Touchard

Murray, C. J., concurred.

In the opinion which I delivered in the case of Vanderslice & Clarkson v. Hanks, 3 Cal., 27 , I held that in a case of grant of land by the Mexican Government, upon conditions subsequent, the want of performance of the conditions could be taken advantage of only by denouncement, a mode of forfeiture fixed and regulated by Mexican jurisprudence.

The counsel for plaintiffs has learnedly argued to apply the same doctrine to a grant from a Municipal Corporation. The distinction, however, between the two cases is so apparent as scarcely to require consideration.

It is by the express decree of the Mexican Government that the denouncement is the mode of taking advantage of the non-performance of subsequent conditions in grants made by the Government, and it is therefore the only mode, because the Government has agreed that denouncement shall be the result of non-performance. On the other hand a corporation, both by the civil and common law, is a person, an artificial person, and although a Municipal Corporation has delegated to it certain powers of government, it is only in reference to those delegated powers that it will be regarded as a government. In…