THE BELLONA CO'S CASE.—3 BLAND. 441

the increased hazard, although alleged and denied, and not par-
ticularly described, are unimportant as regards the questions of
right between these litigants.

By the Act of 1827, ch. 72, s. 15, the plaintiffs are authorized,
for the purpose of making their railroad, to agree with the owner
of any land for the purchase, or use and occupation of the same,
" and if they cannot agree, and if the owner or owners, or any of
them, be a feme corert, under age, non compos mentis, or out of the
county in which the property wanted may lie.'' application may
be made to a justice of the peace, and proceedings had to have it
condemned to their use. Upon which it was urged, that although
the defendants may have an unlimited power to contract or agiee,
in any manner, with the owner for any land they may want for
their road; yet the power to take the lands of others from them,
against * their consent, by this process of condemnation, is
espiessly limited to the case where they, the defendants, 448
cannot agree, and the owner is a feme corert, &c.; or, in other
words, that the defendants must be unable to agree with the owner,
and the owner must also be a feme corert, &c. Because as this
provision authorizes these defendants to take from a citizen his
property, against his will, it must be construed strictly; and there-
fore the word and cannot, in this instance, be construed to mean
or; and consequently, that concurrence of circumstances has not
been shewn to exist, which is indispensably necessary, according
to the positive requisitions of this law, to enable these defendants
to have the land of the plaintiffs taken froms them without their
consent.

I admit, that this section of the Act, by which the defendants
have been incorporated, is of such a character as to require to be
construed strictly. But the whole must be so taken together as to
carry into effect the chief and manifest purpose of the law; unless
the sense of the expressions used be such as to forbid their being
interpreted in any but one way ; and when so taken, that the mode
of proceeding prescribed cannot be so executed as to attain the
object.

It was manifestly the intention of the Legislature to authorize
the defendants to acquire any land they might want for their rail-
road m one of two modes; first, by an agreement with the owner
of it; or if it could not be obtained in that way, either because of
the absence of the owner, or because of his refusal to agree; or
because of his incapacity to contract, then the defendants should
have the power to cause it to be condemned to their use at a fair
valuation. This latter mode of acquisition was intended to be
given to them in all cases where an agreement could not be el-
iected. In case of the refusal of the owner; and in the case of
his absence; and m the case of his inability to contract. In all
the similar sections found in other Acts of incorporation, the word