16 



payment necessarily included the whole value of the inherit- 

 ance, leaving nothing further to he paid to the owners, at any 

 time or under any circumstances. It was the full market 

 value of the land at the time, and no objection was ever 

 made to such valuations by the parties in interest. 



The validity of a similar Act of the Legislature was fully 

 sustained by the Court of Appeals, in this State, in the case 

 of Hay wards Executors, against the City of New York, 

 (7, 1ST. Y. R., 486,) where a portion of the Almshouse 

 grounds, which the City had taken for public purj)oses, was 

 sold under similar circumstances. The Court held, in that 

 case, not only that the Legislature had power to authorize 

 a municipal corporation, to acquire a fee simple title to the 

 lands of private persons required for public purposes, upon 

 the payment of a just compensation, to be fixed by Com- 

 missioners appointed by the Court ; but that when so ac- 

 quired, no reversionary estate or interest remained in the 

 former proprietors. It held, furthermore, that if the public 

 exigencies required the subsequent conversion of lands thus 

 acquired to some other purpose than that for which they 

 were originally taken, they might be so converted and sold 

 without any accountability to the former proprietors. And 

 this decision appears to the Commissioners to be manifestly 

 equitable and just: for, if when the particular object for 

 which the land was taken had ceased to exist, it should by 

 any operation of law be allowed to return to the owners, 

 they having received full compensation for their relinquish- 

 ment of it to the public use, it must necessarily follow that 

 they would not only have their land again, but its price 

 also. No one, we think, will fail to see the iniquity of such 

 an extraordinary result as is here suggested. 



The owners, then, having received payment in full, and 

 the fee of the land being absolutely vested in the City, the 



