Municipal Corporations—Limitation on Powers.—Municipal corporations are public bodies of limited powers, and the validity of their acts must be judged by an examination of the charter or law defining their powers, rather than by a view of the purposes or results of those acts.

Id.—San Francisco—Opera House Erected on City Land—Manage- . MENT CANNOT BE DELEGATED TO PRIVATE PERSONS—TITLE OE LAND Remaining in City—Minority Representation op City in Management.—The city and county of San Francisco has no authority to enter into an agreement with a private corporation for the erection by the latter, on land belonging to the city, of a building to be used as an opera house, the entire control and management of which, together with such land, was to be turned over in perpetuity to a board composed for the main part, of persons whom the municipality has not selected and whose actions it cannot direct. This is so, notwithstanding under the terms of the agreement, the naked legal title of the land and building is to be vested in the city and county, and it is given a minority representation on the board of trustees which is, under the agreement, to have the possession and management of the opera house.

Id.—Power ot City to Conduct Opera House.—Assuming that authority to erect and conduct an opera house may be conferred upon a city, the question whether a given municipality has that authority must be determined by a reference to the charter or law defining the powers of the particular municipality. Municipal corporations have only the powers expressly conferred and such as are necessarily incident to those expressly granted, or essential to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation.

Id.—San Francisco has Power to Conduct Opera House Erected on City Land.—Section 10 of chapter II, article II of the charter of the city and county of San Francisco, adopted on January 27, 1913, empowering the board of supervisors to acquire land within a certain district for the purpose of establishing a civic center, and providing that “it may authorize the erection of an auditorium by the Panama-Pacific International Exposition Company, or of an opera house, museum, or other structure, provided the ownership of such structure shall always be vested in the municipality,” should not be construed as a grant of the right to erect only one of the various buildings described. That section constitutes an express grant to the supervisors of power to authorize the erection of an opera house to be owned by the city, and this carries with it, as a necessary incident, the power to use the building so owned for the purposes to which it is adapted.

Id.—Power'to Manage Opera House cannot be Delegated.—Neither that section, nor any other provision of the charter of the city and county of San Francisco, authorizes the municipality^ after acquiring the ownership of an opera house located upon land belonging to the city, to turn over in perpetuity to a private corporation, or to a body of private citizens, the absolute control and management of such land and building.

Id.—Management of Property Applied to Public Purposes cannot be Delegated.—The charter of that municipality does not contain any clause authorizing it to delegate or part with its rights and duty of managing, through its own officers or agents thereunto authorized by law, city property applied to public purposes.

Id.—Conditional Gift to Municipality of Opera House—City can-1 not Give Land for Such Purpose.—Notwithstanding the city and county, under article I, section 1, of its charter, may accept a gift of an opera house, upon condition that its management shall be for all time vested in a private body, that section does not authorize it to turn over its land to be used, controlled, and managed by a private body for the purposes of an opera house.