930 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [CH. 458

shall be collected as taxes are collected, or may be collected
by action at law as other debts are collected. On appeal the
court or jury may alter the award so returned, whether of dam-
ages or benefits, and award the costs in its discretion. On final
ratification of any report of a commission appointed under
the provisions of this section, the clerk to the City Council
shall at once record in a book, kept for that purpose, the said
return, plat and all proceedings connected therewith. And if
for any reason the person to whom damages are awarded shall
refuse to receive the damages assessed, or from infancy or any
other cause is prevented from receiving and receipting for same,
the damages so assessed shall be deposited in some bank, paying
interest on deposits, if any, to the credit of the person entitled
to such damages, and thereupon the Mayor and Council may
proceed in the same way as if the said damages had been paid
to the person or persons themselves and this proceeding shall
have the same effect.

Section 89. The Mayor and Council of Crisfield shall have
power to provide by ordinance for the establishment and change
from time to time of the grade lines of any streets, lane, alley
or part thereof now or hereafter marked, located or laid out, to
provide by ordinances for grading, macadamizing, paving and
curbing or for regrading, remacadamizing, repaving and re-
curbing of any street, lane, alley in said City or part thereof
now condemned, ceded, dedicated or opened as a public high-
way, or which may hereafter be condemned, ceded, dedicated
opened, widened, straightened or altered, according to the laws
and ordinances regulating same, and also assessing the cost of
any work, not exceeding one-half the cost, upon any property
binding upon streets, lanes, alley or highway or part thereof,
according to the front foot rule of apportionment of the cost of
improvement on an equitable basis, as it may determine, and
for the collection of said assessment, as other city taxes are col-
lected, or in such manner as it may prescribe, either before or
after the work shall have been done. To provide by ordinance
for grading, macadamizing, paving or curbing or for regrading,
remacadamizing, repaving or recurbing of any street, lane, alley
or highway or part thereof in said city, whenever the owners
of a majority of the front footage or of property binding on
such street, lane, alley or highway or part thereof shall apply
for the same, upon terms and under conditions to be prescribed
in said ordinances, and for the assessment in any such case of
the whole or any part of the costs of such work pro rata accord-
ing to the front foot rule of apportionment of the cost of the