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452 THE BELLONA COMPANY'S CASE.
of the country, and, therefore, they are, as regards their property
at least, pure citizens to all intents and purposes whatever, (h)
The fifteenth section gives to the defendants a voluntary, and a
compulsory mode of acquiring land for the use of their rail road
from the owners of it. They may agree with the owners if they
can; if not then, they may force the owners to alienate in the man-
ner prescribed. There is not the slightest intimation of any dis-
tinction as to the character of the owners so spoken of; except
where it is said that if the owner s j or any of them, be a feme covert,
&c. But this rather tends to enlarge than restrain the comprehen-
sive meaning of the term owners, by which all must be embraced,
whether natural or artificial persons; bodies politic as well as indi-
viduals. So far it seems to be admitted, that this act is clear of
all ambiguity.
But the sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth sections do not, in
any manner, modify or restrain the general terms of the fifteenth
section. It appeared, that the proposed rail road, in its route,
must cross many highways; and that it might be convenient to
allow it to pass along the same route then occupied by an existing
turnpike, or over a public bridge; and it also appeared, that in all
this there was nothing so incompatible as that the one road should
be allowed to obstruct or destroy the other. And therefore it was
declared, that the defendants should be authorized to construct
their rail road across any established road, so that it did not impede
its passage; and also, that they might contract for the use of any
turnpike or bridge with which it might be necessary or advanta-
geous to connect their rail road. The manifest intention of these
enactments was to provide for the preservation of the then existing
and established public uses to which any land might have been
subjected; so that, in creating one public convenience another
public convenience might not be destroyed. It was the preserva-
tion and making compatible with each other two or more public
uses which might be brought into collision with each other, so that
the people might be deprived of none of their public benefits,
which was the sole and only object of these latter sections; and
considered in this light they accord, in every respect, and perfectly,
with all that is declared in the fifteenth section; and can, by no
means, be considered as altering or restraining any right or power
{k) Nabob of Arcot v.The East India Company, 3 Bro. C. C. 303.
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