stock in a private corporation and to issue its bonds to pay therefor, and that the bonds so issued were void. Town of Guilford v. Suprs of Chenango Co. 13 N. Y., 143, distinguished. The judge, at Special Term, found that the objects and purposes of the corporation, in aid of which the bonds were issued, were not exclusively and strictly of a private nature, but to some extent partook of a public character, and were sufficiently broad and extended to include a public use. He then explained how this general finding was reached by particulars which he gave. Defendant excepted to this finding. cers and agents, and even if the inhabitants of defendant were estopped by the acts proved, the defendant would not be affected thereby; it is a political entity, separate and apart from the inhabitants. of the territory within its corporate bounds. 12 Wall. 349; Alleghany City v. McClastan, 14 Penn. St. 81, disapproved. Judgment of General term, reversing judgment of Special Term, and directing judgment for defendant, affirmed. Opinion by Folger, J. Held, That the general finding was a CONTEMPT. EVASION OF INJUNC conclusion of law from the particulars given, and as the evidence does not afford any ground for the finding, it was erro neous. The legislative power of taxation, so far as the purposes for which it may be exercised, is not unlimited, and the courts are not debarred from scrutinizing its action. The legislature is the primary authority to inquire what is a proper purpose for the application of money raised by taxation, and the necessity of taxation to subserve it, and it must appear clearly that it has erred before the courts can interfere. Where no legal, moral or equitable claim exists, the legislature cannot impose or delegate to a municipal corporation the power to impose a tax for a private purpose, or directly to replace in the treasury moneys bestowed by it upon a private purpose. It was claimed that as interest had been paid upon the bonds by defendant, and a special tax had been voted by the taxable inhabitants to pay this interest, defendant was estopped from denying their validity. TION. CORPORATION. N. Y. COURT OF APPEALS. The Mayor, &c., of New Jersey, respts.' v. The New Jersey and Staten Island Ferry Co. et al., applts. Decided Jan. 25, 1876. A court may fine a corporation for a violation of an injunction or order, although it may have been irregular. Injunction orders must be honestly and fairly obeyed; persons bound to obey them may be guilty of violating them as well by aiding, abetting and countenancing others in violating them as by doing it themselves. jection that interrogatories had not It is too late on appeal to make the obbeen filed before the adjudication upon the contempt. Where there was an order to show cause interrogatories were not necessary. This action was brought to restrain the New Jersey and Staten Island Ferry Company from running a ferry from New York city to Staten Island without a license from plaintiffs, and to restrain the use of plaintiffs' wharf property for the purposes of Held, That this did not work an estoppel; such ferry. The day the suit was comthat the issue of the bonds being beyond the menced (May 21, 1875) a preliminary inscope of corporate power, defendant could junction was granted restraining the use of not be debarred from raising that objec- the wharf for ferry purposes, and an order tion by any subsequent conduct of its offi- to show cause why such injunction should. of the violation of the injunction order was submitted to the court upon the affidavits. No question was submitted as to the regu larity of the practice. Held, That the right to the interrogatories was waived, but that where there was an order to show cause it was not necessary to file interrogatories (1 Duer, 512; 5 id. 629; 14 Abb. Pr. 166; 37 N. J. 235; 1 Abb. Ct. Apps. Dec. 238). not be continued during the pendency of guilty of violating them as well by aiding. the action. A motion was also made to abetting and countenancing others in vioenjoin the running of the ferry, These lating them as by doing it directly. motions were granted June 15, 1875. An The defendants claimed, on appeal, that opinion was written which was read that interrogatories should have been filed by morning by the defendants' attorney. It plaintiffs before any final adjudication upon appeared the next morning in several news- the alleged contempt. The whole matter papers, and certified copies of the formal order of the court were served on the defendants' attorney, and upon the pilot and engineer of the steamboat D. R. Martin, and on June 17th on P., the president of the company. After May 20, 1875, the point of departure of the D. R. Martin was changed, but she still continued to be used as a ferry boat, with the same master and time table, and still occupied plaintiffs' wharf at night time. On June 16th, at noon, a bill of sale was executed by the company to its president of the D. R. Martin for the consideration of one dollar, and June 19th a bill of sale was executed by the president to one B., the boat having continued to run as before. An order was granted for the company and its president SUPREME COURT OF ERRORS, CONNECto show cause why they should not be punished for contempt of court. The motion was granted and the company was fined for violating the first order, and the president ordered to be imprisoned for violating both orders. Lyman Tremain, for respts. Held, No error. That the company and its officers were bound to obey the orders; that they were not void even if irregular (2 Green Ch. 456; 9 N. J. 263); that the company could be fined for violating the injunction; that the power to fine for disobeying its orders in such cases is inherent in a court of equity and is regulated by statute (2 R. S. 534; 1 2Abb. Pr. 171.) Also Held, That the court was warranted from all the circumstances in finding that the sales of the ferry boat were not in good faith, and were intended as mere evasions of the orders of the court. That injunction orders must be honestly and fairly obeyed, and persons bound to obey them may be Order of General Term affirming order of court below affirmed. O-inion by Earl, J. COVENANT. RIGHTS OF PARTIES TICUT. Chas. W. Church v. Frederick C. Steele. Decided February, 1875. Where in exchange of real estate on the basis of an appraised amount per foot, there is a mutual mistake in the amount conveyed by one to the other, the injured party is entitled to recover at the appraised rate for the deficiency. The same can be recovered in an action of assumpsit for lands sold. Covenant broken, with a count in assumpsit for lands sold and conveyed. On the 6th day of March, 1873, the plaintiff and defendant exchanged lots of land by them respectively owned in the city of Hartford, and each executed to the other a warranty deed conveying his lot. Plaintiffs deed conveyed to defendant 100 feet on a street at $81.30 per front foot, amounting to $8,150. Defendants deed called for and was supposed by both plaintiff and defendant to convey 280 feet on a street at $27 per front foot, amounting to $7,641, the defendant paying plaintiff the difference, viz: $593. Afterwards the plaintiff, by measurement, ascertained that the lot conveyed to him by defendant was only 265 feet instead of 283 feet, defendant at the time of the exchange owning no more. Held. recover damages for the whole time they are untenable; he is not limi ted to the time within which such repairs might have been made, inasmuch as he was not bound, although he had the right to make them. This action was brought by plaintiff to recover damages for the breach by defendDefendant had undertaken ant, his lessor, of various covenants in a to pay plaintiff $8,150, partly by means lease of certain premises in New York of this land at the agreed price of city. The lease provided that defendant $27 per front foot, and partly in money. For the purpose of ascertaining the money balance the defendant applied this appraisal to 280 feet. But subsequent measurement showed that it could have been applied to 265 feet only. This mutual mistake produced an erroneous result, the money balance paid was too small by the sum of $486. The interest of the parties will remain unfulfilled until the defendant supplies this deficiency. Held, 2. The second count in the declaration is sufficient to support a judgment for the sum of $486, representing the error resulting from the mutual mistake of the parties. As to sufficiency of first count no opinion expressed. Pardee, J. DAMAGES. at N. Y. COURT OF APPEALS. Hoxter, resp't. v. Knox, appľ't. Decided January 18, 1876. In an action for breach of the covenants of a lease whereby the lessor covenanted to erect and give possession of the demised premises which were to be used for hotel purposes a specified time, and for which the lessee then owned and had on storage furniture sufficient to fill, and the lessor failed to give possession, the lessee is entitled to damages based upon the value of the use of the premises as furnished for hotel purposes. Under a lease providing that repairing shall be done by the lessor, the lessee, where the premises become untenantable by reason of lessor's neglect, may should complete a new building which he was to erect and give possession to plaintiff of the five stories above the ground floor on or before September 1, 1871; the defendant failed to do this. It appeared upon the trial that plaintiff, when the lease was executed, occupied the adjacent premises and a portion of the demised pemises for hotel purposes, and that he had his furniture removed and stored while the new building was being erected. The judge upon the trial ruled that plaintiff was entitled to recover for the breach of the covenant, the rental value of the use of the rooms in the new building for hotel purposes during the time he was deprived of their use, by the defendant's default, and instructed the jury, that as to such rooms as plaintiff had furniture for, he was entitled to damages based upon the value of their use as furnished rooms, and refused to charge that plaintiff could only recover the value of the use of the rooms unfurnished, or as defendant was to de liver them. Samuel Hand & Stephen A. Walker, for resp❜t. Wm. McDermot for appl't. Held, No error. That as both parties con templated that the premises should be used for hotel purposes, an allowance of the rental value of the rooms in the new building during the time he was deprived. of them through defendant's default based upon a consideration of the use to which they were to be applied subjected defendant to no greater liability than it may fairly be supposed he intended to assume, and that the jury were properly instructed, that plaintiff was entitled to recover the value of the use of furnished rooms so far as he was prepared to furnish them with the furniture stored; that the loss of the use of the furniture from delay in completing the new building, was the natural result of defendant's failure to perform his covenant, and it might be justly presumed to have been contemplated by defendant when the lease was made. 35 N. Y. 269. Defendant also covenanted in the lease to make certain specified alterations and repairs to a part of the premises, which included repairs of broken ceilings and of the roof so as to make it water tight. After the time when the repairs were to have been completed defendant had a balustrade removed from the building, and in doing this holes were made in the tin covering of the roof through which water afterwards penetrated, and rendered the rooms in the upper story uninhabitable, and caused the ceilings to crack and break so that quite extensive repairs were necessary. Plaintiff repeatedly notified defendant that these repairs were needed, and after waiting six weeks made them himself. Defendant asked the court to charge the jury that plaintiff could only recover for the use of the rooms such time as it would necessarily take to repair them, and that if plaintiff knew of the defect, he was bound to have it repaired as soon as it could reasonably be done. The court refused both of these requests. Held, No error; that plaintiff when defendant failed to make the repairs had a right, but was not bound to make them. 35 N. Y. 269. Judgment of General Term, affirming judgment on verdict for plaintiff, affirmed. Opinion by Andrews, J. DESCRIPTION IN DEED. BOUND- A grantee claiming under a deed des- Where the grant contains no evidence that the parties contemplated a shifting boundary, the fact that the street is subsequently narrowed so as to remove its exterior line towards its centre, does not enlarge the area of the lots granted; their lines are fixed fixed permanently, and cannot be changed to conform to any altered condition or circumstances. The presumption is that the grantor does not intend to retain the fee of the soil of the street, but such presumption may be overcome by the use of any terms in describing the premises granted which may indicate an intent not to convey. What will not exclude from the opera tion of a grant the soil of the street, stated. Nothing short of an intention to abandon an easement will operate to extin guish it, unless other persons have been led by the acts of the owners of the easement to treat the servient estate as if free from the servitude. This was an action of ejectment to recover possession of a strip of land twenty feet wide, on Garden street, in the city of Buffalo Both parties appealed from the claiming to be entitled to the sole and exjudgment of the Supreme Court, each clusive possesssion and beneficial enjoyment of the premises. The court below adjudged the plaintiff to be the owner in fee, and the defendant to be entitled to an easement in the premises, to wit, a right of way over it. The parties from terms in describing the premises granted, whom plaintiff and defendant claimed to derive title, owned a large tract of land in the city of Buffalo, which they divided into lots, making a map thereof, upon which was designated a street called Gar-operation of the grant the soil of the street den street, sixty-three feet wide, and con- or stream, that it was made with reference veyed several lots to different grantees, with to a plan annexed, the measuring or colreference to the map. The grant under oring of which would exclude it, or by which defendant claimed title described lines and instruments that would only the premises as commencing at the inter- bring the premises to the exterior line of section of the exterior lines of two streets, the highway, or that they are bounded of which Garden street was one. In February, 1869 the city ordered Garden street to be staked out, and its boundaries recorded, and this was done, showing it as a sixty-three feet street. In July and August, 1869, the street was duly contracted by the city to the width of twenty-three feet, leaving the centre line as before. Defendant claimed to own the fee to the centre of the street, subject to an easement in favor of the grantees of the other portions of the tract and the public in the street as laid down on the map, and that he owned the twenty feet taken from the width of the street, di vested of the easement. S. S. Rogers for respts. generally by the line of the highway or along it. Although the highway is in one sense a monument, it is regarded as a line, and the centre is regarded as the true boundary until by apt words the intent to make the exterior line the boundary is shown 10 C. B. N. S., 400; 50 N. Y., 694; 36 id., 120; 23 id., 61; 2 Wall, 57. Also Held, That the lines of defendant's grant are fixed and permanent, being established in reference to the circumstances then existing, and cannot be changed to conform to any altered condition or circumstances, in the absence of evidence in the grant that the parties contemplated a shifting boundary, or any change in the lines or increase of the area of the lot granted, or to provide for any Held, That the description in the deed change in the line or width of the street, under which the defendant claimed ne-as the same should be adopted or used cessarily excluded the soil of the street; by the public. 31 Conn., 165; 18 Wis., that the point of starting, in the descrip- 35; 2 Wall, 57; 52 Me., 566; 1 Whart., tion, is as controlling as any monument 323; 58 N. Y., 437, and that therefore would have been, and must govern the the change in the street did not extend other parts of the description, and the defendant's title to the new exterior line. lines of the granted premises must conform to the point thus designated, so as to connect thereat, and therefore the judgment was correct. It appears that before this action was brought defendant had fenced in the locus in quo, and plaintiff claimed that by so had abandoned the easement. doing, and by claiming to own the fee, he No particular words or form of expression are necessary to restrict a grant to the exterior line of a street or margin of Held, That this act did not indicate or a stream, but while the presumption is tend to prove an intent to abandon the that the grantor does not intend to retain easement. 22 N. Y., 217; 100 Mass. 491; the fee of the soil within the lines of the 7 Exch, 838; 14 M. & W., 789; 3 C. B. street or under the water, such presump-N. S, N. S, 120. tion may be overcome by the use of any Nothing short of an intention to aban |