Joseph P. Bradley

“ In declaring that the one company shall be merged in the other, and that the rights, privileges, and property of the one shall be vested in the other, the legislature cannot be understood to mean that the restrictions, limitations, and burdens affecting that property, and imposed for the benefit of the public or of individuals, shall not go with it. The rights and privileges go with it, and those rights and privileges can with difficulty be separated from the restrictions and duties by which they are measured and qualified. ”

“ But all its rights and duties, its privileges and obligations, as related to the public, or to third persons, remain, and devolve upon the new company. This seems to us the most obvious and natural coustruction of the act, and leads to the conclusion that, as to the road, property, and works appertaining to the main line from Charleston to Hamburg, the South Carolina Railroad Company has no claim to exemption from taxation. ”

“ If the hypothesis were reversed, and the old charter allowed ten cents, whilst the new allowed but five, the company would not hesitate, under the grant of the rights and privileges of the old, to continue to charge ten cents, as the former company had done. And they would have reason on their side. Had it been intended that the road and property of the old company should be owned and controlled by the new company under its own charter, in the same manner as its other property, it would have been easy to have so declared. ”