—The plaintiff in this case is the Electric Light and Power Company, a corporation organized in this State, and the defendant is the city of San Bernardino, a municipal corporation of the fifth class. The plaintiff entered into an express contract for lighting the streets of the city of San Bernardino for one year following the first day of October, 1891, with forty-two electric lamps. The city agreed to pay therefor the sum of five hundred and forty-six dollars per month. The contract was fully complied with on the part of the plaintiff, and the defendant made payments on the contract for all the months except July, August, and September, 1892. The respondent refused to pay for lighting the city during these last-named months, and this action is brought to recover the contract price, amounting to sixteen hundred and thirty-eight dollars. In answer to plaintiff’s complaint the defendant alleges that the lighting of the city was done under the contract set forth, but asserts that the contract was unauthorized in that it was not let pursuant to any notice or advertisement for bids for lighting the city, and that no advertisement inviting bids for the lighting of the city was ever given by the board of trustees of said city. At the close of plaintiff’s case the defendant moved for judgment of nonsuit on the grounds specified in his answer, and the court granted the motion, and ordered judgment for defendant. This appeal is prosecuted from such judgment.

The merits of this appeal are determined by the construction given section 777 of the Municipal Corporation *351 Act, as amended by the Statutes of 1891, p. 51. That portion of the section to which it is necessary that we direct our attention is as follows: “In the erection, improvement and repair of all public buildings and works, in all street and sewer work, and in all work in or about streams, bays or water-fronts, or in or about embankments or other works for protection against overflow, and in furnishing any supplies or materials for the same, when the expenditure required for the same exceeds the sum of one hundred dollars, the same shall be done by contract, and shall be let to the lowest responsible bidder after notice by publication in a newspaper of general circulation.” . . . .

There can be no question as to the sound policy of a law requiring municipal corporations to enter into contracts, for the payment of money, only after full notice and opportunity for competition; but that is not a matter for our consideration here. We must take the statute as we find it. We can neither add to it nor subtract from it. It is our duty alone to construe it as it stands enacted.

For the foregoing reasons it is ordered that the judgment be reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to the trial court to enter judgment for the plaintiff upon the.pleadings.

Paterson, J., and Harrison, J., concurred.