776 LAWS OF MARYLAND.

or construct to enclose to keep open to regulate and to keep in
repair all necessary and useful drains and sewers and to de-
mand and obtain for the bailiff employees, workmen and
laborers in the service of the town the right to enter any
private property and premises for the purpose of improving the
condition of any such drains or sewers or opening the same
when they have become closed or obstructed; to rebuilt or re-
pair them when they require rebuilding or repairing and also
to provide penalties in the case of persons who resist any em-
ployes workmen all laborers in the service of the town; and to
forbid and prevent any parties or persons from obstructing
such drains or placing upon or over any drain or sewer, coal
wood or heavy masses of any kind and from erecting buildings
thereon and to provide penalties for obstructing or covering
any drain or sewer with coals wood or other heavy mass or
with any building or for improperly interfering with any such
drain or sewer in said town; to grant and regulate franchises
to electric light companies, power companies, gas companies
telephone companies, telegraph companies, street railway com-
panies, sewer or drain companies, and to regulate the charges
for service or for the products of such companies as now pos-
sess or may hereafter obtain franchises in said city; all such
franchises shall be for a definite term of years, not exceeding
twenty-five years, and be renewable at the discretion of the
Commissioners of Cambridge, and shall especially set out the
nature, right and duration of the same, and no power or right
not expressed in the franchise or grant shall pass thereunder;
and the said Commissioners of Cambridge notwithstanding
anything that may be set out in any such franchises or grant,
shall not have the power to divest itself of the right to regulate
and control the use of the rights under any franchise granted
or that may be granted by it, and to fix and regulate the
charges for service whenever they deem the public interest may
require it; to regulate the use of streets, lanes and alleys in
said city by railway or other tracks, gas or other pipes, tele-
graph, telephone, electric light or other wires and poles in,
under, over and upon the same, and to require all such wires
to be placed underground after such reasonable notice as it
may prescribe; to provide a series of conduits under the streets,
lanes and alleys of said city, or any part or parts thereof, for
the use of telegraph, telephone, electric light and other wires,
either by constructing said conduits itself or authorizing their
construction by such person or corporation, and upon such
terms as may be agreed upon; to require all such wires or any
part or parts thereof and the poles carrying the same to be re-
moved from the surface of the streets, lanes or alleys of said
city or any part or parts thereof, and to require such wires to