Docket Number:320 SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS Gas Company v. Wheeling. March 1, 1875. 1875. 1. January Term. 8 320 35 405 8 320 43 482j I 8 320 | 55 249 8 320| 56 29 8 61 3201 m In interpreting a submission to arbitration, regard is principally to be bad to the intention of the parties, and fair and liberal construction is to be adopted, without too great verbal accuracy. The court will always seek to put as liberal, largo and comprehensive a construction upon the submission as the apparent intent of the parties to it will admit. The authorization of a majority to make a valid decision need not always be made in distinct terms in the submission. By the common law, generally, whore a submission is made by private parties to a given number of persons, without authority given or to be inferred from the manner or circumstances of the submission that a smaller number may decide an award or decision, it will be void, unless made by all; though a different rule seems to prevail in matters of public concern. 5. The seventeenth section of an act of the general assembly of Virginia, passed the 18th day of March, 1850, and entitled “An act to incorporate the Wheeling Gas Company,” provides “that said Company shall have the sole and exclusive privilege of using the-the streets, alleys and public grounds of said city (meaning the city of Wheeling) for the purpose of lighting said city with gas for the full term and period of thirty years from the time said Company shall commence the distribution and supply of.gas, of which time-notice shall be given by said Company to be entered amongst the records of said city, the assent of the Council of said city being first had and obtained as hereinafter provided: Provided, always, That upon the expiration of the twenty years from the commencement of said exclusive privilege hereby granted, and within six months thereafter, the said city of Wheeling shall have the right, at the discretion of the Council thereof, and of which notice shall be given in writing t'o the said Company, to purchase the said lots or grounds, works, apparatus, fixtures and property of said Com-
