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PREFACE.

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The Code of Ordinances for The City of New York, approved by the Mayor on November 8, 1906, will be very generally received with satisfaction as being a step in the right direction towards making one comprehensive body of municipal law for this city. It must be distinctly borne in mind, however, that this Code is merely a codification of ordinances as existing on January 1, 1906, and is not a revision. Many now obsolete ordinances have been omitted from this new Code, and the ordinances of the cities and villages included within The Greater New York are herein gathered together in one complete ordinance. While much has been done it is hoped that a thorough revision will soon follow.

This Code was prepared pursuant to section 57 of the Greater New York Charter, which prescribes that there shall be published annually a compilation of general ordinances in force on January first of each year. The present Board of Aldermen is the first to comply with this section of the

charter.

Under the Laws of 1904, chapter 628, it was provided that the Sanitary Code, Building Code and Park Regulations in force on May 1, 1904, should become chapters in the Code of Ordinances of New York city, and it was further provided that any amendments to the Sanitary Code and Park Regulations made thereafter should be filed with the City Clerk. In pursuance of this act the present Code includes the Sanitary Code, Building Code and Park Rules as separate chapters so that the Code as adopted really includes almost the entire body of municipal law in force in New York city at the present time. It is very gratifying to have these important subjects thus established by the ordinances, where they may readily be found together with any amendments.

The cases cited in the notes were chiefly collected by the writer while serving as Assistant Corporation Counsel in charge of the Bureau for the Recovery of Penalties. There are added a few leading cases which may be of use. The index has been prepared with special care to try and give the reference to those matters which the writer has found in his experience were of special interest and importance. The Code includes so many distinct matters that it has been necessary to group them under general headings in order to bring the index within reasonable size.

In the new Code it became necessary to change names and official titles made obsolete by the passing of the Greater New York Charter to the names of the new officials. For

instance, the "Commissioners of Public Works is changed to "Borough President," and the reference "with verbal changes,” in practically all instances, means a mere change of names.

There is given after each section in parenthesis a reference to the original ordinance from which such section is derived. These references were inserted by the writer, and are not a part of the Code as adopted by the Board of Aldermen.

ARTHUR F. COSBY,

32 Liberty Street, N. Y.

December 15, 1906.

Report of Committee

OF THE

Board of Aldermen on Codification of Ordinances.

The Committee on Codification of Ordinances hereby reports that they have examined the entire subject of the ordinances of The City of New York, as well as the material in the proposed code of ordinances referred to this committee on the 9th day of January, 1906.

Your committee herewith presents a compilation of all ordinances of The City of New York, including all such ordinances as are mentioned in sections 41 and 57 of the Greater New York Charter, together with all new ordinances and amendments of same which have been adopted, and have become existing ordinances up to January 1, 1906.

Your committee have not reported anything as an existing ordinance, which has in it any new matter or has been revised in any manner whatsoever. Nor have this committee eliminated from their report any formerly existing ordinance, or part of an ordinance, which has not clearly been repealed by subsequent legislation or ordinance, or which has not been decided by the highest courts of this State to be of no force and effect.

In order to preserve certain well known ordinances, which have been repealed by the changes made necessary by the provisions of the Greater New York charter, your committee have reported the same, not as existing ordinances, but as ordinances whose immediate re-enactment by this board, with the substitution of such words as are suggested in the committee's report, is recommended. Instances of such ordinances are to be found where the ordinance relates solely to some locality, such as the Borough of Manhattan, or the Borough of Brooklyn. and where the words formerly contained in such ordinance were "The City of New York," or "the City of Brooklyn," and where the duties of a designated office have devolved upon an official with a different title. In other words, the changes recommended are in cases where the name of some locality, or of some office, or the sense of the words, has been changed by the language of the Greater New York Charter, or of some State law.

Your committee, in its treatment and report of the existing ordinances, have considered only such acts as constitute the local laws of the city enacted by the Board of Aldermen, or similar body, and duly approved by the Mayor, or returned without his approval in such a manner that they have become ordinances by force of statute, and which are continuing_in their nature, force and effect, and are either rules under which the government of The City of New York is administered, or rules for the guidance or regulation of the conduct of the citizens of said city. This report contains only such acts of the legislative body of this city as fall within the foregoing definition of an ordinance.

Your committee are not satisfied with the form or language of many of these ordinances, but a careful study of this subject has led the committee to believe that it is absolutely essential to adopt some code of ordinances that shall contain all the ordinances of this city, without reference to previously existing codes, in order that the code now adopted may be properly revised and corrected in the future, and your committee therefore ask this board to refer this whole matter back to this committee for revision when the recommendations of this committee shall have been adopted.

For the purpose of clearing up a very confused state of affairs, your committee recommended that with the adoption of this report, this board shall also adopt a general repealing clause, wiping out all ordinances that were in effect January 1, 1906, and adopting anew the ordinances as presented in this report as the existing ordinances of The City of New York, up to the date of January 1, 1906, together with such ordinances in their corrected form as are herein recommended for re-enactment.

For the purpose of carrying into effect the last preceding recommendation with greater clearness, this committee have stricken out the repealing clause of each ordinance, and also the clause designating when each ordinance shall take effect, for the reason that these clauses are now unnecessary. This is apparent from the fact that when this committee's report shall have been adopted, the ordinances herewith reported will supersede everything that has gone before, and will go into effect at the same instant of time that the repeal of all former ordinances as herein suggested, will take place. Your committee find that the ordinances herewith reported divide themselves into five general classes:

First The general ordinances applying throughout the entire confines of The City of New York, together with such ordinances of a general character as are recommended for re-enactment as general ordinances, including the Sanitary Code, the Building Code, and the Park Regulations.

Second Local ordinances as amended to January 1, 1906, comprising such chapters and articles of the former revised