TALBOT COUNTY. 4553

public utility or making the same public improvement, shall again be sub-
mitted to the popular vote until at least two years have elapsed from the
date of the election at which said proposition was disapproved. No use
shall be made of the streets of said town by any individual or corporation
for the purpose of a railroad, trainway, telegraph line, telephone line,
electric light or power lines, electric subways or gas or water conduits or
pipe lines without the consent of the Mayor and Council, and subject to
such franchise tax and regulations as they may by ordinance prescribe;
and provided, further, that neither the Mayor nor any member of the
Council shall during his term of office be employed by the corporation in
any other than his official capacity, for compensation. Nor shall either
or any of them furnish any labor or material to the corporation. It shall
also be the duty of the Mayor and Council to provide by ordinance for
the organizing and maintaining of a fire department; provided, further,
that in the event that a majority of the voters shall determine in favor
of the purchase, construction or establishing of water works to supply the
said town with water, then the said Mayor and Council, before under-
taking to establish or construct any such water works, shall offer to pur-
chase and agree to purchase, the water works and appurtenances of the
Easton Water Company of Talbot county, provided the said Easton Water
Company of Talbot county will agree to sell to the said Mayor and Council
the water works and appurtenances of the Easton Water Company at a
price which will give to the several stockholders of the Easton Water Com-
pany of Talbot county the cost price of their respective holding of stock,
said stockholders to be the stockholders of record on the first day of Janu-
ary, 1906, and said cost price of said stock to said stockholders to be
ascertained by a commission to be composed of five members, and that
Joseph H. White, Alexander Fountain, Martin M. Higgins, Alexis G.
Pascault and Joseph B. Harrington shall be the said commissioners; and
in event of the death or resignation of either of said commissioners, or
their refusal to act, the vacancy shall be filled, if of the first or second
named by the Easton Water Company, and if of the third or fourth named
by the Mayor and Council of Easton, and if of the fifth by the State Sena-
tor of Talbot county, and that said board shall have full power to examine
the books and papers of the said Easton Water Company of Talbot county,
and to examine the several stockholders on oath as to the cost price of said
stock to said stockholders; provided, however, that no shares of stock shall
be valued at a less sum than fifteen dollars per share, and provided, fur-
ther, that the said Mayor and Council shall assume the bonded indebted-
ness of said company, to-wit, thirty thousand dollars; and in the event
that said Easton Water Company of Talbot county shall refuse to furnish
the information required by this section or shall decline to sell upon the
terms herein stated, then the said Mayor and Council shall be authorized
to construct a system of water works or to grant the franchise to a private
corporation to supply the said city with water and to contract therewith
for a supply for said city of Easton, but not otherwise.