CORPORATIONS. 731

diction, for the filling up and repaying of any street, lane or alley or road
under which the said pipes may be laid. Any corporation of this or any
other state which has heretofore been authorized by ordinance passed by
the municipal authorities of any city or town, or by order of the proper
authorities of any county, to lay or maintain mains, conduits, pipes or
other structures in streets, squares, lanes, alleys, roads or other public high-
ways and places for the transmission or supply of natural gas, is hereby
authorized and empowered to use such mains, conduits, pipes, or other
structures, whether now in place or hereafter constructed, for the trans-
mission and supply of artificial gas, or a mixture of natural and artificial
gas. Nothing herein shall be deemed to extend the duration of any fran-
chise granted by any city, town or county, or to change the terms or con-
ditions of any such franchise except as herein expressly set forth.

A corporation which has the right to use the streets of a city for its pipes for
manufactured gas for lighting purposes, may not prevent a foreign corporation
from laying pipes through the streets of the city, with the city's consent, to convey
natural gas for fuel and light. Rights of foreign, corporations. Cumberland Gas-
light Co. v. W. Va. Gas Co., 188 Fed. 585.

County commissioners have much greater powers over water companies laying
pipes than over gas companies, as shown by a comparison of this section with sec.
329. Consol. Gas Co. v. Baltimore County, 98 Md. 694 (decided in 1904).

For the regulations concerning gas and electric light companies prescribed in
the act creating the public service commission, see sec. 386, et seq.

As to " Fraud upon Gas Companies," see art. 27, secs. 179 and 180.

An. Code, sec. 150. 1904, sec. 143. 1888, sec. 111. 1890, ch. 588. 1894, ch. 308.

1910, ch. 55 (p. 72).

178. Any electric light or power company formed under this article
shall have full power to manufacture, sell and furnish such quantities of
electric light or electric power as may be required or desired in any city,
town or county of this State, in which or adjoining which the same may
be located, for lighting the streets, roads, public or private buildings, or
for motive power or other purposes, and such corporation is hereby author-
ized and empowered to lay, construct or build lines or conductors under,
along, upon or over the streets, squares, lanes, alleys and roads, paved or
unpaved, and connect the same with any manufactory, public or private
building, lamps or other structure or object, and with the place of supply,
after first securing the proper assent of the municipal authorities of said
city or town, or of the county commissioners of said county, under such
reasonable and proper regulations and conditions that may be prescribed
by them; subject, however, also to any law or ordinance that may be passed
by the municipal authorites of the city or town, or of the county commis-
ioners, having jurisdiction, for the filling up or restoring such streets or
roads to their former condition.

This section referred to in deciding that if a municipality has the power to grant
a franchise and a public service company uses the streets with the knowledge of
such municipality, the latter may in a proper case be estopped from asserting the
invalidity of the grant of the franchise; so far at least as concerns its own failure
to pass an ordinance or to effectuate the grant. Hagerstown v. Hagerstown Rwy.
Co., 123 Md. 190.

Where a special act of the legislature authorizes a corporation to transact any
business in which electricity is used, and confers upon it in Baltimore city all the
rights and privileges mentioned in this section, the successor of such corporation