vides for an action and authorizes a recovery against any person who by selling or furnishing the intoxicating drink causes or furnished any intoxicating liquors which were drank by him on the day or about the time of such intoxication. Kerkow v. Bauer, 15 Neb. 150. The following are the important sections of the Nebraska act, in chapter 50, Revised Statutes: "Sec. 11. All persons who shall sell or give away, upon any pretext, malt, spirituous or vinous liquors, or any intoxicating drinks, without having first complied with the provisions of this act, and obtained a license as herein set forth, . . . shall be liable in all respects to the public and to individuals the same as he would have been had he given bonds and obtained license as herein provided. "Sec. 15. The person so licensed shall pay all damages that the community or individualɛ may sustain in consequence of such traffic; he shall support all paupers, widows and orphans, and the expenses of all civil and criminal prosecutions growing out of or justly attributable to the traffic in intoxicating drinks, etc. "Sec. 16. It shall be lawful for any married woman or any other person at her request to institute and maintain in her own name a suit on any such bond for all damages sustained by herself and children on account of such traffic, etc. "Sec. 18. On the trial of any suit under the provisions hereof, the cause or foundation of which shall be the acts done or injuries inflicted by a person under the influence of liquor, it shall only be necessary, to sustain the action, to prove that the defendant or defendants sold or gave liquor to the person so intoxicated or under the influence of liquor, whose acts or injuries are complained of, on that day or about that time when said acts were committed or said injuries received," etc. As to the scope or facility of redress under this legislation, the court in the case last cited say: "We cannot apply the commonlaw rules of pleading to this case. While the law provides for licensing the sale of intoxicating liquors, it regards the making of a person intoxicated, or the selling or furnishing a person intoxicating liquors with which he makes himself intoxicated, as a tort or wrong, and holds such person so selling or furnishing responsible for certain of the consequences of such intoxication. And to provide against the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of proving whether it was the first, middle or last drink that caused the intoxication, the statute provides that in such cases 'it shall only be necessary, to sustain the action, to prove that the defendant or defendants sold or gave liquor to the person so intoxicated or under the influence of liquor, whose acts or injuries are complained of, on that day or about that time when said acts were committed or said injuries received.' While this statute does not in terms state what it will be necessary to plead or allege in such case, yet when we consider the object and office of pleading, we must regard the provision of the section as applying as well to the pleading as to the proof. If I am correct in this view, then it made no difference that each of the defendants was doing business for and by himself, and sold each his separate glass of liquor to the deceased as his individual act in which the other two defendants had no interest. While the act of each defendant in selling the liquor was his own individual act, "in whole or in part" the intoxication, habitual or otherwise, there is no apportionment of damages; full recovery is allowed against any one who contributed to the statutory wrong.1 1 § 378. Public grants of titles and franchises. The words of a private grant are taken most strongly against the grantor,2 though if the meaning cannot be discovered the instrument is void. But this rule is reversed in cases of public grants. They are construed strictly in favor of the government on grounds of public policy. If the meaning of the words be yet the law makes them in certain contingencies jointly interested in and responsible for the intoxication caused thereby. And it was only necessary to allege and prove the fact of selling or furnishing intoxicating liquors by the defendants to the deceased on or about the day of his intoxication." 1 Neuerberg v. Gaulter, 4 Ill. App. 348; Bryant v. Tidgewill, 133 Mass. 86; Werner v. Edmiston, 24 Kan. 147; O'Leary v. Frisbey, 17 Ill. App. 553; Rantz v. Barnes, 40 Ohio St. 43; Aldrich v. Parnell, 147 Mass. 409. In the Michigan statute this liability is not declared in terms to attach to any person who causes the intoxication "in whole or in part," but the same rule is applied. Graves, J., speaking for the court in Steele v. Thompson, 42 Mich. 596, said: "The question is one of construction; and whatever opinion may have been formed in other states of provisions having some resemblance to ours, we must attend to the sense and spirit of our own enactments and judge accordingly. Now the statute we are considering proceeds upon the idea that there has been an injury which the defendant by some of the means indicated has contributed to produce, and that he shall be liable for the whole injury and not merely for such portion as a jury, if able to agree upon any scale of apportionment, may assign as his actual share or quota. . . . And besides being a natural interpretation, and one which accords with the apparent policy of the legislation, it has the merit of relieving the remedy of much complication and embarrassment." See Kearney v. Fitzgerald, 43 Iowa, 580. 2 Co. Lit. 63a; Shep. Touch. 87. 3 Taylor v. St. Helens, L. R. 6 Ch. Div. 264. 4 Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 411; Mills v. St. Clair Co. 8 How. 581; Binghamton Bridge, 3 Wall. 51; Green's Estate, 4 Md. Ch. 349; United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 738-9; State v. Bentley, 23 N. J. L. 532, 538; Bridge Co. v. Hoboken, etc. Co. 13 N. J. Eq. 94; Commonwealth v. Roxbury, 9 Gray, 451, 492; Slidell v. Grandjean, 111 U. S. 412; Hannibal, etc. R. R. Co. v. Packet Co. 125 id. 260, 271; Currier v. Marietta, etc. R. R. Co. 11 Ohio St. 228; Mayor, etc. v. Ohio, etc. R. R. Co, 26 Pa. St. 355; Miners' Bank v. United States, 1 Greene (Iowa), 553; Mayor, etc. v. Macon, etc. R. R. Co. 7 Ga. 221; Talmadge v. Coal, etc. Co. 3 Head, 337; Brennan v. Bradshaw, 53 Tex. 330; Maddox v. Graham, 2 Met. (Ky.) 56; Justices v. Griffin, etc. Plk. R. Co. 9 Ga. 475; Bank of Louisiana v. Williams, 46 Miss. 618; Gaines v. Coates, 51 id. 335. doubtful in a grant designed to be of general benefit to the public, they will be taken most strongly against the grantee and for the government, and therefore should not be extended by implication in favor of the former beyond the natural and obvious meaning of the words employed.' 5 Any ambiguity in the terms must operate in favor of the government. Whatever is not unequivocally granted is taken to be withheld. Whether the grant be of property, franchises or privileges, it is construed strictly in favor of the public; nothing passes but what is granted in clear and explicit terms;' but it will be construed reasonably for the purpose the act contemplates. The object and end of all government is to promote the happiness and prosperity of the people by which it is established; and it cannot be assumed that the government intended to diminish its power of accomplishing the end for which it was created. It is therefore never implied that it has surrendered, in whole or in part, any of its sovereign power of legislation for the general welfare of police, of taxation, or of eminent domain. In its grants of land there is implied no covenant to do or not to do any further act in relation thereto. So if it grants a public franchise to a corpo 1 Mills v. St. Clair Co. supra. 2 Richmond R. R. Co. v. Louisa R. R. Co. 13 How. 81; Grant v. Leach, 20 La. Ann. 329; McLeod v. Burroughs, 9 Ga. 213. Co. 87 Pa. St. 34; Brocket v. Ohio & 3 Holyoke Co. v. Lyman, 15 Wall. and is to be liberally construed. 500, 512. Cleveland & P. R. Co. v. Speer, 56 Pa. St. 325. 4 Rice v. Railroad Co. 1 Black, 358, 380; Ohio Life & Trust Co. v. Debolt, 16 How. 435; Commonwealth v. Erie, etc. R. R. Co. 27 Pa. St. 339; Stourbridge Canal v. Wheeley, 2 Barn. & Ad. 792; Parker v. Great W. R'y Co. 7 M. & Gr. 253; Gaines v. Coates, 51 Miss. 335; Green's Estate, 4 Md. Ch. 349; La Plaisance Bay Harbor Co. v. Monroe, Walk. Ch. (Mich.) 155; Townsend v. Brown, 24 N. J. L. 80; Morris Canal, etc. Co. v. Central R. R. Co. 16 N. J. Eq. 419, 436; Harrison v. Young, 9 Ga. 359. 5 Newark Plank R. Co. v. Elmer, 9 N. J. Eq. 754; Whittaker v. Canal 6 Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 420, 447. 7 Id.; Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514; West River Bridge Co. v. Dix, 6 How. 528; Bridge Co. v. Hoboken, etc. Co. 13 N. J. Eq. 81, 94; Rice v. R. R. Co. 1 Black, 358, 380; Holyoke Co. v. Lyman, 15 Wall. 500, 512; Piscataqua Bridge Co. v. New Hampshire Bridge Co. 7 N. H. 35; Turnpike Co. v. State, 3 Wall. 210; Lehigh Water Co. v. Easton, 121 U.S. 388, 391. Jackson v. Lamphire, 3 Pet. 289. ration, as to build and maintain a road or bridge, or to establish a ferry, no contract is implied that it will make no new competing grant.' In Stourbridge Canal v. Wheeley 2 the court say: "The canal having been made under an act of parliament, the rights of the plaintiffs are derived entirely from that act. This, like many other cases, is a bargain between a company of adventurers and the public, the terms of which are expressed in the statute; and the rule of construction in all such cases is now fully established to be this: that any ambiguity in the terms of the contract must operate against the adventurers and in favor of the public; and the plaintiffs can claim nothing that is not clearly given to them by the act." "And the doctrine thus laid down," says Taney, C. J., speaking for the court in Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge,3 "is abundantly sustained by the authorities referred to in this decision. The case itself was as strong a one as could well be imagined for giving to the canal company, by implication, a right to the tolls they demanded. Their canal had been used by the defendants to a very considerable extent in transporting large quantities of coal. The rights of all persons to navigate the canal were expressly secured by the act of parliament, so that the company could not prevent them from using it, and the toll demanded was admitted to be reasonable. Yet, as they only used one of the levels of the canal, and did not pass through the locks; and the statute in giving the right to exact the toll had given it for articles which passed through any one or more of the locks,' and had said nothing as to toll for navigating one of the levels, the court held that the right to demand toll, in the latter case, could not be implied, and that the company were 1 Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, supra; Lehigh Water Co. v. Easton, supra; Tuckahoe C. Co. v. T. R. R. Co. 11 Leigh, 42; Saginaw Gas Light Co. v. Saginaw, 28 Fed. Rep. 529; State v. Cincinnati Gas Light Co. 18 Ohio St. 262; Davenport v. Kleinschmidt, 6 Mont. 502; Norwich Gas Light Co. v. Norwich City Gas Co. 25 Conn. 18; Wright v. Nagle, 101 U. S. 791; Minturn v. Larue, 23 How. not entitled to recover it. This was a fair case for an equitable construction of the act of incorporation, and for an implied grant, if such a rule of construction could ever be permitted in a law of that description. For the canal had been made at the expense of the company; the defendants had availed themselves of the fruits of their labors and used the canal freely and extensively for their own profit. Still the right to exact toll could not be implied, because such a privilege was not found in the charter." Under a grant to a plankroad company to lay its road on an established highway it is not authorized to take exclusive possession and deprive the public of its use. Authority to incorporate does not include the right to take lands by devise.2 3 § 379. These principles have been steadily recognized in the construction of land grants made by the federal government in aid of railroads and other like enterprises. These grants are laws as well as contracts, and are to be construed to effectuate the legislative intent, and this must sometimes be deduced from complex provisions. To ascertain such intent the court may look to the condition of the country when the acts were passed as well as to the purpose declared on their face, and read all parts of them together. Grants of lands on water-courses from the state, with the appurtenances, do not convey the right of public ferry, though the right of private ferry passes with the fee. A public franchise can be created only by an act of the legislature. Acts for the incorporation of municipal 1 Justices v. Griffin, etc. Plank R. Co. 9 Ga. 475. 2 Jackson v. Hammond, 2 Cai. Cas. 337; Corporation v. Scott, 1 Cai. 544; Jackson v. Cory, 8 John. 385. 3 Leavenworth, etc. R. R. Co. v. United States, 92 U. S. 733; Rice v. Railroad, 1 Black, 358; Slidell v. Grandjean, 111 U. S. 412; Jackson, etc. R. R. Co. v. Davison, 65 Mich. 416; St. Paul, etc. R'y Co. v. Phelps, 26 Fed. Rep. 569; Swann v. Jenkins, 82 Ala. 478; Dubuque, etc. R. R. Co. v. Litchfield, 23 How. 66; Nash v. Sullivan, 29 Minn. 206. 113 U. S. 618; Jackson, etc. R. R. Co. 5 Harrison v. Young, 9 Ga. 359. 4 Winona, etc. R. R. Co. v. Barney, Wiswall v. Hall, 3 Paige, 313. |