The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-06-20

causo aii unicorporateu company is just as capable
OF grant or a contract in law, as corporation.
IT, on the other hand, the scheme in question was
not within the chartered authority of the city.
then the MAYOR and City Councils had no power
Whatever in the premises, and their action is
SIMPLE, mere nullity. In affirming, therefore, the
necessity of future action by the General AS
sembly, Mr.. SWAMI Comedies undeniably, the
total absence of power, in himself and the Coun-
ellis, to make the grant in question and admits
that with full knowledge of such want of power,
he deliberately joined the Councils in comforting,
without right upon company of partisan favo-
rites the privilege of taking immediate possession
of the public highways and monopolizing the use
of them for their own profit without even the
decency of proviso, that the Legislature should
first ratify the monopoly. 1t is true, he adds:
SAT time had the slightest doubt that the
Legislature would have sanctioned what the city had done
provided the ordinance had been carried out in all its
provisions"
But what right had Mr.. SWAMI to take for grant
ed the action of a legislature not yet elected? Is
he the State Government, as we'll as the s'City
Government !" A corporation has no more au-
thorty than private citizen to exceed its legal
prerogatives- what would be thought of anv
private gentleman, who should propose delibe-
rate scheme of illegal and immediate profit to him
self or friends upon the theory that he chad not
''the slightest doubt that the Legislature would
sanction it next year? The plain and garing truth
is-and Mr.. SwANN's statement is a confession
of it-that the action of the MAYOR and CITY
Council was illegal, and they knew it to be so,
and their purpose unlawfully to forestall egis-
Lott in 10 of
tees, by enabling them to acquire sort of pre- emp
ton right with the Legislature, as they had al
ready-and possibly in more senses than one
acquired it with the City Councils. 1t was
deliberate, confessed abuse of power and prosti
tuition of official duty to further and secure lob
And what more has Mr.. SWAMI to say, in excuse
for himself and his associates?
"The main and leading feature of the ordinance and
the the faith of which, far the protection
sanction, that providing the opening of books
within ninety days after the approval by the Mayor
And then he adds by way of justifying his pre-
sent course:
"a refusal to open books is virtually to create monopo
y for the benefit of few individuals which surely your
Honorable Body never intended"
What an innocent and pleasant smile must have
illuminated the countenances of the Honorable
purity must have rejoiced their hearts-at such
tribute from such a source But alas even con-
scious virtue must submit to be tried by the tests
of this rough world And how was this hate
full " monopoly for the benefit of a few indi-
'tviduals," guarded against in the Ordinance, by
these faithful watchmen on our walls? By pro-
viso that "a book" should be opened in this city,
within ninety days, ''for the purpose of receiving
subscriptions to the capital stock of said city
Railways 1t was thus that 'the people Of
Baltimore" were to be enabled to get ''the con-
''trol and management of the railways into their
own hands
Now the reader will mark-that by the very
terms of the Ordinance ITSELF the assigns of the
grantees without reference to dwelling or locality,
were clothed with identically the same powers as
the grantees themselves, and as if this did not
suffice to enable the latter to sell the grant to
Kamskatka, if they pleased-to the utter exclu-
sion of the people of Baltimore from the enterprise
the section requiring book to be opened for
subscriptions to ''capital stock,' does not contain
one word in regard to the amount or character of
such stock-the par value at which it shall be sub
scribed for-the number of shares-or any one
single provision by which the requirement could
be made efectual or operative for a solitary bene-
fetal purpose. All of these details are entrusted to
the pure discretion of the grantees or their
''assigns'--upon whose active and sincere CO.
operation in preventing monopoly from being
created, the citizens of Baltimore are thus left by
Mr.. SWAMI and his Ordinance absolutely TO de-
pend. Whether any man of ordinary intellect
could have really looked to such provision, for
the security which Mr.. SWAMI now processes that
he saw in it, we must leave the reader to deter
mine for himself, according to the degree of his
credulity. We have already been led much be-
yond our intended limits by the interest of the
subject and the illustration which it affords of the
men and morals now ruling us. We must re-
serve, therefore, for another OCCASION the further
comments which we think the matter justifes
for the information and reflection of the public.