Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/733

 726 TEDKQAIi îtEPOBTEH. �tîons which those acts impose upon it for the benefit of the public. The amended biU, however, which was not before Judge McCrary when he decided that proposition, sets up an act approved July 2, 1864, entitled "An act for increasing the facilitiea of telegraph communication between the Atlantic and Pacific states and the territory of Idaho," and claims that by virtue of that statute the present contract is a valid one. The first section of that act declared that "the United States Telegraph Company and their associates were author- ized to erect a line of magnetic telegraph between the Mis- souri river and the city of San Francisco, in the state of California, on such route as they may select, to connect with the Unes of said United States Telegraph Company now con- structed and being constructed through the states of the Union." It gave the right of way over the public lands of the United States, and the right to draw materials for the construction of the line from the same public lands. The fourth section is as follows: "That the several railroad com- panies authorized by the act of congress of July 2, 1862, are authorized to enter into an arrangement with the United States Telegraph Company, bo that the line of telegraph be- tween the Missouri river and San Francisco may be made upon and along the line of said road and branches as fast as said road and branches are built. And if said arrangement be entered into, and the transfer of said telegraph line be made in accordance therewith, to the line of said railroad and branches, such transfer shall, for ail purposes of the act referred to, be held and considered a fulfilment on the part of said railroad companies of the provision in the act in re- gard to the construction of telegraph Unes. And in case of digagreement, said telegraph company is authorized to remove their line of telegraph along and upon the line of railroad therein contemplated, without prejudice to the rights of said railroad companies." �The allegation of the amended bill is that the Western Union Telegraph Company was, at the time it made the con- tract for the erection of the. telegraph line now in question, with the Kansas branch of the Pacific Bailroad Comnanv, the ����