the first day of January 1854, will bring into the Finance Department, for collection, a list of all the items of assessment prior to 1848, suspended in consequence of the decision of the Court of Appeals in the case of Doughty vs. Hope.

There is an amount of seven or eight hundred thousand dollars which ought to be brought into the City Treasury, from the suspended sales for taxes and assessments, arising from what the courts have decided to be a defective notice in regard to redemption of the premises from the effect of the sale. The justice and equity of the claim of the city to indemnity is in no respect impaired or weakened by the defect in the notice. Its effect has been to give the persons assessed some five or six years to redeem their lands from the sale, instead of two years, as provided in the tax and assessment laws.

Cases have been commenced, on the part of the city, to collect the assessments in arrear, and one of these cases is now before the Court of Appeals for a final decision. If this case is decided in favor of the city, it may be desirable to get a special act of the Legislature passed, authorizing the Finance Department to re-advertise and re-sell the lots and premises on which assessments and taxes are still in arrear.

The history of the claims of the city for unpaid assessments is briefly as follows: In October 1846, Judge Edmonds decided, in a case which came before him, where a lot had been sold for arrearages of assessments and a lease executed to the purchasers for eight hundred years, that the mode of giving notice for the redemption of land

sold for assessments, was defective, and the sale void. The case was carried to the Supreme Court for a new trial, which was denied. The law in relation to the sales of land for taxes and assessments, contained a provision that the owners might redeem the land within two years from the date of the sale, and that six months previous to the expiration of the time for redemption "notice should be published in one daily newspaper in the city of New York, twice in each week, for six weeks successively." Judge Bronson, in affirming the opinion of Judge Edmonds, held that "the six weeks publication should have been complete before the commencement of the last six months of the two years after the sale, which is allowed for redeeming." "The publication must be completed within the first eighteen months of the two years." The case was carried to the Court of Appeals, and the decision of the Supreme Court was there affirmed.

In consequence of this decision, the Common Council, in February, 1848, passed an ordinance, authorizing the Comptroller to draw his warrant in favor of the purchasers in all cases of sales for taxes and assessments, for the amount of the purchase money, with interest at the rate of seven per cent., together with the expenses of executing and recording the leases. The amount thus repaid from the City Treasury to the purchasers at the sales for assessments, amounted to one hundred and sixty-two thousand and ninety-six dollars and thirty-three cents.

In the Comptroller's report of 1848, it was stated that the whole number of parcels sold for assessments, and not redeemed, is two thousand six hundred and seventy-four; and the aggregate sum for which they were sold, amounts

to three hundred and forty thousand one hundred and ninety-one dollars and six cents. The number of parcels sold for taxes unredeemed, is four hundred and sixty. The aggregate sum for which they were sold amounts to twenty thousand dollars, making in all, three hundred and sixty thousand one hundred and ninety-one dollars and six cents; to which, add for interest, accruing during several years, and the aggregate will amount to five hundred thousand." This was the state of the account in January, 1848, since which five years have elapsed.

Mr. Turner, the Deputy in the Department of the Street Commissioner, has obligingly furnished an accurate statement of the sum refunded to purchasers, at assessment sales, the sum subsequently paid to the treasury on sales for assessments under defective notices, and the amount of the original assessments still due the city on account of suspended assessment sales. The results are as follows:

Money refunded to purchasers at assessment

sales,.....

Amount paid to city to redeem lands from

$162,096 33

the lien on account of suspended assessment sales,...

101,799 98

Excess of sum refunded to purchasers over

that received,..

$60,296 35

Add residue of suspended assessment,......

441,455 00

And it shows the assessments now outstanding, to be,.....

$501,751 35

Interest on the above sum at seven per cent., averaging the time at six years on each assessment, would add two

hundred and ten thousand dollars, making the total sum now due on these suspended assessments, equal to seven hundred and eleven thousand seven hundred and fifty-one dollars and ninety cents.

The notice of redemption of the sales of land for taxes in 1842, rests under the same defective notice as that relating to assessments; and the ordinance of February 9, 1848, authorizing the return of purchase money to those who had paid for lands sold for assessments, also authorized the Comptroller to refund to those who had purchased lands at the tax sales. The sum thus refunded on account of the tax sales of 1842, was,.....

The owners of land thus sold, notwithstanding the defect in the notice, have paid,...

Leaving yet due on the amount returned under the ordinance of 1848,

$3,289 01

517 83

$2,771 18

Residue of suspended taxes, or liens held by

purchasers,..

14,500 42

Total,........

$17,271 60

Add for interest ten years, at seven per cent.

12,089 70

$29,361 30

Add sums uncollected, on account of assess

ments,...

711,751 90

And it makes a total of,...

$741,113 20

The defect in the notice, although it saved the owner from the forfeiture of the land for feight hundred years, did not pay the debt to the Corporation, or relieve the

land from a lien or incumbrance on it to the amount of the assessment or tax. And Mr. Ewen, in his report of 1848, said: "It is competent for the legislature to authorize a re-sale of the property;" and he recommended, that application be made to the legislature, for a law, authorizing such re-sale, in order to reimburse the city for the sums due on the lands.

The law, however, was not passed, and several years after, suits were commenced by Mr. Davies, to test the question, whether the city could recover the amount of the assessment against the person assessed, and whether it was a lien on the land. In 1850, in the case of the Corporation against Adriance, to recover an assessment in widening William street, it was decided, that "the assessment, on its confirmation by the Supreme Court, became, and was a lien or charge on the premises, and that the same is liable to a preference, over all other incumbrances; and that the plaintiffs recover against the defendant "the amount of said assessment and interest, from May 14, 1847, (the date of confirmation,) and costs of suit." The case was carried to the Court of Appeals, where, in March, 1851, the judgment of the Superior Court was confirmed.

The Bank of England, in foreclosing a mortgage on certain premises in Platt street, charged with assessments, in 1836, in widening John street, made the Corporation a party. It was decided by Judge Roosevelt, at a special term, in 1852, that the assessment was not only a lien or charge on the particular lands assessed, but "entitled to a preference before all other incumbrances upon the same, and may be sued for and recovered, with costs, in like manner as if the said houses and lots, in the language of