once in every five years thereafter, the city council shall revise the same, and make such alterations therein, in like form and manner as are prescribed in the Act to which this is in addition. may establish ment. SECT. 5. The city council of the city of Cambridge may City council establish a fire department for the said city, to consist of so a fire departmany engineers, and other officers, and so many engine men and other members, as the city council, by ordinance, shall, from time to time, prescribe; and the said city council shall have authority to make such provisions in regard to the time and mode of appointment, and the occasion and mode of removal, of either such officers or members, and to make such requisitions in regard to their conduct and government, and to the management and conduct of fires, and persons attending at fires, subject to the penalties provided for the breach of the city by-laws, as they shall deem expedient; provided, that the appointment of engine men, hosemen, and hook and ladder men, shall be made by the mayor and aldermen exclusively. continue in SECT. 6. An Act establishing a fire department in the Former Acts to town of Cambridge, passed March seventeenth, in the year force. one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and an Act in addition thereto, passed March thirtieth, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, shall continue in force, except in regard to the power of making by-laws and publishing the same, and except, also, in so far as they are otherwise inconsistent with the preceding section; in which respects they shall be void. lay out streets. SECT. 7. The city council shall have exclusive power and City council to authority to lay out new streets or ways within the said city, and to estimate the damage which any person shall sustain thereby; but all petitions and questions relating to the laying out, widening, altering or discontinuing, of any street or way, shall be first acted upon by the mayor and aldermen. Any person dissatisfied with the decision of the city council Persons disin the estimate of damages, may, within six months thereafter, make com make a complaint to the county commissioners, in the county of Middlesex, upon which complaint the same proceedings shall be had as are provided in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Revised Statutes, in cases where persons are aggrieved by the assessment of damages by selectmen. SECT. 8. If a vacancy shall exist in any of the boards of assessors, assistant assessors, overseers of the poor, or school committee, by failure of the inhabitants to elect, by neglect or refusal to serve, by death, resignation, or any other cause, the city council shall fill such vacancy as soon as may be after the knowledge of the fact; provided, that nothing therein contained shall be construed to prevent the operation of the Act passed on the twenty-sixth day of April, in the satisfied may plaint, etc. Vacancies, how filled. Officers accountable for year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, being chapter one hundred and forty-four of the Acts of said year, relating to such vacancies, therein mentioned, as may occur in the school committee after the date of the warrant for the annual town meeting for the election of their successors. SECT. 9. All boards and officers acting under the Act of public money. incorporation of the city of Cambridge, and entrusted with the expenditure of public money, shall be accountable therefor to the city council in such manner as they may direct. SECT. 10. No board or committee of the city council, or propriations. of either branch thereof, shall make any contracts on behalf of, or binding upon, the said city, the amount of which contracts shall exceed the specific appropriations of the city council previously made therefor. Contracts not to exceed ap Inconsistent Act to be void, unless, etc. SECT. 11. All Acts and parts of Acts inconsistent with the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed. SECT. 12. This Act shall be void, unless the inhabitants of the said city of Cambridge, at a legal meeting called for that purpose, shall, by a majority of the voters present and voting thereon, by ballot, determine to adopt the same. (April 14, 1853.) Accepted December 5, 1853 (City Records, Vol. H, Page 83). City of Cambridge authorized to take stock in water works. AN ACT to authorize the city of Cambridge to take stock in the Cambridge Water Works, or to loan money on pledge of the stock of said company. Be it enacted, etc., as follows: SECTION 1. The city of Cambridge are hereby authorized to subscribe for any portion of the stock of the Cambridge Water Works, and said shares may be paid for in cash or in exchange for bonds of the said corporation, at not less than the par value thereof; or to loan money to the said company on pledge of their stock. SECT. 2. This Act shall take effect from and after its passage. (May 11, 1853.) Corporators. Location. AN ACT to incorporate the Cambridge Railroad Company. SECTION 1. Gardiner G. Hubbard, Charles C. Little, and Isaac Livermore, their associates and successors, are hereby made a corporation by the name of the Cambridge Railroad Company, with power to construct, maintain, and use a railway, or railways, with convenient single or double tracks from such point or points of the city of Cambridge, upon and over the streets or highways therein, as shall agree, supreme to appoint be, from time to time, fixed and determined by vote of the mayor and aldermen of the said city of Cambridge, and assented to in writing by said corporation: and over the roads, estates, and bridges, belonging to the Hancock Free Bridge Corporation, to the intersection of the same with the streets of the city of Boston, as shall be, from time to time fixed and determined by vote of the directors of the Hancock Free Bridge Corporation, and assented to in writing by said corporation, paying said Hancock Free Bridge Corporation Compensation. such compensation or tolls, for the right of using said roads, estates, and bridges, as may be mutually agreed upon; or if the respective corporations shall be unable to agree upon the If unable to compensation so as aforesaid to be paid, the supreme judicial judicial court court, upon the petition of either party, and upon notice to three commisthe other party, shall appoint three commissioners, who shall, sioners. upon due notice to the parties interested, proceed to determine and fix the rate of compensation or toll. And the award of said commissioners, or a major part of them, shall be binding upon the respective corporations interested therein, until they shall have been revised or altered by commissioners so appointed as aforesaid; but no such revision or alteration shall be made by such commissioners within one year after such decision and award shall have been made; and thence upon and over such streets and highways of the city of Boston to such point or points, in said city as may, from time to time, be fixed and determined by vote of the mayor and aldermen of the said city of Boston, and assented to in writing by said corporation: provided, however, that all Proviso. tracks of said railroad shall be laid at such distances from the sidewalks in said cities, as the mayor and aldermen thereof respectively, shall, in their orders fixing the routes of said railroad, determine to be for the public safety and convenience. The written assent of said corporation to any vote or votes of the mayor and aldermen of said cities, and of the Hancock Free Bridge Corporation, prescribing, from time to time, the routes of said road, shall be filed with the respective clerks of said cities and corporations, and shall be taken and deemed to be locations thereof; and said corporation shall have power to fix, from time to time, such rates of compensation for transporting persons or property, as they may think expedient, and shall have all the powers and privileges, and be subject to all the duties, liabilities, and restrictions, set forth in the forty-fourth chapter of the Revised Statutes. by horse SECT. 2. Said tracks or roads shall be operated and used To be operated by said corporation with horse-power only, and it shall not power only. connect its track with any other railroad on which other power is used. The mayor and aldermen of said cities, respectively, shall have power at all times to make all such Corporation to keep streets in etc. regulations as to the rate of speed and mode of use of said tracks, as the public convenience and safety may require. SECT. 3. Said corporation shall maintain and keep in rerepair, liable, pair such portion of the streets and bridges, respectively, as shall be occupied by their tracks, and shall be liable for any loss or injury that any person may sustain by reason of any carelessness, neglect or misconduct, of its agents and servants in the management, construction, or use, of said tracks, roads or bridges; and in case any recovery shall be had against either of said cities or said bridge corporation by reason of such defect or want of repair, said corporation shall be liable to pay to said cities and said bridge corporation, respectively, any sums thus recovered against them, together with all costs and reasonable expenditures incurred by said cities or said bridge corporation, or either of them, in the defence of any such suit or suits in which recovery shall be had, and shall not incumber any portion of the streets or bridges not occupied by the said roads or tracks. Penalty for obstructing corporation. SECT. 4. If any person shall wilfully and maliciously obstruct said corporation in the use of said road or tracks, or the passing of the cars or carriages of said corporation thereon, such person, and all who shall be aiding or abetting therein, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or may be imprisoned in the common jail for a period not exceeding three months. If said corporation or Penalty if cor- its agents or servants shall wilfully and maliciously obstruct any highway, or the passing of any carriage over the same, such corporation shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars. poration obstruct. Capital stock. SECT. 5. The capital stock of said corporation shall not exceed three hundred thousand dollars, to be divided into No shares to be shares of fifty dollars each. And no shares shall be issued for a less sum, to be actually paid in on each, than the par value of the shares which shall first be issued. issued under par. Real estate. Boston and SECT. 6. Said corporation shall have power to purchase and hold such real estate within said cities, or either of them, as may be convenient or necessary for the purposes and management of said road. SECT. 7. The cities of Boston and Cambridge, may, at any may purchase time during the continuance of the charter of said corporafranchise, etc. tion, and after the expiration of ten years from the opening of any part of said road for use, purchase of said corporation all the franchise, property, rights, and furniture of said corporation, by paying them therefor such a sum as will reimburse to each person, who may then be a stockholder therein, the par value of his stock, together with a net profit of ten per cent. per annum from the time of the transfer of said stock to him on the books of the corporation, deducting the dividends received by said stockholder thereon. aldermen of determine SECT. 8. The said road shall be constructed and maintained Mayor and in such form and manner, and upon such grade, and with cities to such and aldermen of said cities and the grade, etc. gauge, as the mayor said bridge corporation, respectively, may, in their votes, fixing and determining the routes thereof as aforesaid, prescribe and direct, and whenever, in the judgment of said railroad corporation, it shall be necessary to alter the grade of any street so occupied by it, such alteration may be made at the sole expense of said corporation, provided the same shall be assented to by the mayor and aldermen of said cities respectively. not prevent taking up SECT. 9. Nothing in this Act shall be construed to prevent This Act hall the city authorities of either of said cities, or said bridge cities from corporation from entering upon, and taking up any of the streets, etc. public streets or bridges traversed by said railroad for the purpose for which they may now lawfully take up the same. unless, etc. SECT. 10. This Act shall be void so far as relates to the To be void, right to construct said road in either of said cities, unless the same shall be accepted by the city councils of said cities respectively, and unless the same shall be accepted by said corporation, and ten per cent. of the capital stock thereof paid in within two years from the passage of this Act. subject to returns, but, SECT. 11. Said corporation shall be deemed a railroad cor- Corporation poration so far as to be subject to make such annual returns make annual to the legislature as are, or may be, prescribed by law, but etc. not to the other general provisions of law in relation to railroad corporations. fifty years. SECT. 12. The existence of said corporation is hereby Limited to limited to a period of fifty years from the passage hereof. (May 25, 1853.) An Act in addition to an Act to incorporate the Cambridge Railroad tracks. Be it enacted, etc., as follows: SECTION 1. That at any time after the expiration of one May remove year from the opening for use of the tracks of said railroad in any street in which the same may be located, as provided by its charter, the mayor and aldermen of the cities of Boston and Cambridge, respectively, may by vote of the major part thereof, determine as to so much of said track as is located within the limits of their respective cities, that the same or any part thereof, be discontinued, and thereupon the location shall be deemed to be revoked, and the tracks of said railroad shall forthwith be taken up and removed in conformity with such vote or order of said mayor and |