15 Pa. 9 | Pa. | 1850
The opinion of the court was delivered, by
The question here agitated is to be solved by the proper construction of the act of March 4, 1807. (4 Smith’s Laws 369, 370.) It is entitled, “An act declaring part of Brush Creek, in the county of Bedford, and parts of Allegheny River, and Oswayo and Conondau Creeks, in the counties of Rotter and McKean, and Bald Eagle Creek, in Centre county, public streams or highways.” Its first section ordains that Brush Creek be, and the same is hereby declared a public stream or highway, for the passage of boats and rafts, and that it shall be lawful for persons desirous of
But, according to the words relied on by the defendant in error all the influence he claims for them in determining the meaning of the act, we cannot agree with the court below in the signification it assigns to the term “ rafts,” as here used. The learned judge was of opinion that a number of logs, thrown loosely into a stream and suffered to float in a body, without being actually attached each to the other, cannot be denominated a raft, in the Pennsylvania meaning of the word. Why not? It is conceded that elsewhere the phrase is used to express a body of timber, held together by attraction, or the force of external pressure. Of this, the celebrated raft of the Red River is a familiar example. Walker, in his dictionary, says, it is “ a frame or float made by laying pieces of timber across each other;” a definition which, though differing from that given by Webster, may, I think, be accepted as equally expressive of the-usual acceptation of the term. But if a raft may be made by laying pieces of timber across each other, why may it not be constituted by so casting logs into a stream as to cause them to float contiguous to each other? We have seen the term is broad enough to cover such a disposition, and what warrant have we for saying that the legislature used it in a more restricted sense ? None, but that found in the suggestion that, in this State, the word is commonly used to convey the idea of a body of floating lumber tied together, or in some way actually connected. But surely this is no sufficient reason for rejecting another well ascertained signification, which dispenses with actual ligaments, especially when its adoption will best subserve the leading object of the act. It seems to me we might, with the same propriety, refuse to recognise a canal-boat as included within the term “boats,” because it is fashioned somewhat differently from the vessels usually designated by that word. The truth is, both are genuine, including , every known modification and variety of each, and in construing a statute so beneficial as that before ns, we are inclined to give to the disputed words the largest meaning of which they are at all susceptible. Thus regarded, the word “rafts,” as used in our act, is comprehensive enough to cover the body of logs owned by the plain
Judgment reversed, and a venire de novo awarded.