tion and appointment of the Legislature, to a subordinate department of the municipality following the fortunes of its lawfully elected head, the Mayor, and dependent under the act of 1880, chapter 377, upon its fealty to that head for official life, there can be little doubt but that it has fallen into line with other departments, and is as completely under the control of the Mayor as any department provided for in other titles of the same act.

No other conclusion seems to me possible in considering the course of the Legislature for the past ten years. Twice since its original passage has this short title of the charter been under the special consideration of the Legislature. Once in 1877, chapter 357 of the Laws of 1877, when the personnel of the department was continued intact, and again in 1880, chapter 319, when the same intervention was obtained at the hands of the Legislature. Here were two distinct opportunities, separated by intervals of four and three years respectively, for the Legislature to say something different than the ordinary meaning of the language already used would imply if any such intent had possessed the legislative mind.

Its silence after such opportunities must necessarily imply the absence of any such intent. Yet the intent of the Legislature once ascertained is the most potent_key to any ambiguous language employed by them. It is acknowledged by all authorities to be both compass and chart in statutory construction. But having created this department, had the Legislature power to vest in it all the powers from time to time theretofore conveyed to the Park Commissioner?

An immediate answer to this question is found when it is considered that the Commission had no powers inherent to its personnel as such. It was at all times the agent through whom the municipality as beneficiary derived the splendid advantages of its park and boulevard system. It was the people, in whom was vested the ultimate right of enjoyment under all the acts, and the power which could authorize and direct the inception and prosecution of the improvement through a given agent, could at any time discharge this specific agent and appoint another in its stead. To hold the contrary is to impeach the competency of the Commission itself, which is wholly the creature of the Legislature. A further question arises in respect to the sufficiency of the terms employed to accomplish the result. Is the title obnoxious to section 11, article 2, of the Constitution of 1848, confining local acts to one subject to be expressed in the title?

The title to the act of 1873, under which the Department of Parks first took corporative shape, was as com

prehensive as the extent and scope of the municipality, and all the possible powers necessary to make its existence beneficial to the community over which it was erected as a rule of government. It was entitled, “An Act to amend the charter of the City of Brooklyn." It was, therefore, competent to provide for all matters properly within the purview of the city government, whether relating to the safety, the health, the amusement, the recreation or the rules of action of its constituency. The subject was as broad as the requirements of the city. To hold that a great park and boulevard system, upon which the city's obligations were at that moment outstanding, to the extent of and in furtherance of which private citizens had surrendered their real estate to the amount of hundreds of acres, was not to be reasonably comprehended by such an act, is to ignore one of the most important functions of city government. No act has ever been found by the courts defective for want of proper title which did not contain provisions relating to matters not reasonably to be anticipated as acted upon from the language employed in the title.

The title to an act is a sign-board designed to correctly indicate to the casual reader the proposed road of legislation. It is only defective when it fails to indicate the real direction "where the public or members of the Legislature may be misled by it," as the Court of Appeals declare in Sun Mutual Life Ins. Co. vs. Mayor of New York, 8 N. Y., 253. The terms employed are effectual to make the change designed. It is not only necessary to supply new words to show a contrary intent, but to hold the words employed to meanings directly opposite their ordinary signification to support any other theory, and as before suggested, substantially the same terms are thrice employed.

The suggestions that the portions of the park system lying outside the corporate limits may not properly be brought under the authority of a municipal department when first put forward seems to have force; but when it is remembered that they are in marked subordination to that part of the system which is within the city and may therefore be regarded as incidentally within its management—as in a sense an appurtenance to Prospect Parkthe doubt diminishes rapidly, and it is wholly obliterated when we reflect that it is the direct enactment of the Legislature which includes them within the general scheme, and that only for purposes of police maintenance and proper surveillance. The Ocean Parkway was originally extended toward Coney Island only (see chapter 861, Laws of 1869), clearly indicating that it was but an extension of a park avenue which developed with the general scheme until it reached the shore of the sea. The books abound with statements in support of this

view, and such cases as People vs. Banks, 67 N. Y., 568, and Hazard vs. City of Legrange, 33 mo, 244, have held valid similar schemes of public improvement.

A brief consideration of the results of the contrary view must afford ample consideration of its weakness. The Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Supervisors of Albany vs. Stanley, decided April 3, 1882, have lately reaffirmed the before generally received doctrine that an act inadequate for some of the purposes which it proposes to accomplish by reason of constitutional limitations may still be operative for such purposes as do not thus conflict, and decisions are not wanting to determine that the acts in question were competent to create a municipal department having full control of improvements within the city limits; this must be conceded by all.

The conclusion is inevitable then that unless all the powers were conferred on the City Department the Legislature have with great deliberation, and after three solemn attempts, cleft the park and boulevard system in twain, and that by an imaginary line, involving the greatest confusion of their respective powers and division of finances and retaining eight citizens of Brooklyn in formal commission to exercise the very inconsiderable duties of maintenance and surveillance of those odd ends

of the park system. It is difficult to spell out any such result from the language or to infer any disability in the Legislature to intrust to eight citizens of Brooklyn, organized as a municipal department, powers with which they were competent to clothe eight individuals of the same city as Commissioners of Parks.

The number of the members of the department remains for determination. If Title XV, before quoted, had been unamended the department would have been complete by the appointment of a president and two members; but chapter 354 of the Laws of 1877 amends the title by constituting anew the Commissioners then in office, being eight in number, as such department, and provides for their successors to be appointed by the Mayor and Common Council. As this was in substance re-enacted by chapter 377 of the Laws of 1880, it must be held to have changed the number of the Commission back to eight, the original number.

If these views thus hastily indicated be founded upon a correct interpretation of the statutes, the Department of Parks presents itself to you for consideration in precisely the same aspect as the Department of Police or any other department, and is by your official action added to the new scheme of municipal government now on trial, which, holding the Mayor directly responsible to the people, leaves the selection of the heads of departments solely to his individual judgment of the public requirements. Respectfully yours, JOHN A. TAYLOR.

CHAPTER 354.

AN ACT to regulate and improve the civil service of the
State of New York.

Passed May 4, 1883, three-fifths being present.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

appointment of,

etc.

SECTION 1. The Governor is authorized to appoint, by Commissioners; and with the advice and consent of the senate, three persons, not more than two of whom shall be adherents of the same party, as Civil Service Commissioners, and said three Commissioners shall constitute the New York Civil Service Commission. They shall hold no other official place under the state of New York. The Governor may remove any Commissioner; and any vacancy in the position of Commissioner shall be so filled by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, so as to conform to said conditions for the first selection of Commissioners. The three Commissioners shall each receive a salary of two thousand dollars a year. And each of said Commissioners shall be paid his necessary traveling expenses incurred in the discharge of his duty as a Commissioner.

§ 2.

It shall be the duty of said Commission :

First. To aid the Governor, as he may request, in preparing suitable rules for carrying this act into effect; and when said rules shall have been promulgated, it shall be the duty of all officers of the state of New York, in the departments and offices to which any such rules may relate, to aid, in all proper ways, in carrying said rules, and any modifications thereof, into effect.

Duty of commission.

shall provide

Second. And among other things, said rules shall pro- what rules vide and declare, as nearly as the conditions of good administration will warrant, as follows:

1. For open, competitive examinations for testing the fitness of applicants for the public service now classified or to be classified hereunder. Such examinations shall be practical in their character and, so far as may be, shall elate to those matters which will fairly test the relative

for.