ALBERT C. RITCHIE, GOVERNOR.                  197

FRANCHISES.

117.      The Mayor and Council of Chestertown may grant
specific franchises or rights in or relating to its highways,
avenues, streets, lanes, alleys, and parks; provided, however,
that no franchise of the town shall be granted to any corpora-
tion or individual, unless notice of the same shall have been
first published for at least two weeks in one or more news-
papers of the town of Chestertown; and no franchise, right or
privilege in relation to any highways, avenues, streets, alleys,
lanes, or parks, either on, above or below the surface of the
same, shall be granted for a longer period than twenty years.

GARBAGE.

118.      The Mayor and Council may establish and maintain
a garbage, sand, ash or trash collection and disposal service
within the corporate limits of said town, said garbage or ash

. or trash collection and disposal service to be established and
maintained by said Mayor and Council, either as a municipal
operation or by contract with such person, firm, or corporation
as may be satisfactory to the said Mayor and Council, and the
said Mayor and Council are hereby authorized and empowered
to pass such ordinances which they may deem necessary from
time to time in order to provide for the proper collection and
disposal of said garbage, ashes and trash and to prescribe1 such
penalties for the violation thereof as they may now prescribe
for the violation of town ordinances under the authority here-
tobefore granted by this Act.

FINANCES.

119.      The Mayor and Council shall not in any one year
expend for general purposes for the town more money than the
amount received from taxes and the amounts they shall have
received from the County Commissioners of Kent County, or
from any other source, and no contract for such excessive ex-
penditure shall be enforceable against them. Nothing in this
section shall be construed to prevent the Mayor and Council
from making any agreements or contracts for any special pur-
pose to be payable out of the funds to be thereafter derived.

FISCAL YEAR—BUDGET—AUDIT.

120.      The fiscal year shall begin on January 1st and end
on December 31st in each and every year; during the month of

* "Hereinbefore" evidently intended.