The  defendant  virtually  concedes  that  the  orator's  contract  with
the  trustees  is  the  measure  of  its  rights.  The  village,  by  its
trustees,  invested  the  orator  with  certain  rights,  and,  after  the
orator,  relying  upon  the  contract,  had  expended  money  in  estab-
lishing its  plant  and  appliances,  the  village  could  not,  by  an
ordinance,  have  infringed  these  rights ;  and  clearly  it  could  not
confer  upon  the  defendant  authority  to  infringe  them.  On
the  other  hand  it  is  not  claimed  that  the  orator  obtained  a  privilege
of  the  streets  to  the  exclusion  of  the  defendant,  but  that  the  de-
fendant's rights  were  subordinate  to  the  orator's,  and  must  be  ex-
ercised in  such  a  manner  as  not  to  interfere  with  them.  If  author-
ities were  required  to  sustain  so  plain  a  proposition,  those  cited
upon  the  orator's  brief  are  pertinent.  In  Hudson  Tel.  Co.  v.  Jer-
sey City,  49  N.  J.  Law,  303,  8.  Atl.  Bep.  123,  it  was  held  that
where  the  city,  by  an  ordinance,  under  statutory  authority,  had
designated  certain  public  streets  in  which  the  company  might
place  its  telegraph  poles,  and  the  company  had  expended  money
in  placing  its  poles  upon  such  streets,  the  city  could  not,  by  sub-
sequent ordinances,  revoke  such  designation;  that  the  company
had  an  irrevocable  vested  right  to  use  the  streets  for  the  desig-
nated pui-pose.  Thompson's  Law  of  Electricity  lays  down  the
general  rule  that  when  a  municipal  corporation,  under  a  statutory
provision,  has,  by  ordinance  or  other  lawful  mode,  authorized  a
telephone  company  to  erect  its  posts  or  poles  in  certain  designated
streets,  and  the  company  proceeds  to  erect  them,  and  to  expend
money  on  the  faith  of  the  license  so  granted,  it  thereby  acquires


160    Cincinnati,  N.  0.  &  T.  P.  Ry.  Co.  v.  Barker  et  al.
