92 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [CH. 58

CHAPTER 58.

AN ACT to authorize and empower the Mayor and Council of
Hagerstown to acquire, by purchase, the plant of the Wash-
ington County Water Company, including all of its real and
personal property, rights, privileges, waters, streams of
water, waterways, watercourses, easements and franchises,
at a price to be determined through a valuation of said plant
to be made by the Public Service Commission of Maryland,
to issue bonds to pay for the same, with power to enlarge
and improve said plant and provide working capital there-
for by issuing bonds in amounts necessary for said purposes,
to authorize and empower the Mayor and Council of Ha-
gerstown to operate said plant, to pass all ordinances, rules
and regulations incident thereto, to assume, if desired, in the
purchase of said plant, the present bonded indebtedness
thereon, and to levy taxes for the payment of any deficien-
cies that may arise in the operation of said plant, for the
payment of the interest on the bonds herein authorized to
be issued or assumed, and for the redemption of said bonds,
and directing the submission of the question of the purchase
of said plant to the qualified voters of the City of Hagers-
town at the regular election to be held on March 25, 1918,
or at a special election to be held prior to May 1, 1918.

WHEREAS, it is the opinion of the Mayor and Council of
Hagerstown, that an enlarged and improved supply of soft
and potable water, to be used by the citizens of Hagerstown
for domestic, manufacturing, fire and other purposes, can be
more promptly and adequately secured from a water system
municipally owned and operated, than from one controlled by
a private corporation; and

WHEREAS, the Board of Directors of The Washington
County Water Company, which now furnishes water to the
inhabitants of Hagerstown, did, by resolution dated the 29th
day of December, 1917, express their willingness to sell the
entire plant of said Company to the Mayor and Council of
Hagerstown, at a valuation to be determined by the Public
Service Commission of Maryland, conditioned, however, upon
the agreement on the part of the said Mayor and Council of
Hagerstown to accept the valuation so to be fixed by the Pub-
lic Service Commission of Maryland as the price at which the
question of the purchase of said plant should be submitted to
the qualified voters of Hagerstown, and subject to the ratifica-