ges done thereto to be repaired. § 16. If any person shall wilfully do, or cause to be done, any act, whereby any work, materials, or property whatsoever, erected or used, or hereafter to be erected or used, within the city of New York, or elsewhere, by the said Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty, or by any person acting under their authority, for the purpose of procuring or keeping a supply of water, shall in any manner be injured, such person, on convictiqn thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor. § 17. All contracts for materials, or for the construction of the work, shall be made in writing, and of each contract three copies shall be taken, which shall be numbered with the CROTON AdUEDUCT. 123 same number, and endorsed with the date of the contract, with the name of the contractor, and a summary of the work to be done, or materials furnished. § 18. One of such copies shall be retained by the Commissioners, another shall be deposited with the Comptroller of the city. « § 19. Public notice shall be given of the time and place at which sealed proposals will be received for entering into contracts. § 20. All sealed proposals for contracts shall be for a sum certain as to the price to be paid or received ; and no proposition, which is not thus definite and certain, or which contains any alternative, condition, or limitation as to price, shall be received or acted upon. § 21. No more than one proposition shall be received from anyone person for the same contract, and all the propositions of the person offering more than one, shall be rejected. § 22. Every person who shall enter into any contract for the supply of materials, or the performance of labor, shall give satisfactory security to the Commissioners for the faithful performance of his contract according to its terms. § 23. All materials procured or partially procured, under a contract with the Com- missioners, shall be exempt from execution ; but it shall be the duty of the Commissioners to pay the moneys due for such materials* to the judgment creditor of the contractor, under whose execution such materials might otherwise have been sold, upon his producing to them due proof that his execution would have so attached, and such payment shall be held a valid payment on the contract. § 24. The Common Council shall authorize the Commissioners to draw upon the Comptroller of the city for any sum in favor of, and to be paid to, the owner of any lands, water streams, or property acquired by virtiie of this act, and in favor of, and to be paid to, any contractor, for any sum due upon his contract, and also for their incidental expenses. Such drafts shall specify the objects for which they are drawn, in the manner provided in the seventeenth section of this act, as nearly as may be ; and the Common Council shall make it the duty of the Comptroller, to pay such drafts in every case where a deed or other voucher is delivered to him, or a copy of a contract has been filed in his office, and a du- plicate receipt of the contractor for such drafts shall be presented therewith. § 25. They shall also require the Comptroller to report to them a list of all the pay- ments made by him, upon the orders of the Commissioners, once in every six months, and previous to such reports, shall have the accounts of the Commissioners and of the Comp- troller examined by the Finance Committee of the Board of Aldermen. The Governor and Senate re-appointed the same Commissioners, and on the 19th of May, they announced the fact to the Common Council, accompanied with a brief synop- sis of the law, and asking their decision, " whether any further expense would be in- curred or not," in prosecuting the work. On July 23d., the Common Council appropriated $5,000 for the purpose of paying engineers, surveyors, and other persons employed by the Commissioners, to enable them 124 MEMOIR OF THE furt her to perform their duties, under the above act, and to make another report to the Common Council, which report shall specify as near as may be, the probable supply of water which can be obtained within the county ; also for paying the necessary expenses of the Commissioners in the performance of their duties under the act. The Commissioners entered zealously on their duties, and as the report they made to the Common Council in Feb., 1835, gives a very intelligent view of their proceed- ings, and those of their engineers, and examines moreover, with acuteness, various, pro- jects, that had been agitated in opposition to that of