The Louisiana Light & Heat Producing & Manufacturing Company, a corpo ration of Louisiana, was organized in the year 1881, by H. S. Jackson, W. Van Benthusen, and their associates, under a general law providing for the formation of corporations for certain purposes, among which are the construction and maintenance of works for supplying cities or towns with gas. These associates and their successors, transferees, and assigns had previously been authorized, by an ordinance of the common council of New Orleans, passed January 25, 1881, for the period of 50 years, and upon specified conditions, to lay mains, pipes, and conduits in the streets, alleys, sidewalks, bridges, avenues parks, gardens, and other places in that city, for the purpose of supplying the public with gas. Among the conditions was one to the effect that the rights and privileges defined in the ordinance were granted and accepted withoutiability upon the part of the city to any other gas company to which franchises had been granted by legislative enactment. The consideration to be paid for these privileges was the sum of $20,000. The benefit of this municipal grant having been transferred to the Louisiana Light & Heat Producing & Manufacturing Company, and that corporation being about to proceed with the construction of its mains, pipes, and conduits, the present suit was commenced against it and its directors in the civil district court of the parish of New Orleans, by the New Orleans Gas-light Company, which had been created, as will be presently explained, by the consolidation of other corporations. The plaintiff claims to be entitled, for the term of 50 years from April 1, 1875, to the sole and exclusive privilege of manufacturing and distributing gas in that city, by means of pipes, mains and conduits laid in its streets, to such persons or corporate bodies as may choose to contract for the digging up the streets, and other public ways or places of the city, for the purpose of laying pipes, conduits, or mains for supplying illuminating gas, and from asserting any right to do so until after the lapse of 50 years from the latter date. An application for an injunction having been denied, the suit was thereafter removed by the plaintiff into the circuit court of the United States. In the latter court a bill was filed, so as to conform to the general rules of equity practice. A statement of the history of the corporations concerned in the before-mentioned consolidation is necessary to a clear understanding as well of the grounds upon which the court below proceeded, as of the questions argued in this court.