their performance, which letting shall be under regulations to be made by the superintendent of public works [board of canal commissioners] as to the form, regularity and validity of all bids, securities and contracts. [And the canal commissioners] The superintendent shall require the deposit by the proposer for said work or materials of such a sum, in United States bonds or stocks of state of New York, or money, not exceeding twenty and not less than eight per centum of the aggregate estimate of the work to be let, as they may deem necessary to secure the entering into said contract. And in case the proposer to whom such work shall be awarded shall neglect or refuse to enter into such contract, the sum so deposited shall be forfeited to the state, and the [commissioner] superintendent shall pay the same into the state treasury, and it shall become a part of the canal fund. And upon entering into said contract the bonds or stocks, or money, required by the [commissioners] superintendent as security for the entering into said contract together with such additional securities as [they] he may require may be held as security for the completion of the work, and shall be deposited with the treasurer as a special trust, to be returned by him to the contractor, with such further sum as he may have realized for the use thereof, when the [commissioner in charge] superintendent and the state engineer shall certify that the contractor has fully completed his contract, and that the state has no further claim upon such funds. But in case he shall enter into said contract and fail in the performance thereof, the same shall be declared abandoned by [said commissioners] the superintendent pursuant to the terms of the contract, then the bonds or stocks or money so deposited shall be forfeited to the state and paid into the treasury and become a part of the canal fund. The canal board may, in the resolution authorizing any work to be let, prescribe the length of time of advertising, not less than ten days.

[L. 1872, ch. 850, extract from § 1; Birds. Stats. 357.]

§ 8. Section one hundred and seventy-four of the canal law is hereby amended to read as follows:

§ 174. Unlawful conversion of personal property by boatmen. -If a boatman or any person on board of a boat upon any canal takes, without right, any rails, boards, planks, staves, firewood or fencing posts from the banks or vicinity of the canals, the master of the boat shall forfeit to the owner treble the value of the property taken, and possession on board the boat shall be presumptive evidence of the taking. A person or boatman violating any provision of this section shall forfeit twenty-five dollars to any person who will prosecute therefor. If an action be brought under this section, the canal boat shall not be detained as provided in section one hundred and seventy-nine of this article, unless a bond be executed or delivered to the justice or judge before whom such action is brought in the sum of at least one hundred dollars, with one or more sureties to be approved by such justice or judge, conditioned that such action shall be prosecuted to judgment with all convenient speed, and that if judgment be rendered in favor of the defendant, the obligors will pay the costs and charges which shall be adjudged against the plaintiff, and all damages which may ensue from the detention of the boat and its cargo and crew.

[R. S., pt. 3, ch. 2, tit. 4, §§ 23, 24, inserted in the above section without change.]

§ 9. The laws and parts of laws enumerated in the schedule hereto annexed are repealed. Such repeal shall not revive any law repealed by a law hereby repealed, but shall include all laws amendatory of a law hereby repealed.

§ 10. This act shall take effect October first, nineteen hundred.

SCHEDULE OF LAWS REPEALED.

Revised Statutes, Part III, ch. 2, tit. 4, §§ 23, 24.

Bonds on de

tention of canal boats.

1834.... 312.. All...... Improvement of canals.

1897.... 595.. All...... Lease of surplus waters.

THE GENERAL CITY LAW.