396 



sales should be paid over to the Commissioners of the Sinking 

 Fund, for the redemption of the bonds issued by the city for 

 the purchase and improvement of the park. And as prepara- 

 tory to the making of sales, the Commissioners were authorized 

 to regulate, drain, and grade the lands proposed to be sold, and 

 to lay out such streets and avenues thereon as they might think 

 proper, and further to improve the land in their discretion, at 

 a total expense not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars. 



The legality of this act of the Legislature was, however, 

 questioned by some of our citizens, who urged that the city 

 had no saleable interest in the land, forasmuch as it was taken 

 for the purposes of a park only, and that if it ceased to be used 

 as such, the right of possession would at once revert to its 

 original owners. They further urged, that in any event the 

 land had been pledged to the bondholders, for the payment of 

 the bonds issued by the city for its purchase, and was also 

 virtually pledged for park purposes to the owners of adjacent 

 property, whose taxes had been largely increased by means of 

 the improvement of the park. And for these reasons they 

 claimed that the city could not make a good title to the land 

 in the event of a sale. 



Notwithstanding these suggestions, and with a view of test- 

 ing, at as early a day as practicable, the validity of this act of 

 the Legislature, and the right of the city to make an absolute 

 sale of the property, the Commissioners at once proceeded to 

 sell a portion of the land at public auction. The purchaser, 

 however, acting under the advice of counsel, subsequently 

 declined to accept a deed, or to pay the purchase money. 

 Whereupon an action to enforce a specific performance of the 

 contract of sale was commenced in the Supreme Court, and a 

 case having been made thereon, was speedily submitted to the 

 General Term, and judgment rendered in favor of the Commis- 

 sioners. The opinion of the court, as delivered by the Hon. 

 Justice Gilbert, and concurred in by all the other judges, will 

 be found appended to this Report. The purchaser immediately 

 appealed to the court of last resort, but the Commissioners en- 

 tertain no doubt that the judgment of the Supreme Court, at 

 least so far as relates to the right of the city to sell and con- 

 vey the land in fee, will be fully sustained by the Court of 

 Appeals. 



