514. Erection of school-houses to be under direction of board. To advertise for proposals. Contract to lowest bidder.

515. Board authorized to enter and occupy ground for school purposes. To designate and locate the same. Bond.

516. Jury of six citizens to assess damages. Meeting of viewers. Notice. Oath. Duties of viewers. How damages to be paid.

517. Pay of viewers. Appeal.

518. Board to examine all disbursements in erecting and maintaining school-houses.

519. Moneys to be paid to city treasurer and paid out on orders.

(3.) SCHOOLS, &C.

520. May establish a central high school.

521. Academic degrees.

592. Exclusive jurisdiction of municipal authorities and courts.

593. Councils may direct streets on the city plan to be opened. Damages. Security. Benefits.

594. City may petition for appointment of viewers. 595. Proceedings.

596. Mode of assessment of damages.

597. Appointment of viewers.

598. Notice of meetings. Duties of city solicitor. 599. City solicitor to procure plan.

600. Damages not to be paid unless assessed by a jury.

601. Viewers to procure releases. To assess both damages and benefits. Appeal or review.

602. Jurisdiction not to be exercised except upon

the report of a jury.

603. Compensation of viewers.

604. Benefits.

605. Finding of jury as to benefits.

606. Claims against owners benefited. Lien.

607. Councils may refuse to appropriate until persons benefited shall have contributed.

608. When reports of road jurors to be made. 609. Road docket to be kept. When exceptions to be filed.

610. No report to be set aside unless on exceptions filed in the court below.

611. When buildings may be left.

612. Buildings not to be erected on confirmed

streets.

(3.) WIDENING AND ALTERING STREETS. 613. Streets occupied by the Pennsylvania Railroad may be widened.

614. Streets on the city plan may be widened and altered.

615. Board of surveys to approve.

635. Railroad tracks not to be located on Broad street.

636. Duty of councils. Removal of tracks.

640. To be regulated, graded, paved and repaved, curbed and recurbed, at expense of owner.

641. Councils may regulate curb lines and heights. 642. Councils may fix, cost of paving sewers and water pipes.

643. When councils may require the curbing and paving of footways on unpaved streets.

644. When the city may itself curb, pave or repair. 645. Councils to pass ordinances.

646. Paving footways in the twenty-second and twenty-fourth wards.

647. When city may do the work. 648. Repairing.

649. Curbstones and brick pavements. 650. Two citizens may petition.

651. Owners in the twenty-second ward may lay out and maintain sidewalks.

XXIV. VAULTS.

652. Iron grates over vault openings. Penalty for violation. Repairs.

XXV. BRIDGES.

653. City may construct bridges over ravines and streams.

XXVI. MEADOW BANKS.

654. Repair of meadow banks. Notice. Lien.

665. Scire facias to be served by posting and publication.

666. Claim to be evidence. Pleading. 667. Levari facias.

668. Advertising not required. City solicitor to search for owner and to notify him to pay.

669. On refusal to pay, scire facias to be served by posting and advertising.

670. Judgment by default.

671. Where owner has known residence in city. 672. Where he has an ascertained residence outside the city.

673. Where the name and address of owner could not be ascertained.

674. Commissions to city solicitor.

675. Service of scire facias by posting and publication where the registered owner is a non-resident and cannot be found in the city.

676. Notice to issue scire facias. 677. Claim may be paid into court.

678. What must be proved on the trial.

(5.) SHERIFFS' SALES.

679. When sales to take place.

680. Effect on lien of mortgage.

681. Mortgage not to be discharged unless claim was registered before mortgage was recorded. 682. Ground-rents not to be divested.

XXXII. CITY CONTRACTS.

(1.) REQUIREMENTS OF CONTRACTS. 715. To be in writing. How executed. To be countersigned and registered, and copies to be furnished. 716. To be based on estimates. Limited by appropriation.

717. Designate item of appropriation. Numbered and charged against item. 718. When ordinance required. Contracts by heads of departments. Supervision of councils.

719. Contracts for supplies. Yearly estimates. Proposals.

720. Supplies to be furnished under contract to the lowest bidder.

721. Officers not to be interested in contracts.

(2.) BIDS AND PROPOSALS.

722. Public advertising.

(3.) LIABILITY OF THE CITY.

723. Debts and contracts must be authorized. 724. City not liable for assessments.

725. No contract to be made without a previous appropriation. No warrant to be drawn against an item in excess thereof. Penalty for violation.

(4.) OF THE CONTRACTOR.

726. No contract to be made with any officer or employé. (5.) SECURITY.

727. Guarantee or fidelity company may be taken as surety.

XXXIII. CITY INDEBTEDNESS.

(1.) OF THE CITY DEBT.

728. City debt consolidated.

729. Taxed to pay annual interest.

730. Temporary loans.

731. City authorized to issue bonds to the amount

of five millions of dollars.

732. Authority to fund the floating debt.

733. Authority to reissue bonds as they mature.

734. Limitation of debt.

735. Debt not to be increased beyond the limitation. Proviso.

736. Authority to increase indebtedness one per centum. Ordinance. Tax to pay interest.

(2.) CITY LOANS.

737. Transfer of city loans.

(3.) SINKING fund.

738. Commission to continue.

739. Sale of investments.

(4.) FINANCIAL STATEMENT. 740. To be published annually.

(n) Under the act 8 May 1889, P. L. 133, title "Municipal Corporations," the city of Philadelphia being the only city in the state of Pennsylvania containing a population of six hundred thousand or over, is the only city of the first class. The early government of Philadelphia, prior to the city charter of 1701, remains in considerable obscurity. The first record of the subject occurs in the proceedings of the provincial council, held 26 July 1684, at which Tho. Lloyd, Tho. Holme and Wm. Haigue were appointed to draw up a charter for Philadelphia to be made a borough, consisting of a mayor and six aldermen, and to call to their assistance any of the Council." There is no record that this committee ever reported, but the evidence is most convincing that shortly afterwards a charter of some kind, either a borough or city charter, was granted. Previously to the charter of 1701, Philadelphia is referred to as a city at least three times in the proceedings of the provincial council; on 28 March 1684, when a bill was read concerning members of council and assembly "for ye Citty of Philadelphia;" on 18 November 1687, when John Claypoole was authorized to act as sheriff "for the city and county of Philadelphia; "and on 2 January 1689-90, at which a letter from Wm. Penn was read, in which he refers to the province building him a house "in the city for my reception.' As the first of these entries occurs before the appointment of the committee to draft a borough charter, and as in all other instances Philadelphia is referred to as the "towne of Philadelphia, Wm. Penn himself, in a later letter of 12 August 1689, referring to it as "that towne you meet in," it seems that very little significance can be attached to the occasional reference to the "city" of Philadelphia, and that the words "city" and "town" were of common, indiscriminate use. In the year 1887, a paper was discovered among the effects of Colonel Clement Biddle, a distinguished revolutionary officer, which purports to be a city charter under date of 20 May 1691. It is signed by Thomas Lloyd, deputy governor, and is recorded in Patent Book A, 29 May 1691. It recites that "I have by virtue of the King's letters patent under the great seal of England erected the said town into a Burrough and by these presents do erect the said town and Burrough of Philadelphia into a City." The great seal is detached from this paper, but otherwise it bears evidence of authenticity, This charter was, however, undoubtedly never acted under, and probably for want of authority in the deputy governor in granting it; as it is noticeable that the borough charter of Germantown, which was granted on the 30th day of the same month, was signed by Wm. Penn himself, and at the foot of the charter he has written in his own hand: "Lett this pass the great seale. Wm. Penn." "To Tho. Lloyd, keeper thereof, in Pennsylvania." And yet this paper is strongly confirmatory of the fact that, before this, Philadelphia had a borough charter. It expressly refers to having "erected the said town into a borough," the same words which are recited in the charter of 1701. These are positive statements both from the proprietary and the deputy governor that Philadelphia had, prior to 1701 and to 1691, a borough charter, and it further seems improbable that the proprietary would, as early as 1691, have erected Germantown into a borough and have passed over his favorite city of Philadelphia. It is generally believed that the original borough charter of Philadelphia is still in existence, and will at time be discovered and returned to the State Department.

some

From 1701 to the revolution, Philadelphia acted under the charter of Wm. Penn granted 25 October 1701. This charter ceased at the revolution, and from that time the city was regulated by boards of commissioners and others until the charter of 11 March 1789 was granted by the legislature. By this charter

P. L. 21.

the city was incorporated by the name and style of "The Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of Philadelphia," and by virtue of that charter the city of Philadelphia remains a corporation to this day. The consolidation act of 2 February 1854 was not a new charter; it simply changed the name to "the city of Philadelphia," increased its boundaries, and made certain variations in its powers and duties. So the act 1 June 1885, commonly known as the "Bullitt bill." is not a new charter, as generally supposed, but operates simply on the organization and powers of the various city departments.

Philadelphia was laid out in 1682 and 1683 by Thomas Holme, and extended from Vine to South, and from the Delaware to the Schuylkill. "On the river at Wicacoa," says Acrelius, "a high, dry and pleasant place, the city of Philadelphia was laid out. The land for it, consisting of three hundred and sixty acres, was given by three brothers of the Swaenson family upon condition that two hundred acres should be given to each of them in another place in the city, which are now called the Northern Liberties' of the city, with a yearly rent of one-half bushel of wheat for each one hundred acres. Those who bought land in the country had building lots given to them in the city. Its first charter was given in 1682 (there is no authority for this statement) and its socalled 'Liberties' extended three English miles beyond the city between two navigable streams, the Delaware and Schuykill."

Proud says: "The proprietary being now returned from Maryland to Coquannock, the place so-called by the Indians, where Philadelphia now stands, began to purchase lands of the Indians.

There seems to have been a dispute as to the northern boundary of the old city of Philadelphia. At a meeting of the Common Council on the 2d day of February, 1704-5, the following minute occurs: "This Council being informed that the bounds of this city is encroached upon and that it is suggested that it terminates northward on the river Delaware at the Penny Pot House, whereas it is made to appear to this Council that it extends to the run on this side Daniel Pegg's land, and so was at first laid out; it is therefore ordered that the recorder consider on some proper and legal method to ascertain the true bounds thereof, and report the same at the next meeting." The Penny Pot House, which stood on the north side of Vine street, as originally laid out, but was included in the additional width when Vine street was widened, in 1690, to one hundred feet between Front street and the Delaware, was subsequently, in 1851, decided by the Supreme Court, in the Penny Pot Landing Case, 16 P. S. 79, to belong to the city of Philadelphia.

The charter of 1701 provided that the bounds of the city should "extend the limits and bounds, as it is now laid out between Delaware and Schuylkill."

The country outside the city limits, as it became populated, was incorporated into districts. "Southwark was incorporated 26 March 1762, 1 Sm. L. 248. It was bounded by South street, Passyunk road, Moyamensing road, Keeler's lane, Greenwich road, and the river Delaware.

The "Northern Liberties" was incorporated 28 March 1803, P. L. 476, and extended from the Delaware river to Sixth street, and from Vine street to Cohocksink creek.

Moyamensing" was incorporated as a township by act of 24 March 1812, P. L. 146.

"Spring Garden" was created a district by act of 22 March 1813, P. L. 136. It extended from Vine to Coates, and from Sixth to Broad streets. By the act of 21 March 1827, P. L. 65, the northern boundary was extended to a point two hundred feet north of the north side of Poplar street, and the Schuylkill river was made the western boundary.

"Kensington" district was incorporated 6 March 1820, P. L. 51. It extended from the Delaware river