Tyler, Curtis v...................154, 655 Warren, Hawralty v.. 25 Walling, Conover v..... 212 Wallis, Barnard v......... 656 Ward, Blair v 418 256 47 81, Mississippi and Missouri 256 R. R. Co. v....... 26 653 484 Ward's Ex'rs v. Hague........ 47 653 187 Tyler v. Wilkinson... 638 Warwick v. Nowell.......... 258 Van Dorn v. Van Dorn. ....206, 539 Wetmore, Bacot v.... 93 Van Ryper, Vreeland v........... 547 Whipple, Collier v.. 513 Voorhees' Ex'rs v. Melick........ 280 Williamson, Salter v.......... 140 106 Woods, Hilton v.... 338 310 v. Huntingford. 653 151 Wright, Cutler v 361 254 v. Oakley. 562 325 35 Wyckoff v. Gardner... 309 233 37 Y. 503 639 Yard, McCall v........... 438 Willoe, Bateman v.. Wills v. Cooper.... Wilson v. Brown... Forrester v -, Irby v....... v. King...........223, 349, 375 Wiltshire, Doran v............ Winants v. Terhune... Winchester v. Balt. & Susq. R. R. Co..... Winchester v. Charter..... Winter v. Peterson... Wintermute v. Snyder... Wiswall, Jarman v... chitto River v....... Woolverton, Benson v........... ABRAHAM V. VAN FLEET, ESQ., VICE-CHANCELLOR. THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL US. THE DELAWARE AND 1. Where the suit immediately concerns the rights of the state, the information is generally exhibited without a relator. 2. In matters of purely public concern, as where the property of the state, owned by it in its political capacity, or where public rights in which no merely private interest is involved, are in question, the courts are open to the state without requiring security for costs. 3. The Delaware river became, by conquest, the boundary between the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and being such, and the original property being in neither of them, and there being no convention between them in regard to it, when, in 1783, the King of Great Britain relinquished all claims to government, propriety and territorial rights in the United States, each state, by the rule of international law, had dominion to the middle of the stream. 4. A river may be navigable below the ebb and flow of the tide in the sense of the common law, and, in fact, navigable above; and the question of boundary in respect to lands adjoining it will be determined by one principle above, and by another below tide water. Attorney-General v. Delaware and Bound Brook R. R. Co. 5. New Jersey has no jus privatum in the soil of the Delaware river above tide water; that is in the riparian owners, subject to the public easement of navigation, and to such regulations by the legislature of the waters as the public right of navigation may require; as to the jurisdiction and power of the state over it, the river above tide water is to be regarded as a navigable stream. 6. The Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad Company, in erecting piers upon the land under water in the Delaware river, to the middle of the stream, for the erection of a viaduct for a railroad track to connect with the track of the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company, have not violated the 36th section of the general railroad law, prohibiting corporations formed under that law from taking any land under water belonging to the state, unless the consent of the riparian commissioners shall first have been obtained. 7. If it be merely doubtful whether there is a purpresture or not, an injunction asked for on the ground of purpresture will not be granted. To warrant an injunction in such case, it must be clear that there is a purpresture. 8. The provision of the compact of 1783, between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, on the subject of fisheries, relates to fisheries below the head of tide water, which were the subject of private ownership and individual occupancy. The right in the riparian owners, of several fishery in front of their lands is distinctly recognized in this state. 9. The objects and purposes of that compact were merely to secure the administration of justice, and to secure to the contracting parties the use of the river as a public highway. The provision for concurrent jurisdiction had reference to the former only; it was a police regulation, merely. 10. The compact of 1783 gives no jurisdiction to Pennsylvania over the soil of the Delaware river within the territorial limits of this state, nor does it confer on her any right therein. It gives her a right to complain of, and to be relieved against, any structure or other occupation of the river on the soil of this state injurious to the free navigation of the river. 11. In an action to remove an erection in a public river, on the ground that it is an injury to the jus publicum, the common right of navigation, it must appear that a nuisance, in fact, exists; even though the erection be an encroachment on the soil of the state. 12. The viaduct built by the Delaware and Bound Brook Railroad Company, from the Jersey shore to the middle of the river, to meet part of the same structure built by the North Pennsylvania Railroad Company from the Pennsylvania shore, held to be authorized by the 36th section of the general railroad law, conferring power upon corporations organized under it to build a viaduct " across any navigable or other river, stream or bay in this state." 13. That viaduct held not to interfere with the navigation of the river, and not to be a nuisance in fact. |