. Union County, 15 Pa. 166; U. S. (4 Wall.) 535; Rees v. City of Watertown, 86 U. S. (19 Wall.) 107; United States v. City of New Orleans, 98 U. S. 381; United States v. Macon County, 99 U. S. 582; Ralls County v. United States, 105 U. S. 733; Devereaux v. City of Brownsville, 29 Fed. 742; Peoria, D. & E. R. Co. v. People, 116 Ill. |