the public. We interpret the instrument as most effectually promoting the public interest in the mode contemplated and intended by the statute.

Then, the corporation having the license to establish a ferry from shore to shore, how has that power been exercised?

The lease gives all the right which the corporation took under the letters patent. The apprehension, at all events, of the extent of the right is indicated by the words "to and from," notwithstanding the ingenious ambiguity of the rest of the phrase. The intention is also made clear by other provisions which bind the lessee to make regular trips from Ameliasburg as well as from Belleville.

The lessee, therefore, has the right to run his boat in both directions as a ferry.

This brings us to the consideration of the limits of the plaintiff's ferry, particularly in relation to the Ameliasburg shore, as to which there has been some discussion before us.

The power, under the statute, was, to license the establishment of a ferry "from shore to shore, and with such limit and extent as shall appear advisable to the Governor in Council." Under 8 Vict. ch. 50, it was unlawful to grant an exclusive privilege, after 20th March, 1845, for any greater distance than one mile and a half on each side of the point at which the ferry is usually kept. For the purpose of affording greater inducements to establish steam ferries, it was deemed proper by the Legislature, in 1857, to remove that restriction in the case of steam ferries licensed under the statute, 20 Vict. ch. 7. In this case it did not appear advisable to the Governor in Council to define the limit and extent of the license otherwise than by reference to the town and the township generally. Power was given to the corporation of the town to establish a ferry between the town and township. It does not strike me that any other limitation was necessary or would have been of use. No power could have, under the statute, been conferred upon the township municipality to establish a

ferry to the town. The whole control of whatever ferry was to exist had to be in the hands of the corporation of the town. The ferry was established; the particular route was fixed by the erection by the corporation of docks and landing places at each end. Of necessity, a steam ferry must run between fixed termini, and the principles laid down respecting ferries require that the landing places shall be at some convenient place to which the public can have access without committing acts of trespass, and where they can safely embark and land their horses, carriages, &c., for the transport of which the steam ferry boat must be suitable. In that sense the corporation established the ferry over the particular route; and the lessee was bound by a covenant to make his trips from such landing places in Belleville and Ameliasburg respectively as the corporation should select and provide.

But the line of the ferry, or, to use the language of 8 Vict. ch. 50, the point at which the ferry is usually kept, is a very different thing from the exclusive privilege enjoyed by the grantee of the ferry. The privilege here was to carry between Ameliasburg and Belleville. I have no doubt that a rival ferry from any part of Ameliasburg to any part of Belleville would be an interference with that exclusive privilege. I do not perceive the importance, on either side of the present controversy, of the inquiry whether the end of a particular highway, or the whole front of the township, is the designated limit of the privilege on the southern shore.

The defendants do not contend for any right to run from Ameliasburg to Belleville; and, on the other hand, it cannot be, and is not contended, that a ferry might not be lawfully established across any other part of the Bay of Quinté, from shore to shore, as from Ameliasburg to Sidney, or to any point, other than Belleville, where a ferry was required. A second ferry from Ameliasburg to Belleville might also be licensed, if required; but, as pointed out already, the license must be given to Belleville. If that were done we should expect to find the limits of each ferry defined in the

license, or at all events defined in the leases to sub-lessees. Under the present circumstances it seems to me that any closer definition than that given would have tended to throw doubt upon what was meant.

Then as to the infringement. I have already adverted to the absence from the defendants' answer of any denial of the allegations that they carry passengers who are going from Ameliasburg to Belleville, and from Belleville to Ameliasburg; and that that is the object and intention of the establishment of their ferry; and that a ferry is not required at the place where they have it.

The plaintiff has given direct evidence in proof of the charges, and there is no more attempt on the part of the defendants to displace them by evidence, than there was to deny or explain them in the answer. Neither of the defendants tendered his own evidence. Some of the plaintiff's witnesses were asked on cross-examination, and a witness for the defendants was asked, whether persons going from certain parts of Ameliasburg to Frankfort or Sterling or Trenton would not save distance by crossing at the defendants' ferry instead of the plaintiff's, but no evidence was given of any one having crossed for that purpose, or of the extent or even the existence of such traffic, or in what way it would require or justify the creation of a ferry.

The defence was in substance rested upon the attacks which I have discussed upon the plaintiff's title; upon an attempt to shew a license of which the defendants could avail themselves; and upon the contention that a ferry running from a point on the Ameliasburg shore, some distance west of the plaintiff's landing place, to a point in Sidney some distance west of the city of Belleville, was not an interference with the plaintiff's right.

No license for the defendants' ferry was shewn. It appeared that an order in council had been made on 30th September, 1879, on the application of the councils of the townships of Sidney and Ameliasburg, for the issue of a license under the great seal to the corporation of Amelias

burg for a steam ferry over that portion of the Bay of Quinté between those townships, on conditions, one of which was, that the landing place of any boat to be run between the townships, under the license, should be at least one and one half miles from the western limit of Belleville at the water's edge. No license had, however, been issued, and the defendants were not otherwise privy to what was done than as having actively promoted the action of the township councils in applying for the license. The reason given for the license not having issued is, that neither the council of Ameliasburg nor Anderson, to whom they left the matter, and who seems to have been understood to be the person in whose interest the whole thing was being done, would pay the fees for it.

The evidence on the point aids the plaintiff in two ways, viz., by shewing that the defendants' ferry has not been established by law; and that the public demand for such a ferry has not been pressing, and therefore the motive for establishing it was not to supply a want.

For the law upon the subject it is scarcely necessary to refer to any case but Newton v. Cubitt, 12 C. B. N. S. 33. All the cases, ancient and modern, are there collected. Huzzey v. Field, 2 C. M. & R. 432, was one of the cases there relied on. One passage, from the judgment of Lord Abinger, C. B., in that case, covers nearly all our ground. "The right of the grantee," he says, " is, in the one case, an exclusive right of carrying from town to town; in the other, of carrying from one point to the other, all who are going to use the highway to the nearest town or vill to which the highway leads on the other side. Any new ferry, therefore, which has the effect of taking away such passengers must be injurious. For instance, if any one should construct a new landing place at a short distance from one terminus of the ferry, and make a practice of carrying passengers over from the other terminus, and there landing them at that place, from which they pass to the same public highway upon which the ferry is established, before it reaches any town or vill, and by which the passer gers go immediately to the first, and all the vills and towns to which that highway leads-there could not

be any doubt that such an act would be an infringement of the right of ferry, whether the person so acting intended to defraud the grantee of the ferry or not." And in Newton v. Cubitt, 12 C. B. N. S. 59, Willes, J., said: "The owner of the ferry has a cause of action for carrying in the line of the ferry, whether it be done directly or indirectly. He has a right to the transport of the passengers using the way; and if the alleged wrongdoer makes a landing place near to the ferry landing place, so as to be in substance the same, making no material difference to travellers, such a wrongdoer would be guilty of the wrong complained of in the second count; he would indirectly carry in the line of the plaintiff's ferry."

I may refer to Hopkins v. Great Northern R. W. Co., L. R. 2 Q. B. D. 224, as the latest case in which these doctrines are discussed, although upon the general question it may not add anything new.

We have in the case before us not only the fact of infringement within the definitions I have quoted; we have the intention proved. It is shewn in the way I have pointed out, and by the conduct of the defendants in carrying at lower rates than those settled by the corporation of Belleville and charged by the plaintiff.

We must not confound two things which ought to be kept distinct in our minds, viz., the immunity which a ferryman may claim who, in good faith and to supply a want, runs a ferry which, without design on his part, may be made use of by persons who, but for the convenience he affords, would have gone by that of his rival; and the assertion of freedom from responsibility because the line of his ferry is outside of that granted to his rival, while he may have established it and may use it solely to divert the traffic.

The latter is, on the facts before us, the position which the defendants have to maintain. If they can do so when their ferry happens to be two miles from the other, they must succeed on the same reasoning if nothing but the boundary line between the city and the township separated them.

It is obvious from a glance at the map supplied to us,