Opinion of the Court. issue writs of fieri facias against the owners in 1876. To the application for that writ the city answered that the cost of the proceeding would equal, in her opinion, the amount realized. The result showed her estimate to be nearly correct; for the cost of the 125 writs selected by the warrant-holders, and therefore presumably the best for the purpose, was $34,000, and the amount collected under them only $36,000." The second contention is that the city was itself a debtor to this drainage fund for nearly $700,000; that it had misappropriated a portion of the fund which it did receive; that as trustee of these assessments it was its duty to collect from itself as debtor to such fund; and that having failed so to do it can be properly charged in this proceeding. Considerable discussion took place on the argument, and is also found in the briefs, as to whether streets and other public property can be subjected to a lien for a share of the cost of local improvements, or whether the city stands in such relation to these properties that it can be held liable as owner. It is unnecessary to enter into the merits of this discussion. It may be that streets and other public grounds cannot be sold for non-payment of assessments for local improvements or other taxes, and it may be that the city is not technically their owner, and yet, at the same time, it may be true that the city, as representing the public, may, under proper proceedings, be charged as debtor for the proportion of the cost of local improvements, which, by the rule established, would fall upon such public property. Neither do we need to examine the various decisions of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, cited by counsel, or seek to determine what is the law of that State in respect to this matter. For the purposes of this case we assume that the various assessment proceedings, taken in connection with the decision of the Supreme Court approving the homologation of the tableaux, operated, if not to cast a specific lien upon the streets and other public grounds, at least to charge upon the city an obligation to the drainage fund for that share of the total cost of the drainage determined by the proportion of the superficial feet of streets and other public grounds to the entire area of Opinion of the Court. the drainage districts. Upon that assumption the obligation of the city to the drainage fund amounted to several hundred thousand dollars. Assuming that to be true, the contention of appellee is that it has paid into that fund far more than such amount. It is admitted that the city has issued sixteen hundred thousand dollars of its own bonds, taking up thereby a proportionate amount of the drainage warrants. It is not questioned by complainant that if this issue of bonds is to be taken as a payment of its indebtedness to the drainage fund, its obligations to that fund have been fully discharged, and, in addition, that the amount of such contribution in excess of its obligations to that fund more than covers all alleged misappropriation thereof. In other words, the sixteen hundred thousand dollars exceeds both the obligations of the city to the fund and its alleged misappropriation of any part thereof. But the contention of complainant is that there is nothing in the legislation, the ordinance, the warrants, the bonds, or other proceedings, which expresses an intent to make this contribution one in discharge of such indebtedness; and that, if it simply gave these bonds to the fund, if other and ultimate corporate benefit was the consideration of their issue, it cannot be affirmed that they were intended or ought to be taken as payment of the original obligation created by the assessment proceedings. The answer to this view is clear and just. It is true that ordinance number 814, which provides for the refunding of warrants into city bonds, contains no declaration that such refunding shall be in discharge of the city's obligation, as assessee, to the drainage fund; and that the assessment proceedings contain no receipt or release of the city as assessee, by reason of its issue of bonds. On the face of the record there is no discharge of the city's obligation as assessee; and if we rest upon the letter, it perhaps could not be denied that the city is still a debtor to that fund; but equity looks beyond the form to the substance of things, and these are substantial facts: For thirteen years a drainage system had been in force, in respect to which the city had no duty and no obligation other than as supposed owner and assessee of certain public grounds. The assessment proceedings had proceeded Opinion of the Court. so far that there was a large apparent obligation of the city to the drainage fund. In 1871 an act of the legislature is passed, empowering the canal company to complete the work, transferring to a subordinate administrative body of the city all assessments theretofore made, and imposing upon it the further duty of assessment and collection. No provision is made by the legislative act for payment for the work done or to be done, otherwise than through the collection of these local assessments. In that emergency the city, by ordinance, says to the contractor named by the State, go on with the work, and if the warrants issued in payment therefor be not satisfied out of the assessment collections at the end of the year, they may be exchanged for city bonds. The work progresses, and warrants are issued and exchanged for city bonds, which have passed into the markets of the world and remain the undisputed obligations of the city, and to an amount far in excess of all the assessments charged against the city. In other words, the city, as assessee, owing the drainage fund a certain debt, puts into that fund twice the amount of the debt. Can any creditors of that fund thereafter equitably charge the city as debtor to that fund, because when it put its moneys into that fund it did not in express language say, I put these in in discharge of my indebtedness? It will be borne in mind that no new consideration passed from the contractor for this contribution of the city to the drainage fund. No legislative act contemplated direct obligation on the part of the city. From first to last all meant local improvement, to be paid by special assessments; and the contractor, all these years, had only legislative authority to look to the special assessments for payment. Its contract was entered into and performed, with knowledge that the only legal right it had for payment consisted in these assessments. Without further consideration, the city put into this fund these bonds, and they were accepted by the contractor. It is doubtless true that the motive of the city was to anticipate the collection of the assessments, and to put into the hands of the contractor available assets to insure speedy performance of the work, but the obligation of the contractor was to do the work, and it gave no new obligation, Opinion of the Court. no new consideration, to the city or any other party, for these bonds. To say after this contribution of the city to this fund, a contribution without consideration except in discharge of its debt to the fund, that because it was not expressed that the contribution was to be taken as in discharge of the indebtedness, a court of equity will permit the contractor or its assignees to treat the contribution as a donation and charge the contributor as a debtor, would be a mockery of justice and an insult to equity. It must be borne in mind that a city is not like a private individual, with absolute freedom of contract and donation. It is simply the representative of the citizens and taxpayers, a trustee for their interests; it has no general powers of donation, and its contribution to a fund can never be considered as a donation when there is an indebtedness to that fund to be discharged. Indeed, if there were no indebtedness, the contribution, as a whole, might well be considered as ultra vires, and, if by the issue of negotiable securities to that fund an indefeasible obligation had been assumed by the city, it might in equity hold that fund as debtor to it for such amount. Much stress is placed by counsel for appellant on this point, and large reliance is placed on the fact that in these bond transactions there was no declaration of an intent to appropriate them to the payment of the city's indebtedness, as assessee, but, as we have indicated, such omission does not militate against the rights created by the contribution. If the city, as assessee, owed this fund seven hundred thousand dollars, it may rightfully answer to any demand of the contractor, or its assignees, that it pay such amount into the fund, I have already paid it, and it is no reply to that answer to say, when you paid it you did not declare that you paid it in discharge of that indebtedness. It is enough that the city paid it, and paid it without other consideration than the discharge of its indebtedness. We think this contention of the appellant must also fail. The remaining proposition is, that under the authority of the act of February 24, 1876, the city purchased from the canal company and its transferee all rights, franchises and privileges possessed, and all tools, machinery and apparatus Opinion of the Court. belonging to said company or its transferee; that having made such purchase, it abandoned the work then incomplete; and that the failure to complete the work left large portions of the realty within the drainage districts of comparatively no value, and thus rendered impossible the collection of the assessments. One satisfactory answer to this is, that the testimony indicates that if the work contemplated had been completed the property would have still remained in its valueless condition of swamp and overflowed lands, without other and further work. It would, to say the least, be ignoring the significance of a large amount of testimony, to hold that, if the work as contemplated had been finished, the lands would have been drained and made valuable; but we do not base our decision upon the results of a completion of the contemplated work; we rather place it upon the other ground-that a municipality which abandons a contemplated and intended work of public improvements, assumes thereby no obligation to any parties who have invested on the faith and expectation of benefit from the completion of the work. When a city or State contracts with an individual or company for the doing of certain work, the right remains to the contracting parties, at any time, to abandon that work; no obligation arises to third parties, who become interested in one way or another in the completion of the work; there is no guaranty that the contracting parties may not at any time abandon it; or abandoning it, that any contingent, further, and speculative liability will arise in favor of such third parties. When the city bought out the contractor, it did not assume his debts. A municipality may, with the consent of its contractor, at any time abandon contracted work. Such abandonment does not make the city liable for the debts of the contractor. So when the city purchases from the contractor his property invested, and his rights existing in the contract, such purchase creates no assumption of his debts. Having purchased, it may abandon the work; and creditors of the contractor cannot charge it as debtor on the theory that if the work had been completed their claims would have become of value. Into every contract between a municipality and an individual there enters, as between a contract between |