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382 THE WHARF CASE.
toll can be charged for any goods brought into it; yet, to avoid
confusion, if any one desires to have for himself the convenience
of a particular stall; the owners of the market may lawfully charge
toll for such a peculiar accommodation, (o)
Whence it is clear, that The Mayor and City Council of Balti-
more, who are the successors of the commissioners of Baltimore
town, (p) can have no right whatever to charge wharfage for the
use of these wharves, although they are the owners of the soil;
because no such right has been reserved or given to them in the
grant by which they make title to the property; or has been
reserved by the owner thereof at the time of its dedication to the
use of the public; and further, because it is strongly to be inferred
from the manner in which the grant itself speaks of a public wharf,
that the right to collect tolls was intentionally withheld; and more-
over, because these are public wharves, and the right to charge
wharfage for the use of all such wharves, is expressly prohibited
by a late act of Assembly, which leaves them free for the use of
all, and like the public streets, to be repaired at the common
expense of the city, (q)
It is laid down in general terms, as well in regard to a wharf
as a highway, that where an individual citizen is clearly under an
street, in Baltimore town, into the harbour or basin of said town, inasmuch as it is
expressly provided by the act of Assembly of this state, entitled an act appointing
wardens for the port of Baltimore town in Baltimore county, that no wharf shall be
extended so as to obstruct the said harbour or basin; and inasmuch as in the opinion
of this court no private person had or hath a right to extend a public street, or any
part thereof into the said harbour or basin; and the said wardens are only empow-
ered, as this court conceives, by the said act, so far as it respects the extension of
wharves, to give permission for extension of wharves to persons, who, independent
of the said act have a right by law to extend ground or wharves into the waters of
the said harbour, or rather, are only empowered to limit the extension of the ground
or wharves of such persons.
Thereupon it is Decreed, that the said defendants and each of them, be and they
Mid their ministers, agents and servants, hereby are absolutely and perpetually en-
joined to desist and surcease from injuring or obstructing the free navigation of the
north-west branch of Patapsco river to and from Calvert street in Baltimore town in
Baltimore county aforesaid, and the public wharf at the south end of the said Cal-
vert street, by putting earth, stone, timber, or other obstructions in the water of the
said river in front of the said street and wharf, and within that space of water of the
said north-west branch of Patapsco river, which is and will be included in and by
the lines of the east and west sides of Calvert street aforesaid, being run and ex-
tended into the said north-west branch of Patapsco river to the channel thereof.—
Chancery Proceedings, lib. S. H. H. letter B, fol 17.
(o) The Mayor of Northampton v. Ward, 1 Wils, 114.—(p) 1796, ch. 68.—
(q) 1813, ch. 118; Ex parte Vennor, 3 Atk. 772.
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