Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/225

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The Green Bag.

"Junk shop." — An interesting case of definition is City of Duluth v. Bloom, Wisconsin Supreme Court, 21 L. R. Ann. 689, in which it was held that a store in which furniture, both new and second-hand, is exclusively dealt in, is not a "junk shop" within the meaning of an ordinance requiring "any person keeping a second-hand store or junk shop" to take out a license. The Court said : — "The first section of the ordinance provides that no per son shall carry on or conduct the business or calling of pawnbroker or dealer in second-hand goods without first having obtained a license so to do, but does not attempt to define who shall be considered pawnbrokers or dealers in second-hand goods. Again, the word 'junk ' is one' neither used nor referred to in the first section, so that it seems to us that in using the phrases 'a second-hand store or junk shop ' the city council must have used the latter as definitive of the former, thereby intending to limit the ordinance to that class of second-hand stores known as 'junk shop.' Every junk shop is a second-hand store, but not every second-hand store is a junk-shop. The term 'second-hand store,' if not qualified or limited, would include any store in which any kind of second-hand goods are dealt in, as for example second-hand furniture or second-hand books; but stores in which these articles are dealt in would nut nec essarily be junk shops. The word ' junk,' which is of nau tical origin, originally meant old or condemned cable and cordage cut into small pieces, which, when untwisted, were used for various purposes on the ship. Hence the word afterwards came to mean worn out or discarded material in general, that still may be turned to some use, especially old rope, chain, iron, copper, parts of machinery, bottles, etc., gathered or bought up by persons called 'junk dealers.' A junk shop — a place where junk is bought and sold — has been defined as a place where odds and ends are pur chased and sold; a store where old metals, ropes, rags, etc., are bought and sold. 12 Am. & Kng. Encyclop. Law, 243; Charleston v. Goldsmith, 12 Rich. L. 470. It is our opinion that it must be held that the city council intended the pro visions of the ordinance to be limited to second-hand stores of the class commonly known as 'junk shops.' This is the cla-s of second-hand stores over which police regulations are peculiarly needed, for the reasons that they and pawn brokers' shops are the places where thieves most usuallv attempt to dispose of stolen property, and whose keepers not unfrequently become fences for such goods, — reasons which do not apply with anything like the same force to second-hand stores of other kinds, as, for example, second hand furniture or second-hand book stores."

Fox-Hunting. —When this Chair gets enough leis ure — say in eternity — he is going to write a treatise on the influence of the interests and occupations of each State upon its judicial decisions. Thus in Maine we should expect great tenderness toward ice, in Pennsylvania toward iron, in Louisiana toward sugar, in Florida toward the alligator-skin business, andsoon. In England one would naturally look to see the judges approving the noble industry of fox-hunting, and so

in Gundry v. Feltham, 1 T. R., Lord Mansfield and Mr. Justice Buller unhesitatingly and very briefly de clared that when a man starts a "noxious animal," to wit : a fox, on his own land, he may pursue it over the lands of others, with horses and hounds, doing no unnecessary injury, without liability to respond in trespass. In the endeavor to find the American doc trine in this matter, we naturally thought of the great fox-hunting State of Virginia, where the Father of his country used to ride to hounds, and applied to a learned professional brother who occupies a seat in the Washington and Lee University, for light on the subject. Strange to say he could only refer us to a case in Illinois — Glen v. Kays, 1 Bradwell, 479, which holds precisely the contrary doctrine in respect to hunting the noxious wolf. The English case was not cited, but the present Comptroller of the Currencv vainly endeavored to cajole the court into the adoption of that view. To this the Court responded : "We shall not enter upon the assumed difficult task pro posed by appellees to the opposite counsel, of producing ' some authority against the right of any person to pursue wolves or other animals fercr nalurce, and dangerous to mankind, for the purpose of their destruction, across the enclosed fields of another' — although it is said to have been ' one of the main legal questions mooted before the jury,' and it appears was the idea acted upon by the defend ants in their treatment of the plaintiff's possessions, but shall rest content with a simple observation upon the subject, that whenever the law shall be so construed as to per mit parties to trespass with impunity on the enclosures of their neighbors under such a plea, the fundamental prin ciple upon which it is based should be so changed as to read that every man shall be protected in the enjoyment of his property, except in cases where hunters, with their animals, may desire to make use of it in the pursuit of game that is considered dangerous." We cannot conveniently learn whether the case ever went up to the Supreme Court. We have examined a three-volume Illinois digest under Animals and Tres pass, but can find nothing on the point. That digest has no tables of cases, — an omission for which both author and publisher ought to be indicted.

A Definition. — The question whether bakingpowder is an article of "food," within a statutory phrase, "anything used for the food or drink of man," was recently decided in the negative by Hawkins and Lawrence. JJ., in England. It was argued that the powder was akin to pepper, must1rd, or salt. But it was adjudged that the test was whether the article •when sold is an article of food or not. The question was once before debated, but not authoritatively de cided, in an English case of Wawm v. Philips, 68 Law T. Rep. (N.S.) 246. See Stroud's Jud. Diet., "food."