Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1852-08-13

. strain the exercise OF those Claimed d
the Sunbury & Erie Company. Th
/ great principles Of construction ruled i
/, the Charles River Bridge case are there
fore strongly in favor of the plaintiffs.
Keeping this in mind, and relnemberin
that the supplement relied on is hot onl
public grant, but public grant whic
seriously conflicts with previous one
and is, in its nature, purpose, and object
such one as no Legislature would b
likely to make, we come to examine tn
9th section Of the supplement to the de
PENDANTS charter, which is as follows:
"That the said company shall hav'
power to construct lateral and branci
roads from the line of their road, at
southwark or eastward, from Williams
port, to intcrsect any other railroad b,
means of which the said company may
be enabled to form connections with tho
city of Philadelphia by way of the valley
of the Schuylkill; or, as hereinafter pro
vided, by way Of the valley of the Sus
quehanna: Pfocided, That on any road
that may be made between Sunbury and
Harrisburg, the same tax be aud is hereby
imposed as is now or may hereafter be
imposed by law on the Susquehanna Rail
road And provided further, That if the
Susquehanna Railroad Company shall fail
to put that portion of the line of their
road under contract between Bridgeport
and Sunbury within one year from the
passage of this act, and complete the
same within two years thereafter, ther,
and in that case, the Sunbury Il Erie
Railroad Company is hereby authorized
to extend their road from Sunbury by the
valley of the SusIuehanna, to connect with
the Pennsylvania Railroad at such poin t
as may be deemed most expedient by the
said company, on the same terms and con-
ditions that they are now authorized to
construct the main line of their road be-
tween Sunbury and Erie"
That the last of these two provisions
does couple condition with the powers
granted to the Sunbury & Erie Company
of extending their road by the Susque-
mamma is so plain, that any attempt to
prove it would be mere waste of words.
That the privilege is only to be exercised
if the Susquehanna Company fail to cons
plete its work within certain time, and
shall only proceed with the extension,
then, and in that case" is wholly unde-
niable. Shall we treat this proviso as
nugatory and meaningless? Shall VT
strike it from the statute and give it nc
attention? Certainly not. Yet how Car
we say that the power claimed is giver
without condition, unless We eliminate
the words which impose the condition
We can not consider the section in de
tached parts. We must take it as whole
All of it is consistent, and if it were not,
that would not help the defendants argu-
mcnt, for the rule in cases of irreconclla-
bic repugnancy is to let the last part and
not the first determine the meaning of the
lawgivcr.
At the head of the section, the company
is authorised to form connections with
Philadelphia by way Of the valley of the
Susquehanna. How? As hereinafter pro-
vided. And then follow the two provi-
soes, one imposing tax, and the other
fixing u time when they may begin.
Both these provisoes are, one much as
the other, drawn up to, and connected
with the grant, and made part and parcel
of the grant by TIE words, "as herein
after provided" What is hereinafter
provided? That the right shall be exer-
cised if the other Company fail, is as
much hereinafter provided, as it is herein
after provided that a tax shall be laid on
any road that may he made. But it is
argued that the power is given in the
body of the section, coupled only with the
condition in the first proviso, ard that the
second proviso is new grant of the same
power upon new conditions. This forces
us to ask why two separate grants, totally
independent of, and unconnected with
each other, should be run together iu the
same section Why should one indepen
dent grant be tackled, as proviso, upon
another?
But this is not all The section says
they may construct lateral and branch
roads, and form connections with Phila-
delphia by way Of the Susquehanna, as
hereinafter prooided. Now these last
words must point to some mode Of n'ahiny
the road or forming the connection, for
that is the thing to be done as hereinafter
provided And to satisfy this call We
are directed to the first proviso, which
9ints out no mode of exercising the
power at all. 1t declares that any road,
through that valley shall be subjected to
tax. And is tax imposed by law upon
a road when made, to be called mode Or
manner of constructing branch roads OF
making connections The defendant
construction misreads the body of the
section by assigning m improper meaning
to the words, as hereinafter provided" !"
it msreads the FIRST proyiso by disregarding
the word "any," and declaring that a
tax is to be paid, not on any road, but
only on one made within two years; and
it misreads the last proviso by tearing ii
entirely from the rest Of the section tc
which it properly belongs.
When the meaning which the defen
dants would assign to the section is ex
pressed in words, it will read somewhat
thus: "That the Sunbury & Erie Com
pany may disregard the rights and privi
leges heretofore vested in the Susquehann;