Pierce Butler

“ It is suggested that cities less populous by one-half than Newark, but owning plants far in excess of their needs might have diverted on June 17, 1907, twice the amount of water which the city of Newark diverted, and that a city twice as large might have diverted half as much, and the former of such cities would thereby have procured an almost perpetual exemption, and the latter would have brought on itself an insupportable burden of indefinite duration ”

“ We are of opinion that 'legally diverted' means not a future diversion, but one now being exercised under a legal right, and that under this statute a legal abstractor may take what he was diverting in 1907, and, if that did not reach the statutory maximum of exemption, as much more as is required to make the total diversion one hundred gallons per day per capita for each of the municipalities supplied, without payment of the license fee. ”

“ That court said: 'The facts are not in dispute. It is conceded that the city of Trenton, at the time of the enactment of the act of 1907, was taking from the Delaware rive daily 14,200,000 gallons of water for local use, and that the city of Newark was daily extracting from the Pequannock river 36,241,666 gallons for local use. ”