Section 69. Powers in general. Since municipal corporations can exist only by virtue of express legislative enactment creating or authorizing the creation of the corporate body, they may be said to possess and can only exercise the following powers, viz.:

First. Those powers which are mentioned in express words.

Second. Those powers which are necessarily or fairly implied in or incident to powers expressly granted.

Third. Those powers which are indispensable to the declared objects and purposes of the corporation.

Municipal corporations are wholly under a delegated authority and can exercise no powers which are not in express terms or by fair implication conferred upon them.1

In the case of Spaulding vs. City of Lowell, 40 Mass. (23 Pick.), 71, the court said in reference to the general powers of municipal corporations: ' They can exercise no powers but those which are conferred upon them by the act by which they are constituted, or such as are necessary to the exercise of their corporate powers, the performance of their corporate duties, and the accomplishment of the purposes of their association. The principle is fairly derived from the nature of corporations, and the mode in which they are organized and in which their affairs must be conducted."

1 Seeger vs. Mueller, 133 III., 86.

Judge Dillon, in his admirable commentaries on the law of municipal corporations, justifies their exercise of incidental powers as follows: "In this country, all corporations, whether public or private, derive their powers from legislative grant, and can do no act for which authority is not expressly given, or may not be reasonably inferred. But if we were to say that they can do nothing for which a warrant could not be found in the language of their charters, we should deny them, in some cases, the power of self-preservation, as well as many of the means necessary to effect the essential objects of their incorporation. And therefore it has long been an established principle in the law of corporations, that they may exercise all the powers within the fair intent and purpose of their creation which are reasonably proper to give effect to powers expressly granted. In doing this, they must, unless restricted in this respect, have a choice of means adapted to ends, and are not to be confined to any one mode of operation. The incidental powers of a municipal corporation must be germane to the purposes for which it is created."