Several bills in equity have been filed against the city of Boston in the Supreme Judicial Court for the County of Suffolk, praying for the assessment of damages for the taking of lands in the Church Street District, under chapter three hundred and eight of the Acts of 1867. As there can be but one suit to determine all matters in controversy between the former owners of these lands and the city, growing out of the said taking, these various claims must be brought together under one of the bills, and the other bills will be dismissed. No order of the Court having been made on either of the bills, no more specific statement can be made in regard to them. A hearing extending through thirteen days was had before Messrs. Otis Norcross, Daniel S. Richardson and George F. Choate, commissioners appointed under the three hundred and ninth chapter of the Acts of 1868, to apportion the expenses of laying out the Salem Turnpike and Chelsea Bridge as a highway, among the several counties, citics and towns mentioned in the statute. The amount awarded by the commissioners to be paid by the County of Suffolk was, in the aggregate, $45,221.96. There has also been a hearing of several days in duration, before Messrs. Emory Washburn, Otis Norcross and Charles U. Cotting, commissioners appointed under the one hundred and sixty-first chapter of the Acts of the present year, for apportioning the expenses of purchasing the franchise and making a highway of the toll-bridge over the Charles river, between the city of Cambridge and the town of Brookline, in accordance with the provisions of that Act. The case has been fully heard and argued before the commissioners, and they now hold it under advisement. Although the County of Suffolk was made a party to these proceedings by the statute, the assessment upon it of any portion of the expenses of making or maintaining this way, which is neither within the County nor part of a thoroughfare leading to it, would be so manifestly unjust and in contravention of the long established policy of the Commonwealth, if it would not be obnoxious to graver objections, that it is not, in the judgment of the undersigned, probable that the commission ers, who are all gentlemen distinguished for intelligence and fairness, will include the County of Suffolk in the counties and municipalities upon which the duties created by this statute are to be imposed. In the cases between Thomas Richardson and the city of Boston, and the suits originally instituted by the city of Roxbury for the collection of sewerage bills, mentioned in the for mer reports of the undersigned, nothing has occurred worthy of notice. J. P. HEALY. |