Smith v. Commissioner of Public Works

This is a petition for a writ of mandamus. It was heard.by a single justice,* who refused to issue the writ so far as it rested in his discretion, and reported the case.

Mandamus is not a writ of right, and it is granted only in the exercise of sound judicial discretion. Hill v. County Commissioners, 4 Gray, 414. Murray v. Stevens, 110 Mass. 95. McCarthy v. Street Commissioners, 188 Mass. 338, 340. The facts are that the city council of Boston appropriated in May, 1911, $300,000 to be expended by the department of public works for the purchase of gas lamps and other apparatus for street…