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366 THE WHARF CASE.
Mayor and City Council to have the right to make such an ordi-
nance, it could not lawfully be evaded by passing over goods on
planks, skids, or even in drays or carts, so as not to touch or be
landed on the wharves.
The ordinance of March 21st, 1814, does not appear to be con-
trary to the prohibition contained in the act of Assembly of 1813,
ch. 118, inasmuch as the wharfage on vessels lying at the public
wharves is not mentioned in the latter, and the rates or duties
are different in their kind.
On the first part of the bill respecting the rights of the parties
no further opinion is expressed than as to the ostensible right of
the complainants, which is sufficient to sustain the application for
an injunction.
It is therefore Ordered, that an injunction be issued prohibiting
The Mayor and City Council, their officers, agents, and servants
from collecting any rates or wharfage, or other tax, charge, or duty
in virtue of the first part of the second section of the ordinance of
March 25th, 1815, in the bill mentioned and referred to, by which
part of the said ordinance, rates were directed to be charged and
collected on certain articles landed on any public wharf, that is to
say, on the public wharves in the bill mentioned, made by Thomas
McElderry, deceased, and Cumberland Dugan.
The defendants on the 1st of March, 1830, put in their answer
to this last bill, in which they admit the truth of all that is said in
relation to the making of the wharves; but deny, that the plain-
tiffs have any title to the ground so filled up by them, or any right
to collect wharfage on the wharves they had so made, These de-
fendants aver, that the act of 1813, ch. 118, does not apply to
wharves of the description of these; but only to those which are
properly public and free wharves; that these wharves are exclu-
sively the property of the corporation, public only for the use 0f
the inhabitants; that since the service of the injunction on these
defendants, they had entered into an agreement with the plaintiff
Dugan, according to which they have continued to collect wharf-
age on the west side of the canal; and that the other plaintiffs
have, for a long time, ceased to consider themselves interested in
this cause.
On the 1st of March, 1830, The Mayor and City Council of
Baltimore, filed their bill here against Cumberland Dugan, in
which they set forth all the circumstances as admitted or averred
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