Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/755

 A. A V. TEL. 00. V. V. P. ET. CO. 747 �a competitor and rival of plaintifï in the business of tele- graphing. �The Union Pacific Kailroad Company, by consolidation with another company, bas become the Union Pacific Eailway Company, by -which name it is sued. �The prayer of the bill is, among otber things, for an injunc- tion to restrain the defendants from disregarding the two con- tracta above mentioned, and from interfering with the prop- erty covered thereby, except as in said contracts provided, and from preventing the plaintiff from reconnecting the ■wires so as to restore them to their original condition before the same were eut. On the first of March it was ordered that the application for injunction be heard before me, at chambers at St. Louis, on the sixth of April, 1880, and in the laeantime a preliminary injunction was allowed. �The defendants bave answered fuUy, and numerous afi&da- vits bave been filed. Upon the record thus presented counsel bave been fully heard, both orally and by printed briefs. �The Union Pacific Eailway Company, defendants, admit the cutting of the wires as charged, as well as their purpose to disregard the contracts, and retake the telegraph lines and property, and in justification allege that said contracts were beyond the power of the company to make, contrary to pub- lic poliey, and in violation of the acts of congress chartering the Union Pacific Kailroad Company, and that they are there- fore void, The question of the validity of these contracts is the first to be considered. �1. The rules by which this question is to be determîned are now well settled, at least in the federal courts. They have been clearly stated by the supreme court in the recent case of Thomas et al. v. l^ke West Jersey li. Co. (not yet re- ported.) From the opinion in that case, delivered by Mr. Justice Miller, I make the following extracts, as laying down the law by which I must be guided : �" We take the general doctrine to be in this country, thougb there may be exceptional cases and some authorities to the contrary, that the powers of a corporation organized under legislative statutes are such and such only as those statutes ��� �