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its road. By the express terms of the act, the timber or other material which it is entitled to take must be taken from public lands "adjacent" to the line of the road, and must not be merely suitable but "necessary for the construction of the railroad." By the agreed statement of facts it is admitted that the timber in question was taken from the public, unoccupied, unentered lands of the United States, which were located along, near, and adjacent to the line of the defendant's road. No question, therefore, can be raised as to the proper locality from which it was taken. Was the defendant, under a proper construction of the act, limited and restricted in the use of such timber for purposes of construction to points or places on the line of the road adjacent to the locality from which the timber was taken? While the act does limit the railway company in respect to the place or locality from which timber or other material may be taken, by confining the right to public lands adjacent to the line of the road, it does not, by either express terms, or by any fair or necessary implication, place any limitation as to the place at which such timber may be used. The license to take timber is not, by the language of the act, limited to what is necessary for the construction of such portion of the road as is adjacent to the place from which the timber is taken, but extends to the construction of the entire "railroad." The right is given to use material "necessary for the construction of said railroad." This language treats the railroad as an entirety, in the construction of which it was the purpose of Congress to aid by conferring upon any railway company, entitled to the benefits of the act, the right to take timber necessary for such construction from the public lands adjacent to the line of the road. This intention would be narrowed, if not defeated, if it were held that the timber, which the railway company had the right to take for use in the construction of its line, could be rightfully used only upon such portions of the line as might be contiguous to the place from which the timber was taken. If Congress had intended to impose any such restriction upon the use of timber or other material taken from adjacent public lands, it should have been so expressed. No rule of interpretation requires

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this court to so construe the act as to confine the use of timber that may be taken from a proper place for the purpose of construction to any particular or defined portion of the railroad. To do this would require the court to read into the statute the same language, as to the place of use, which is found in the statute as to the place of taking. In other words, it would require the court to interpolate into the statute the provision that the place at which the timber shall be used shall be "contiguous, adjoining, or adjacent" to the place from which it is taken. The place of use is not, by the language of the statute, qualified, restricted, or defined, except to the extent of the construction of the railroad as such, and it is not to be inferred from the restriction or limitation imposed as to the place from which it may be rightfully taken that it is to be used only adjacent to such place.

As to the purposes for which the material may be used, it must be borne in mind that the benefits intended to be conferred by the act are not confined or limited to the roadbed, or roadway, as the foundation upon which the superstructure is to rest, but are extended to the "railroad," as a completed or perfected structure.

In addition to the right of way and the right to take timber for the purposes of this completed or entire structure, called the "railroad," there is granted by the act "also ground adjacent to such right of way for station buildings, depots, machine shops, side tracks, turnouts, and water tanks, not to exceed in amount twenty acres for each station, to the extent of one station for each ten miles of its road." By this provision, these structures, which are necessary appurtenances to all railroads, may fairly be regarded as parts or portions of the railroad, whose construction it was the purpose of Congress to aid. In its ordinary acceptation and enlarged sense the term railroad fairly includes all structures which are necessary and essential to its operation. As already stated, it was not the intention of Congress to aid in the mere construction of the roadbed, or roadway, but to aid in the construction of the railroad as such, which term has a far more extended signification than the mere track, or roadway. If the language of the act

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had shown an intention to aid merely in the construction of the roadbed, or roadway, it is clear that such structures as station houses, &c., would not have been included; but when the ground is given on which to erect such structures in and by the same act which confers the right of way, and also gives the right to take from adjacent public lands timber necessary for the construction of the railroad as such, it may be reasonably claimed that timber necessary for that construction may be used or applied in the erection of the structures constituting an essential part or portion of the railroad. It is no forced interpretation to hold that the right to take timber was intended to aid in the erection of structures without which the railroad would have been practically useless.

It could hardly be questioned that a grant of power to construct a railroad would include the right to erect necessary structures, such as station houses, water tanks, &c., as essential and constituent parts thereof. This being so, it is difficult to understand why the grant of a right to take timber for the construction of a railroad should not equally extend to and include the same structures, constituting, as they do, necessary and indispensable appendages thereto.

Again, exemption from taxation is construed with greater strictness in favor of the State than grants of public property or rights, for the reason that taxation is more essential to the existence of government than ownership and possession of public property. Yet it has been held in several well-considered cases that where a railroad is exempt from taxation, such exemption extends to structures like those in question. Thus in the case of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co. v. Northampton County, 8 W. & S. 334, it was held that as an incorporated canal was not taxable, not only the bed, berm-bank, and towpath of the canal, but the lock-houses and collectors' houses were also exempt, these being considered constituent parts of the canal or necessarily incident thereto. So in Railroad Co. v. Berks County, 6 Penn. St. 70, it was held that as the railroad was exempt from taxation, water-stations and depots, including the offices and places to hold cars, &c., being necessary and indispensable to the construction and use of the road, were

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within the exemption, while warehouses and coal lots, intended for the mere convenience of the road, were not so exempt. The principle of these cases is followed and illustrated in the case of State v. Commissioners of Mansfield, 3 Zabr., (23 N. J. Law,) 510, and in the case of Worcester v. Western Railroad, 4 Met. (Mass.) 564.

It is undoubtedly, as urged by the plaintiffs in error, the well-settled rule of this court that public grants are construed strictly against the grantees, but they are not to be so construed as to defeat the intent of the legislature, or to withhold what is given either expressly or by necessary or fair implication. In Winona & St. Peter Railroad v. Barney, 113 U. S. 618, 625, Mr. Justice Field, speaking for the court, thus states the rule upon this subject: "The acts making the grants

are to receive such a construction as will carry out the intent of Congress, however difficult it might be to give full effect to the language used if the grants were by instruments of private conveyance. To ascertain that intent we must look to the condition of the country when the acts were passed, as well as to the purposes declared on their face, and read all parts of them together."

Looking to the condition of the country, and the purposes intended to be accomplished by the act, this language of the court furnishes the proper rule of construction of the act of 1875. When an act, operating as a general law, and manifesting clearly the intention of Congress to secure public advantages, or to subserve the public interests and welfare by means of benefits more or less valuable, offers to individuals or to corporations as an inducement to undertake and accomplish great and expensive enterprises or works of a quasi public character in or through an immense and undeveloped public domain, such legislation stands upon a somewhat different footing from merely a private grant, and should receive at the hands of the court a more liberal construction in favor of the purposes for which it was enacted. Bradley v. New York & New Haven Railroad, 21 Connecticut, 294; Pierce on Railroads, 491.

This is the rule, we think, properly applicable to the con

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struction of the act of 1875, rather than the more strict rule of construction adopted in the case of purely private grants; and in view of this character of the act, we are of opinion that the benefits intended for the construction of the railroad in permitting the use of timber or other material, should be extended to and include the structures mentioned in the act as a part of such railroad.

It appears from the certificate attached to the agreed statement of facts that a small portion of the timber taken by the defendant, amounting to $150.15, was used in or about "cars." The defendant was not charged by the judgment of the court below with this item, for the reason, as we assume, that these cars were not employed in the transportation of traffic, but were of such character as hand-cars employed in the work of construction. In affirming the judgment of the court below as to this item, this court does not mean to be understood as holding that the defendant, under the act of 1875, has the right to use timber taken from the public lands for the purpose of constructing rolling stock or equipment. employed in its transportation business. Neither are we called upon in this case to determine what other structures, if any, besides those enumerated in the first section of the act of 1875, would constitute necessary, essential, or constituent parts of the railroad.

Our conclusion is that there is no error in the judgment below, and that it should be Affirmed.