wherein the same may lie, a correct copy of the plat of said town, with the public grounds, streets, lanes, and alleys, with their respective widths properly marked, the lots regularly numbered, and the size of the lots marked by reference to the plat. 1. In order to show the dedication of private property to the public use by user, there must have been a user by the public adverse and exclusive to that of the owner.-Talbot v. Grace, 30 Ind. 389. 2. The making and dedication of streets, lanes, and alleys on a town plat gives to the public only an easement therein; the fee simple remains in the proprietor.- Cox v. R. R. Co., 48 Ind. 178. [1885 S., p. 150. In force July 18, 1885.] 3374a. Plat of addition-Proceeding before record. 1. Hereafter, whenever any lands are platted for the purpose of being attached to any city or incorporated town as an addition thereto, a plat of such addition shall be submitted to the Common Council of such city or Board of Trustees of such town before the same is placed on record, and such Council or Board of Trustees may require that the streets and alleys of such addition shall be made to correspond in width, and be coterminous with the streets and alleys of that part of the city or town which it adjoins. 3374b. Violation of act-Penalty. 2. Any person violating the provisions of section one (1) of this act shall be fined in any sum not to exceed the sum of twenty-five dollars. [1 R. S. 1872, p. 493. In force May 6, 1853.] 3375. Donation by plat. 2. Every donation or grant to the public, or to any individual, religious society, corporation, or body politic, noted as such on the plat of the town wherein such donation or grant may have been made, shall be considered a general warranty to the said donee or grantee for the purposes intended by the donor or grantor. [1881, p. 56. In force March 3, 1881.] 3376. Plat, how acknowledged. 3. The person desiring to lay off such lots, before offering such plat for record, shall acknowledge the same before some officer authorized by law to take and certify the acknowledgment of deeds in the proper county; a certificate of which acknowledgment shall be, by the officer taking the same, annexed to such plat or other paper, and recorded therewith. [1895 S., p. 382. In force March 15, 1895.] 3376a. Legalizing plats, etc. 1. All plats of additions to cities and towns and of subdivisions of sections which have heretofore been recorded in the recorder's office of any county without the owner or owners thereof having signed the same or without having the execution thereof acknowledged and certified as required by law, but under which lands and lots have been sold or conveyed, or where such additions or subdivisions have been entered upon the tax duplicate for the purposes. of taxation in accordance with the descriptions contained in such plats, are hereby legalized and declared valid to all intents and purposes from the date of the recording of such plats, to the same extent as if the same had been duly signed and the execution thereof had been duly acknowledged and certified before they were recorded. [1 R. S. 1852, p. 493. In force May 6, 1853.] 3377. Penalty. 4. Every person who may lay off any town, or any addition to any town, in this State, and fail to comply with the requisition of this act, shall forfeit and pay, for the use of said town, for every month, a sum not exceeding one hundred dollars nor less than five dollars, to be recovered in the name of the Treasurer of the county. 3378. Imperfect plat. 5. Where any town plat, heretofore or hereafter to be recorded, does not clearly describe the size of the lots, streets, alleys, and courses of the lines of said town, and where donations have been given or intended to be given, either to the public or to individuals, or to any religious society, and it has been neglected to insert the same on said plat, any of the proprietors of such town are hereby required to make out such other description as will more clearly explain the true intent; which shall be acknowledged, certified, and recorded as required in this act. [1901 S., p. 124. Approved March 7, 1901.] 3378a. Vacation of streets, etc. 1. That the Board of Trustees of the towns of this State shall have power to vacate streets, alleys, highways, lots and additions and any part or parts of either thereof within their respective towns whenever they may deem such vacation expedient for the public interests. Whenever a petition shall be presented by three reputable freeholders of such town praying for such vacation, the Board of Trustees shall, if they deem reference thereof expedient, refer such petition and the matters pertaining thereto to three commissioners appointed by such board, who shall be disinterested freeholders of such town, and who shall, before proceeding to discharge their duties as such commissioners, take and subscribe an oath or affirmation faithfully to perform their duties as such commissioners, which oath or affirmation shall be indorsed on or attached to their appointment and filed with the clerk of such board. Such board shall in its discretion fix the time and place when and where such commissioners shall meet. The persons praying for such vacation shall serve notice of the proposed presentation to said board of said petition by personal service or by leaving copy at the residences of persons interested, or by publication if such person be a nonresident or his residence is unknown, once in each week for three weeks in a newspaper of general circulation, published in said city, and shall show, by affidavit, due service of such notice. The said petitioners shall accompany their petition with a map or plat of the street, alley, highway, square or addition, or the part or parts thereof which they propose to have vacated; and shall, on said map or plat, show the surrounding locality; and shall also state the reasons upon which they base their petition for vacation. All the expense of such proceedings shall be paid by said petitioners, unless the Board of Trustees shall otherwise direct. 3378b. Sessions of board. 2. The said commissioners shall meet pursuant to such notice, and shall examine witnesses and hear evidence, and may administer oaths, and adjourn from time to time. They shall view the street, lley, highway, lot, addition or part thereof proposed to be vacated, and shall determine what persons, if any, will be benefited thereby; and shall assess such benefits, if any: Provided, That only sufficient benefits shall be assessed to pay all the costs and expenses of such vacation proceedings. In case any property owner immediately upon the line of said street, alley, highway, lot, part of lot, addition or part thereof, sought to be vacated, who is directly interested therein, shall object to such vacation, the commissioners shall report such fact to the said board. If the commissioners should consider that the necessary or proper parties have not been brought before them, they may require the petitioners to notify each person or persons as they may deem entitled to notice. 3378c. Report of commissioners. 3. Within ten days after their determination, such commissioners shall file in the office of the Town Clerk, who shall transmit the same to the Board of Trustees, a report in writing, stating therein: First. The length, width and location of the street, alley, highway, lot, addition or part thereof proposed to be vacated. Second. The value of the land upon which such street, alley, highway, lot, addition or part thereof is situated. Third. The benefits to the persons desiring the vacation. Fourth. The names of property owners or persons who may object to the vacation of such street, alley, highway, lot, addition or part thereof, and the nature of their interest therein. 3378d. Action of Town Board Payment of benefits. 4. The Town Board shall either refer the report back to the commissioners, or accept or reject the report, within twenty-eight days after it is made to them. If they accept such report they shall require the person against whom benefits are assessed to pay the same into the town treasury within twenty days thereafter. The Town Board shall have no power to order the vacation of any street, alley or highway when objected to by property owners adjacent thereto, or in case of the vacation of an addition the owner of any lot or part of lot therein objects. No person shall have any power or right to make any private use of any street, alley, highway, lot, addition or part thereof, ordered to be vacated, until the benefits assessed have been fully and entirely paid; and unless paid within the time limited the proceedings shall be wholly void. 3378e. Description recorded. 5. Upon the vacation of any platted street or addition, as herein provided for, the trustees of such town shall, as soon as the same has been made, cause a specific description of such vacated street or addition to be recorded in the office of the recorder in such county after the same has been duly transferred in the auditor's office. [1857, p. 126. In force August 24, 1857.] 3379. Vacation. 6. Whenever any person or corporation interested in any incorporated town, or in any real estate in this State, laid out in streets and lots as a town, may desire to vacate any lot, street, alley, common, public square, or part thereof, in such town or plat of town, such person or corporation may petition the Board of County Commissioners of the proper county, giving a distinct description of the property to be vacated and the names of the persons to be affected thereby; which petition shall be filed with the County Auditor thirty days previous to the sitting of such board; and notice of the pendency of said petition shall be given, for the same space of time, in a public newspaper printed in said county, if any there be, and by written notices thereof set up in three public places near the lots, streets, alleys, common or square proposed to be vacated. 3361. Driving on sidewalk. A bicycle is a vehicle within the meaning of this statute, and its use upon a public sidewalk is unlawful. Wherefore, its rider is liable for an injury, by reason of such use and its propulsion, inflicted on a pedestrian, although the act of collision be unintentional. So, one who, riding a bicycle on a public sidewalk, rudely and in such a reckless manner as to show a disregard of consequences, collides with a footman standing on such sidewalk, is liable as for an assault and battery, the intent being implied.— Mercer v. Corbin, 117-454. 3364-6. Street improvement. Although sidewalks are not specially mentioned in this act, of 1869, a street may be improved to its full width under it, since the term street includes sidewalks, in the absence of language in association with the term restricting its meaning.- Wiles v. Hoss, 114-378. 3366. Cost, how collected. A question as to whether or not there was a proper advertisement for bids is a question of fact which arose "prior to the making of the contract" for the improvement of the street; under this section it is not triable in an action to enforce an assessment.- Wiles v. Hoss, 114-380. 3367. Power over streets, bridges, etc. The acts of a property owner, who improves a sidewalk under an ordinance of a town passed in pursuance of this section, can not be deemed the acts of the town in such a sense as to charge the town with his negligence. In order to charge the corporation, in such case, evidence of the negligence of the property owner must be supplemented by evidence that the town authorities were negligent or that the work directed to be done was intrinsically dangerous. Wherefore, in an an action against a town to recover for an injury sustained by falling, in the night time, in to an excavation in a sidewalk, an answer to the complaint that the excavation was made by the owner of the abutting lot in pursuance of an ordinance requiring him to improve the sidewalk and that he had, when the work was left on the night in question, placed proper danger signals at the excavation, which the plaintiff, without any fault on the part of the lot owner, had disregarded, is good.-Dooley v. Sullivan, 112-452. While in this state, by this statute, boards of trustees of incorporated towns are given exclusive power over the streets within the corporate limits of their respective towns, and are invested with large discretionary powers in the exercise of the duties thus imposed, there may arise many cases where it becomes the duty of the courts to interfere, by injunction, to prevent them from exceeding their powers or abusing such discretion. Before, however, the courts will, at the suit of an abutting land owner, enjoin municipal authorities in making street improvements at the public expense, at least it must be shown that there has been a clear invasion of the rights of such complaining land owner. So, it must be shown that unless relief be granted, such land owner will suffer irreparable injury.— Marion v. Skillman, 127-138. Where an incorporated town undertakes the improvement of its public street and does the work negligently or unskilfully it will be liable, in damages, to an abutting lot owner, for injuries to his lot and premises resulting directly from the negligence or unskilfulness.-Town Princetown v. Gieske, 93-105. 3368. Opening streets. Trustees have, on the conditions imposed by statute, power to narrow a street. The property appropriated in making such improvement is for a public use.-Town Rensselaer v. Leopold, 106-35. 2. Action to compel specific performance of a written agreement to open a public street, in an addition to a town, is not a proper proceeding to remove an obstruction from such street.-Mather v. Simonton, 73-597. 3372. Action on report—Appeal. Where the record of a board of trustees shows that a proper petition, praying for the opening of a street, was filed, that commissioners were duly appointed to assess benefits and damages, and that the commissioners made and filed their report with the town clerk; but fails to show that the board accepted the report within twenty days, or that any further action was taken by the trustees in opening the street, it is not competent to prove by parol that the board of trustees accepted the report within the time prescribed, by this section, and that it determined to make the appropriation of the land therein described.-Byer v. New Castle, 124-86. 3374 Record of plats. Where a plat into lots is made of an addition to an incorporated town, or city, and reservations for any purpose are marked on such plat the intention of the proprietor of such plat, in regard to the meaning of the marks on such reservation is, in general, a question of fact and not of law.Pidgeon v. M'Carthy, 82-322. 2. The state in laying out, for its seat of government, upon land donated by the United States for that purpose, the town of Indianapolis and making and filing maps thereof, vested in the town, for the use of the public, such rights to the streets and alleys and such interests therein as would have been vested in it if any citizen had been the proprietor of the land and had laid out the town in the same manner. Wherefore, a grantee, in fee simple, in a conveyance by the state, through its agent, of a lot by its number, abutting on a public street in said town and his assignees acquired such rights to said street and such interest therein as would be conferred by a like conveyance made by such a citizen proprietor of a town; i. e., such grantee and his assignees took the fee, subject to the public use, to the center line of such abutting street.-T. II. etc. Co. v. Scott, 74-37. 3. An explanatory note, on the face of a town plat, inconsistent with all else which is shown on the plat can not control these other facts, when a question of the location of a lot shown upon the plat is in dispute.-Hunter v. Eichel, 100–464. 3375. Donation by plat. A donation, or grant, of land by a husband, during life, to a municipal corporation, for use as a street, noted as such on the plat of a city or an addition thereto, made in accordance with the statute and accepted by the city bars the inchoate interest of the wife in such land.-Duncan v. City T. Haute, 85-106. 3376. Plat, how acknowledged. A plat executed and recorded is not evidence if it be not acknowledged or proven; such record is not evidence.—Allen v. City Vincennes, 25-531. [1 R. S. 1852, p. 493. In force May 6, 1853.] 3380. Proceedings concerning vacation. 7. If no opposition be made to such petition, the Board of County Commissioners may vacate the same, with such restrictions as they may deem for the public good; but if opposition be made, such application shall be continued until the next term of the Board, when, if the objector consent to such vacation, or if twothirds of all the real-estate holders of the town petition therefor, the Board may grant the prayer of the petition. 3381. Title on vacation. 8. The part so vacated, if it be a lot, shall vest in him who may have the title thereof according to law; and if the same be a street or alley, the same shall be attached to the ground bordering on such street or alley, and all title thereto shall vest in the persons owning the property on each side thereof, in equal proportions, according to the length or breadth of such ground, as the same may border on such street or alley. And whenever a public square shall be vacated, the property thereof shall vest in the Board of County Commissioners, for the use of the county. 3382. No vacation, unless owners consent. 9. But no such vacation of a street or alley shall take place, unless the consent of the persons owning the property immediately adjoining thereto be obtained therefor in writing; which consent shall be acknowledged before some Justice of the Peace, and filed with said Board. 3383. Additions, how vacated. 10. If any person shall lay off an addition to any town which does not improve, and shall be the legal owner of all the lots contained in such addition, such person, or any other person who shall become the legal owner thereof, may have such addition, or any part thereof, vacated, by applying to the Board of Commissioners of the proper county, after notice as hereinbefore provided, and proof of ownership of such lots. [1901 S., p. 358. Approved March 11, 1901.] 3384. Change of name. 2. The name of any corporated town in this State may be changed by the Board of Trustees of said town, in the manner herein provided, by petition to be signed by not less than three fourths of all the legal voters of said town, whose names shall be ascertained and counted in the manner set forth in Section 1 of this act, and which petition and census shall be filed with the Town. Clerk. Such petition must set forth sufficient causes for such change, and shall be verified by one or more of the petitioners, and filed with the Clerk of said town at least thirty days before any action is taken thereon by said Board of Trustees, who shall require said Clerk to give notice of the filing of said petition, and the time when the same, will be heard by said Board of Trustees, by publication for not less than thirty days prior to the hearing of said petition, in a newspaper of general circulation, published in said town, or if none be published therein, then in a newspaper of general circulation published at the county seat of the county wherein said town is located, and by posting copies of said notice in not less than ten public |