Armstrong v. State

84 N.E. 3, 170 Ind. 188, 1908 Ind. LEXIS 19
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 18, 1908
DocketNo. 21,109
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 84 N.E. 3 (Armstrong v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Armstrong v. State, 84 N.E. 3, 170 Ind. 188, 1908 Ind. LEXIS 19 (Ind. 1908).

Opinion

Montgomery, J.

Appellant was convicted on a charge of shaving and doing work pertaining to the trade and business of a barber and keeping his barber shop open on Sunday, in violation of an act prohibiting barbering and keeping open barber shops on Sunday (Acts 1907, p. 89, §§2365-2367 Burns 1908).

It is alleged that the court below erred in overruling appellant’s motion to quash each count of the affidavit, and 'in overruling his motion for a new trial.

There is no formal defect in the affidavit, but it is assailed on the ground that the statute upon which it was predicated is unconstitutional and void. The statute in question reads as follows:

“Section 1. That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to carry on or engage in the art or calling of hair cutting, shaving, hair dressing and shampooing, or in any work pertaining to the trade or business of a barber, on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, except such person or persons shall be employed to exercise such art or calling in relation to a deceased person.
Section 2. That it shall be unlawful for any such person or persons, association, firm, corporation or club to keep open their shops or places of business aforesaid, on said first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, for any of the purposes mentioned in section one of this [190]*190act: Provided, however, that nothing in this act shall apply to persons who conscientiously believe the seventh day of the week should be observed as the Sabbath and who actually refrain from secular business on tha,t day.
Section 3. Every person violating any of the provisions of this act shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not less than $10 nor more than $25 for each offense, to which may be added imprisonment in the county jail not more than thirty days.”

At the time of enacting the foregoing act, the following statute (§2364 Burns 1908, Acts 1905, pp. 584, 692, §467) Vas in force:

“Whoever, being over fourteen years of age, is found on the first day of the week, commonly called. Sunday, rioting, hunting, fishing, quarreling, at common labor or engaged in his usual avocation, works of charity and necessity only excepted, shall be fined not less than $1 nor more than $10; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to affect such as conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, travelers and those engaged in conveying them, families removing, beepers of toll-bridges and toll-gates, ferrymen acting as such and persons engaged in the publication and distribution of news.”

1. This statute, with immaterial changes, has been in force continuously since the year 1818 (Acts 1818, p. 314), and has been uniformly held to be constitutional and valid. Vogelsong v. State (1857), 9 Ind. 112, 114; Foltz v. State (1870), 33 Ind. 215, 216; Johns v. State (1881), 78 Ind. 332, 333, 41 Am. Rep. 577; Shaw v. Williams (1882), 87 Ind. 158, 159, 44 Am. Rep. 756; State v. Hogreiver (1899), 152 Ind. 652, 45 L. R. A. 504. This general statute has been held to prohibit a barber from shaving customers on Sunday in the ordinary exercise of his vocation. Ungericht v. State (1889), 119 Ind. 379, 12 Am. St. 419. See, also, Phillips v. Innes (1837), 4 Cl. & Fin. 234; State v. Frederick (1885), 45 Ark. 347, 55 Am. Rep. 555; State v. Wellott (1893), 54 Mo. App. 310; State v. Granneman (1896), 132 Mo. 326, 33 S. W. 784; Commonwealth v. Waldman (1891), 140 Pa. St. 89, 21 Atl. 248, 11 L. R. A. [191]*191563; Ex parte Kennedy (1900), 42 Tex. Cr. 148, 58 S. W. 129, 51 L. R. A. 271; State v. Nesbit (1898), 8 Kan. App. 104, 54 Pac. 326. The general statute requiring cessation from labor one day out of seven, and designating Sunday as such day of rest, is upheld as a legitimate exercise of the police power of the State. It is universally conceded that cessation from the ordinary callings in life for one day in each week tends to conserve the health and comfort of the citizen, and to promote the welfare of society. Under the general Sunday statute, the maximum penalty is a fine not exceeding $10 and the minimum $1, and under this special statute the minimum penalty is a fine of $10 and the maximum a fine of $25 and imprisonment in the county jail for thirty days.

It is charged that the act of 1907, supra, violates various constitutional provisions, and particularly that part of §22, article 4, of the state Constitution, which provides that “the General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say: * * * For the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors;” and that it also violates §23, of article 4, which reads as follows: ‘ ‘ In all the eases enumerated in the preceding section, and in all other eases where a- general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the State. ’ ’

2. The evils resulting from local and special legislation were flagrant, and constituted an influential cause for the convoking of the constitutional convention of 1851. That convention adopted the present Constitution, which embodies and emphasizes the principle that, so far as practicable, laws shall be general, and the wisdom of this policy has become and is becoming constantly more conspicuous. Local and special laws are forbidden in a number of specified instances, and then it is comprehensively provided that in all other eases where a general law can be made applicable the laws shall be general and of uniform operation throughout the State.

[192]*1923. The act under consideration was not designed primarily to protect from fraud and oppression the class to which it relates, or to safeguard the well-being of a class of laborers peculiarly oppressed, helpless and dependent, but its chief object was to enforce the observance of Sunday as a day of rest. The validity of general laws to that end have been upheld by this court and by all other courts of the Union from colonial days to the present, and the propriety and necessity of such regulations for the physical and moral well-being of the people cannot be questioned. This statute attempts by special act to do what plainly could be, and for ninety years had been, done by a general statute. The courts of some states have upheld legislative enactments relating to a particular class of laborers, upon the ground that their hours of labor were unusually long; and if we were confronted with a statute primarily to limit the hours of continuous service to which a laborer could be subjected or to relieve employes of burdens peculiar to the barber’s vocation, and to which penalties were incidentally appended, a different question would be presented. But the act in question merely makes the desecration of the Sabbath by a barber a special crime, and to that affixes punishment different from that imposed upon others for like offenses, and clearly falls within the inhibition of §22, article 4, of the Constitution of this State. State v. Granneman, supra; Eden v. People (1896), 161 Ill. 296, 43 N. E. 1108, 32 L. R. A. 659, 52 Am. St. 365; Ex parte Jentzsch (1896), 112 Cal. 468, 44 Pac. 803, 32 L. R. A. 664; Ex parte Westerfield (1880), 55 Cal. 550, 36 Am.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
84 N.E. 3, 170 Ind. 188, 1908 Ind. LEXIS 19, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/armstrong-v-state-ind-1908.