and the said towns or either of them, through their selectmen, or any city, through its city council, are hereby authorized to enter into contracts with said company for such purposes, from time to time, as they may deem expedient.

CHAP. 236

-city and contract with,

towns, may for such

purposes.

May hold real

SECT. 3. Said company is authorized and empowered, for the purpose of carrying on the business of lighting by electri- estate. city cities, towns, villages, public streets, parks, buildings and places, private houses, manufactories, places of business, worship and amusement, cars, steamboats and vessels, in said county of Cumberland; and the business of furnishing motive power by electricity within said places and limits; and the business of manufacturing and providing machinery, apparatus and appurtenances for the supply of said light and said power; to acquire, hold and alienate real and personal estate to the amount of the capital stock of said corporation; to purchase, hold, sell and use the stocks and bonds of other corporations organized or incorporated to do business similar to its own; and to build and operate manufactories and works for the providing and supply of electricity; but the foregoing shall not be construed, as authorizing the control or management of such other corporations, by said Consolidated Electric Light Company of Maine.

purchase and bonds of other

hold stock and

corporations.

-build

factories.

SECT. 4. Said company may secure its notes, bonds or May mortgage other evidences of indebtedness, by mortgage upon its franchise property.

and property in such amount as may be required for the purposes of said corporation, not exceeding the amount of its capital stock.

SECT. 3. This act shall take effect when approved.

Approved March 17, 1891.

Chapter 236.

An Act to incorporate the Hancock County Telephone and Telegraph Company.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives

in Legislature assembled, as follows:

SECT. 1. Everard H. Greely, George H. Grant and A. Corporators. W. King, their associates, successors and assigns, are hereby created a body politic by the name of the Hancock County -corporate Telephone and Telegraph Company, with all the rights and privileges, and subject to all the duties provided by the gen- privileges.

-rights and

CHAP. 236 eral laws of this state relating to corporations, with power by that name to sue and be sued, to have and use a common seal, to establish all by-laws and regulations for the management of its affairs, not repugnant to the laws of this state, and to do any and all lawful acts incident to similar corpora-may construct tions. Said corporation shall have the right to locate, construct, maintain and operate telephone and telegraph lines, from, between and in any of the cities and towns in the county of Hancock.

telephone and telegraph lines

in Hancock county.

May construct

lines upon any highway, etc.

Damages, how estimated.

Capital stock.

May issue bonds, and mortgage property.

First meeting, how called.

SECT. 2. Said company shall have the right within the limits aforesaid, to locate, construct and maintain and operate its lines upon any public way, bridge or private lands, but in such a manner as not to incommode or endanger the customary use of such way, road or bridge, with the right to cut down trees, remove obstacles where necessary within the limits aforesaid, except ornamental, fruit or shade trees, and with the power to establish and collect tolls on said line.

SECT. 3. If the land of any individual or corporation is taken under this act and the parties cannot agree on the damages occasioned thereby, they shall be estimated, secured and paid in the manner provided in case of land taken for railroads.

SECT. 4. The capital stock of said corporation shall be fixed by said corporation, but shall not exceed fifty thousand dollars, and the capital stock of said corporation may at any meeting of the stockholders called for the purpose, by a vote of the stockholders be increased to any amount not exceeding fifty thousand dollars. Said corporation may take, purchase, lease and hold such personal and real estate as may be necessary for the purposes of the corporation, and may sell and dispose of the same as it deems expedient.

SECT. 5. Said corporation may issue its bonds for the purchase, construction or operation of its plant, to an amount not exceeding the sum of its capital stock at the time, upon such rates and time as it may deem expedient, and may secure the same by a mortgage of its franchise and property.

SECT. 6. Any one of the corporators named in this act may call the first meeting of this company, by mailing a written notice to each of the other corporators, seven days at least before the day of meeting, naming the time, place and purposes of such meeting; and at such meeting a president,

secretary, treasurer and directors may be chosen, by-laws CHAP. 237 adopted, and any corporate business transacted.

SECT. 7. This act shall take effect when approved.

Approved March 17, 1891.

Chapter 237.

An Act in relation to Minority Stockholders of the Boston and Maine Railroad, and certain other railroad corporations.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Legislature assembled, as follows:

SECT. 1. The act relating to the Boston and Maine Railroad, approved the sixteenth day of March, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, authorizing sale, lease or consolidation by the corporations therein named, is so far modified that any agreement for lease, sale or consolidation which may hereafter be made by virtue thereof, shall be approved by twothirds of the stockholders present at any meeting lawfully called with reference thereto, instead of by one-half of the outstanding stock as therein provided.

Agreements for consolidation shall be

sale, lease or hereafter made,

approved by a two-thirds vote

of stockholders.

Stockholders, assent to lease,

deemed to

unless written

dissent is filed days.

within thirty

SECT. 2. Every stockholder of any corporation named in said act shall be deemed to assent to any sale, lease or consolidation, as provided therein, unless within thirty days from the approval of the same by the stockholders of the corporation in which he holds his stock, he shall file with the clerk of the purchasing corporation a writing declaring his dissent therefrom and stating the number of shares held by him and the number of the certificate, or certificates, evidencing the same. Provided, that as to all such leases, sales or consoli- —proviso. dations agreed to before this act goes into effect, said thirty days shall run from the time it goes into effect. Provided, proviso. however, that as against any stockholder legally incapacitated from acting for himself and having no legal guardian, such period of thirty days shall not begin to run until the removal of such incapacity by the appointment of a legal guardian, or otherwise.

SECT. 3. The shares of any stockholder dissenting as above specified, shall be acquired by the purchasing corporation, and shall be valued, and the value thereof be paid or tendered or deposited to or for account of such stockholder

Shares of dissenting stockholders,

shall be Corporation.

purchased by

-proceedings.

CHAP. 237 in the manner following; within thirty days from the filing of any stockholder's dissent, as above provided, the purchasing corporation shall file its petition in term time or in vacation in the clerk's office of the supreme judicial court sitting within and for any county in which it has its established place of business, setting forth the material facts and praying that the value of such dissenting stockholders' shares may be determined. Thereupon, after such notice to all parties concerned as the court or any judge thereof may deem proper, the court shall pass an order requiring such dissenting stockholders' certificate or certificates of stock to be deposited with the clerk of the court, and shall appoint three commissioners to ascertain and report the value of such dissenting stockholders' shares on the day of the approval of sale, lease or consolidation by the stockholders of the corporations, parties thereto. Said report shall be made to the court as soon as practicable, and after due notice to the parties in interest, it shall be accepted by the court; unless before such acceptance either of the parties to said proceeding shall claim a jury, in which case the court shall order the value of said shares to be tried and determined by a jury in the same manner as other civil cases are tried. The commissioner's report, or the verdict, when accepted by the court, shall be final and conclusive as to the value of such dissenting stockholders' shares; and the amount so ascertained as such value shall be at once paid or tendered to such stockholder; or, if such payment or tender be for any cause impracticable, the amount shall be deposited in court; upon such payment or tender or deposit, the shares of such dissenting stockholder, and the certificate or certificates thereof, shall become the property of the purchasing corporation, whose right and title thereto may be enforced by the court by any proper order or process. Exceptions may be taken to any ruling or order, to be heard and determined by the full court as in other civil cases.

Court, may

make orders for

enforcement of

party to proceedings.

SECT. 4. The court may make all such orders for the enforcement of the rights of any party to the proceeding for the rights of any the consolidation of two or more petitions and their reference to the same commissioners for the consolidation of claims for a jury and the trial of two or more cases by the same jury, and for the payment of interest upon the value of a stockholder's shares as determined, and the payment of costs by

one party to the other, as justice and equity and the speedy CHAP. 238 settlement of the matters in controversy may require.

words

SECT. 5. The words, purchasing corporation, wherever Construction of used herein, shall be held to include the corporation which is "purchasing, to acquire possession and control, whether it be by purchase, lease or consolidation.

SECT. 6. No statute shall be construed as repealing or affecting any part of this statute; except so far as the same shall specially declare otherwise.

SECT. 7. This act shall take effect when approved.

Approved March 17, 1891.

corporation."

No statute shall repealing this

be construed as

act.

Chapter 238.

An Act to make valid the doings of the Eastport Gas and Electric Company.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Legislature assembled, as follows:

company, made

The acts of the Eastport Gas and Electric Company organ- Doings of ized under the general laws of Maine, having its place of valid. business at Eastport, Maine, in purchasing the rights and franchises of the Eastport Gas Company and the Eastport Electric Company, and in issuing bonds and stock to pay for the same, are hereby made valid, so far as the same appear of record, and conforms to the purposes of its organization.

Approved March 17, 1891.

Chapter 239.

An Act to authorize the city of Calais to erect and maintain a soldiers' monument.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Legislature assembled, as follows:

The city of Calais is hereby authorized to erect and maintain a monument in memory of its soldiers and sailors in the war of the rebellion, and the city council may set apart and dedicate such portion of any street as it may deem proper for the location of such monument and occupy the same for that purpose.

Approved March 17, 1891.

city of Calais, erect a soldiers?

authorized to

monument.