Village of Braceville v. Doherty

30 Ill. App. 645, 1888 Ill. App. LEXIS 346
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMay 25, 1889
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 30 Ill. App. 645 (Village of Braceville v. Doherty) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Village of Braceville v. Doherty, 30 Ill. App. 645, 1888 Ill. App. LEXIS 346 (Ill. Ct. App. 1889).

Opinion

Upton, J.

This proceeding was commenced before a justice of the peace, upon complaint in writing made upon oath, on which a warrant was issued, appellee arrested and held to bail, and upon the hearing, found guilty. A fine was assessed of three dollars against him, with costs, from which an appeal was taken to the Circuit Court, where it was heard by the court—a jury being waived—and a judgment was then rendered in favor of appellee, and against appellant for costs, from which an appeal was taken to this court.

The complaint upon which the warrant for appellee’s arrest was based, was the alleged violation of section one of an ordinance of the village of Braceville, entitled “Peddlers,” which section reads as follows:

“ Sec. 1. That every non-resident person who shall sell, or offer to sell, any goods, wares, or merchandise or other articles of value, or barter or exchange, at any place in or along or through any of the streets, avenues, alleys, or other public places, or the private houses of the village, shall be deemed a peddler.”

The second section of the same ordinance further provided :

“ Sec. 2. It shall be unlawful for any such peddler to exercise his calling within the village without first having obtained a license so to do.” And by
“ Sec. 3. The president is hereby authorized to grant such peddler’s license, to any person in his. discretion, who may apply therefor, upon his paying to the village clerk such amount, for such time as may be agreed upon, according to the scale of fees set forth in the chapter on licenses.”

By Sec. 12 of chapter entitled “ Ordinances,” it was provided : “ Whenever, in any ordinance, the doing of any act, or the omission to do any act or duty, is declared to be a breach thereof, and there shall be no fine or penalty declared for such breach, any person who shall be convicted of any such breach, shall be adjudged to pay a fine of not less than §3 nor more than $100.”

The scale of fees which is to be paid by non-resident peddlers, as stated in the last clause of Sec. 2 of the above recited ordinance, entitled “ Peddlers,” will be found in Sec. 6. entitled “Licenses,” and is as follows:

“ Sec. 6. When a license shall be granted to any person for the purpose of promoting the doing of any of the things mentioned in this chapter, the fee to be paid into the village treasury shall be according to the following schedule of license fees: * * * Peddlers and hawkers, $2 per day, $7 per week.”

The appellee is a manufacturer of pop, ginger ale and soda water in Braidwood, Will county, Illinois, and a non-resident of the village of Braceville.

For some months prior to the commencement of these proceedings, appellee had frequently contravened the provisions of the above recited ordinance, by peddling his pop, ginger ale and soda water within the corporate limits of Brace-ville, without license, or the payment, or offer to pay, the license fees required of peddlers thereby. The appellant municipality of Braceville is a village in Grundy county, lilinois, and, as we understand from the record before us, was duly organized under and pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 24 of the Revised Statutes of this State, title “ Cities, Villages and Towns.”

It is conceded that the appellant municipality, under the Constitution and laws of this State, had the general power to license, tax and regulate, prohibit and suppress hawkers and peddlers, within its jurisdiction; but the contention of the appellee is, that the ordinance here in question is invalid and void, for the alleged reason that it is unreasonable, and against public policy and the Constitution and laws of this State; makes unjust discriminations against the citizens of the State, and against non-resident citizens of the village of Braceville.

This claimed legal result, while not in terms conceded by appellant’s counsel, is sought tobe avoided by “conceding for argument, that” Sec. 1, of the foregoing recited ordinance entitled “Peddlers,” is void for discrimination, etc., as claimed; still it is insisted the Circuit Court erred in giving judgment for the appellee, for the alleged reason-that Sec. 2 of the same ordinance, entitled “Peddlers,” together with Sec. 12 of ordinances entitled “Ordinance,” were valid and free from objection, and that, under the evidence in the case, entitled appellant to judgment, etc.

We can not yield our assent to that proposition. Sec. 1, relating to peddlers, defines and expressly declares who shall be deemed peddlers, under the ordinances and by-laws of the village of Braceville. Who are they ?

Every non-resident person, who shall sell, or offer to sell, any goods, wares, merchandise, or other article of value, within the corporate limits of that village, is the certain and unmistakable answer in the language of the section quoted. Without Sec. 1 (or if void, and without full force and effect being given to the discriminating clause thereof) Sec. 2 could have no force and effect. It provides: “ It shall be unlawful for any such peddler ” to exercise his calling within the village, without having obtained a license, etc. What peddlers are here referred to ? Manifestly those and those only, who had been before mentioned in Sec. 1, and defined as non-residents of the appellant village.

It is further suggested, in argument, that even if the entire ordinance relating to and entitled “Peddlers” should be held unavailing, still Sec. o of the ordinance of the village, entitled “ Licenses,” is sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the case at bar and entitle appellant to judgment.

The record before us discloses that the several ordinances above referred to under the titles “Licenses,” “Peddlers” and “Ordinances” were but parts of aseries of “by-laws,” passed and in force at the same time, for the general government and especial regulation of the village, and as such should be construed together as in pari materia. In that view the special ordinance relating to “peddlers” might be regarded as a special enactment, controlling the general ordinance relating to “licenses” so far as the same relate to the same subject, and therefore the term “ peddlers,” as used in the fifth section of the chapter, title “ Licenses,” would be held to refer only to such persons as were defined “peddlers” in the special ordinance upon that subject, viz., non-residents of the village. This by-law under consideration must, as all will concede, be governed by the same canon of construction as are all other legislative enactments, viz., the legislative intent.

It is a fundamental principle that a general enactment does not operate as a repeal of a special law on the same subject, although enacted at the same session. So a subsequent statute which is general does not abrogate a former statute which is particular. Ottawa v. County of La Salle, 12 Ill. 340, and cases cited.

It is wholly immaterial, therefore, which of the ordinances in question had priority in point of time, as both were in full force at the time of the grievance complained of; and it is these ordinances as a whole which we are called upon to construe.

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30 Ill. App. 645, 1888 Ill. App. LEXIS 346, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/village-of-braceville-v-doherty-illappct-1889.