|
CHAP. 136
|
and its works; and if the owner or owners of said land, canals,
waters, water-works, improvements, earth, timber, gravel,
stone, or other materials, and the said president and directors,
or their agents, cannot agree about the purchase of the same, or
the price of a temporary use and occupation, or if such owner
or proprietor be a feme covert, under age, non compos mentis,
or out of the county in which such property, articles or ma-
terials wanted, may lie, application may be made to a jus-
tice of the peace of the said county, and such justice shall
thereupon issue his warrant, under hand and seal, directed
to the sheriff of the county, and requiring him to sum-
mon a jury of twenty -four inhabitants of said county, not re-
lated to the parlies, nor in anywise interested, to meet on the
land, or near to the canals, waters, water- works, improvements
or materials, to be valued, and on a day named in said warrant,
not less than ten, nor more than twenty days alter the issuing of
the same; and if at least twenty of said jurors do not attend on
said day and at said place, the sheriff shall have power to sum-
mon immediately as many as may be necessary, with the jurors
first summoned and in attendance, to furnish a complete pan-
nel of twenty jurors in attendance, and from these both, the
company, or its agents, and the owner or owners, or his, her,
or their agent, or if either party be not present in person or by
agent, the sheriff for it, him, her or them, may strike off four
jurors, and the remaining twelve may and shall act as the jury
of inquest of damages; and before they act as such, the said she-
riff shall administer to each of them an oath, or affirmation, as
the cause may be, that he will faithfully, justly and impartially,
value said land, canals, water, water-works, improvements or
materials, to be valued, and all damages the owner or owners,
thereof will sustain by the use, occupation or destruction, of the
same, to the best of his skill and judgment, and that in making
such valuation he will not knowingly be actuated bv fear of, or
favour, affection, hatred, malice or ill-will, towards said com-
pany, or towards the person or persons whose property is to be
valued: and the jury, in estimating sucli damages, shall consi-
der and take into the estimate the benefits resulting to the
owner or proprietors from conducting said canal, or its works,
through or along or near to his land or property, but shall not
estimate such benefits where they exceed the damage, except to
the extinguishment of the claim for damages; and when the ju-
ry have agreed upon an estimate of the damages, their inquisi-
tion thereof shall be reduced to writing, and shall be signed by
the jurors, and by the said sheriff returned to the clerk or pro-
thonotary of his county, and by such clerk or prothonotary
filed in the court of which he is a clerk or prothonotary, and at
the next session of said court, if no sufficient cause be shewn
for setting aside said inquisition, the same shall be confirmed by
said court, and shall be recorded by such clerk or prothonotary
amongst the records of his court, at the expense of said compa-
ny; but if set aside by the court, the said court may in its dis-
cretion direct another inquisition to be taken in the manner-
above prescribed; and upon all valuations of property in the
above manner, the inquisition of the jury shall prescribe the
|
