Campbell v. Lambert. with each party to avoid the agreement on giving notice to the other at any period during the time of delivery. Houston v.. Mitchell, 38 Tex. 85. If the condition upon which defendant's promise was to take effect had been the doing of something involving labor or other value by Campbell, and upon the faith of said promise and before its revocation, Campbell had done the thing, different principles would apply, not necessary to specify here. But the foregoing cases sufficiently show that the mere exercise of an option to exact the performance of a promise does not alter the situation of the parties, and does not prevent the promisor from exercising his right of refusal. The authorities quoted are sound and applicable to our law. On these grounds we hold that defendants were not bound in law to execute the naked promise contained in their agreement, but had the right, at any time, to refuse to proceed in execution thereof, and for such refusal, are not responsible in damages to plaintiff. Defendants have at considerable cost to themselves, striven to comply with an unconscionable bargain by which they were not legally bound, and we think they are entitled to relief under their prayer for amendment of the judgment to that amount. The only damages claimed outside of those for non-delivery amount to $595.5, and we shall reduce the judgment to that amount. The objection that defendant's plea in compensation amounts to a judicial confession has no force under the circumstances of this case, which correspond with those presented in the following case and fall under its authority. Durham v. Williams, 32 La. Ann. 962. It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed that the judgment appealed from be amended by striking therefrom the words "two thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars and eighty-five cents" and inserting in lieu thereof, the words "five hundred and ninety-five dollars and fifteen cents," and that as thus amended, the judgment be affirmed; plaintiff and appellant to pay costs of this appeal. Rehearing refused. New Orleans, etc., Packet Company v. Brown. NEW ORLEANS, ETC., PACKET COMPANY v. Brown. In the absence of contract, the managing director of a steamboat company, acting as captain of one of the boats, is entitled to compensation for laborious and responsible services according to custom and value, where he has retained such amount from the company's funds and this has been acquiesced in by the directors.* THE opinion states the point. The plaintiff had judgment below. E. H. Farrer, for appellee. Singleton, Brown & Choate, for appellant. POCHÈ, J. [Omitting other matters.] We shall now consider the question of the right of defendant to retain the salary which he received from the boat for three years, under the light of plaintiff's acquiescence in the defendant's course in the premises. Plaintiff's counsel argues with force, that as no salary was stipulated in the contract, none can be claimed by the defendant, and he cites numerous authorities in support of his proposition. Were we dealing with a claim urged by defendant for such a salary, we would cheerfully yield the correctness of that proposition, as it is amply supported by law and overwhelming authorities. But the attitude of this case is to the reverse; the defendant is not suing for a salary not provided for or contemplated in the act of incorporation, but he is sued for the reimbursement of his salary already received and alleged by him to have been thus received within the knowledge and with the assent of the corporation, manifested through the acquiescence of its board of directors, represented by Janney and Leathers. The ground-work of plaintiff's argument is that a procuration or mandate is gratuitous unless there has been a contrary agreement (C. C., art. 2991); and that jurisprudence has settled the rule that directors and other officers of corporations, even managing directors *See 39 Am. Rep. 167. New Orleans, etc., Packet Company v. Brown. and presidents, are presumed to act gratuitously and cannot claim a salary on the theory of an implied contract. Under a slight reservation, we must concede the correctness of the rule. But we must bear in mind, as shown by numerous authorities, that the rule applies to such officers claiming or suing for a salary. And hence the rule must yield some of its force when applied to cases where the officer or agent has already and continuously received for several years a regular salary, alleged to have been legalized o ratified by the continuous acquiescence of the corporation or of his principal. But it must not be presumed that the rule is absolute in all cases; some exceptions must be recognized, especially when the duties to be performed are onerous and toilsome. The services of the managing director of a corporation, including the management or command of a steamboat, must be conceded to be of that class. The rule invoked by plaintiff has therefore been modified in certain cases and very respectable authority has laid down the doctrine as follows: "The agents of a corporation, like the agents of a natural person, are entitled, in legal presumption, to be paid for their services by the principal, the corporation, what they are reasonably worth. The officers of a corporation, who are to receive any compensation, are usually provided for by regular salaries. If there be no salary and no particular contract, much must depend, as in other cases, upon the custom with regard to compensation for the particular services and the expectation of the parties growing out of it.” Ang. & Ames Corp. (11th ed.), § 317. Hence it has been held that a bank clerk, for whose salary no provision had been made by corporate action, was allowed to recover a salary on a quantum meruit. Waller v. Kentucky Bank, 3 J. J. Marsh. 206. And on the other hand, a bank president, under similar circumstances, was denied the right to recover compensation. Sawyer v. Bank, 6 Allen, 207; Pew v. Bank, 130 Mass. 391. In a case where the president of a railroad company claimed compensation for services rendered in his said capacity, in superintending the construction of a depot, this court held, in keeping with that rule, that he could not recover. Levisee v. Shreveport R., 27 La. Ann. 641. The duties rendered by a bank president, or a railroad president acting as superintendent of a construction, are not necessarily la Blanc v. Murray. borious, like those of a clerk, hence the distinction has been recognized and made by the courts. Now in the case before us, it is shown that the duties performed by the defendant were laborious, toilsome and very responsible, and that such functions are customarily paid for and liberally compensated. From the testimony of several steamboat captains and of others examined as experts, it appears that under the circumstances surrounding this particular business, and in consideration of the defendant's peculiar fitness and of his exceptional energy and zeal, his services as manager of the company and of the boat were worth the amount retained, $400 a month. The construction and use, within the fire limits of a city and in violation of its ordinance, of a wooden building, to be filled with lumber and employed in the manufacture of wooden cisterns, near a steam railway, may be restrained by injunction at the suit of a private party whose adjacent dwellinghouse is endangered thereby. (See note, p. 10.) SUIT UIT for injunction. The opinion states the case. iff had judgment below. Miller & Finney and Bayne & Denegre, for appellee. Geo. L. Bright, for appellant. The plaint MANNING, J. The plaintiffs, owners of valuable property occupied by them as dwellings, complain that the defendant is constructing contiguous to them, within the fire limits of the city and in violation of its ordinances, an inflammable and dangerous wooden structure, in which he has placed a large quantity of pine and cypress lumber, which endangers their property and the lives of their families, and diminishes the value of the former and impairs its use, thus causing them irreparable injury and creating a nuisance. The damage alleged is several thousand dollars in amount. An injunction was obtained, which the lower court perpetuated. The defendant excepted that the petition disclosed no cause of action, for if he has violated an ordinance of the city, the remedy is for the city to enforce her ordinance, and that the plaintiffs have none as individuals, or if any, not by injunction. Should his exception be overruled, he avers that he is constructing the building according to law and in compliance with the city ordinances. The argument of defendant is that the erection of a wooden building is not a nuisance per se and is illegal solely because of the prohibition by city ordinance, and that private individuals have no right to sue for its abatement. Unquestionably the general doctrine is, that for damages arising from a public nuisance- that is, a nuisance the effects of which are common to every person and which produces no special or particular damage to any one person as distinguished from the rest of the public, there can be no redress except through a civil action or criminal proceedings taken by an officer on behalf of the public. Wood Nuis., § 641. But it is equally well settled that the fact that the damage is inflicted by a public nuisance will not prevent a recovery at the suit of an individual, if he has suffered a special and particular damage therefrom different from that which is common to all. Wood Nuis., § 653. It is only when the injury arising from a nuisance is to a purely public right, that is to say when the nuisance is in its nature a public nuisance, so that the injury is general and public in its effects and no private right is violated in contradistinction to the rights of the rest of the public, that individuals are precluded from bringing private suits for the violation of their individual rights. If the nuisance is susceptible of being both public and private, and is so to such an extent that an individual right is violated, then the private remedy is permissible, even though the result might be to open the door to multiplicity of suits. Wood Nuis., § 655. Thus it is undisputable that noise, smoke, noxious vapors, noisome smells, or other cause which creates a public nuisance, may by interfering with comfortable enjoyment of property create a private nuisance as well, and occasion a special and particular damage which will justify and sustain an individual action for damages. Wood Nuis., § 534; English cases cited in 6 Jacob Dig. 9516. And where the right to the private remedy exists, there can |