402 FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



second, for a consolidation and trial of the three actions as one action. 

 These motions were denied at Special Term and appeals taken by the 

 defendant to the Appellate Division, and said appeals are now awaiting the 

 decision of that court, argument thereon being recently made. 



The defendant corporation for its own profit and advantage and with 

 full knowledge that its acts were in violation of the statute and Constitution 

 entered upon the lands of the State taking them for its corporate uses and 

 purposes and caused the destruction of a large quantity of timber thereon. 



In these actions the Department has succeeded in restraining the 

 invasion of the defendant upon the public rights in the public domain and 

 has sustained the integrity of the Constitution, the express prohibitions of 

 which the defendant corporation openly and defiantly violated. 



Fishway Litigation 



On August 6, 1906, James S. Whipple, Forest, Fish and Game Com- 

 missioner, made an order pursuant to section 209 of the Forest, Fish and 

 Game Law (chapter 20, Laws of 1900), requiring the Deposit Electric Com- 

 pany to erect an efficient fishway in its dam constructed and maintained 

 by it upon the west branch of the Delaware river at Stilesville in Delaware 

 county. 



The order provided the character of the fishway to be erected and the 

 method of its construction. The Deposit Electric Company pursuant to 

 statute permitting an application to be relieved from the order, applied to 

 the Supreme Court to vacate the order so made. Upon this application 

 the petitioner raised and urged several specific objections and reasons why 

 the said order should be vacated and set aside. The petitioner's contention 

 being that upon the facts as established by the proofs used upon the applica- 

 tion it was shown that the order made by the Forest, Fish and Game Com- 

 missioner was made without authority and should be vacated, and that the 

 statute directing the erection of a fishway was unconstitutional so far as 

 the dam of the petitioner was concerned, in that compliance with the order 

 amounted to an interference of vested rights and the taking of private 



