30 App. D.C. 520 | D.C. Cir. | 1908
delivered the opinion of the Court:
The plaintiff in error, James H. Johnson, was convicted in the police court of the District of Columbia upon two consolidated informations charging that he, on August 9, 1907, did “cruelly work and cause to be worked a certain animal of the horse kind, said horse being unfit for service, being weak;” and that he on the same day did “cruelly work and cause to be worked a certain animal of the horse kind, said horse being unfit for service, and having a sore shoulder,” — both in violation of the act of the late legislative assembly of the District of Columbia, approved August 23, 1871.
Sec. 1 of said act prescribes as a penalty for overdriving, etc., animals, or depriving them unnecessarily of food, etc., imprisonment in jail not exceeding one year, or a fine not exceeding 250, or both fine and imprisonment.
Sec. 2 of said act, upon which said informations were predicated, is in these words: “Every owner, possessor, or person having the charge or custody of any animal, who cruelly drives or works the same when unfit for labor, or cruelly abandons the same, or who carries the same, or causes the same to be carried, in or upon any vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner, and knowingly or wilfully authorizes or permits the same to be subjected to unnecessary torture, suffering, or cruelty of any kind, shall be punished for every such offense in the manner provided in sec 1.”
In the first assignment of error it is contended that the act in question is general legislation, and not an exercise of municipal power, which the organic act creating a territorial government authorized (16 Stat. at L. 419, chap. 62, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 677).
That Congress deemed the act within the scope of the powers delegated to the municipality is evidenced by the act of February 13, 1885 (23 Stat. at L. 302, chap. 58), which provided that thereafter the “Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for the District of Columbia” should be known as the “Washington Humane Society,” and should “be authorized to extend its operations * * * to the protection of children, as well as animals from cruelty and abuse.” Said act of February 13, 1885, makes it a misdemeanor to abuse, abandon, or wrongfully employ a child, or to entice a female child to become a prostitute, etc. It is apparent, therefore, that Congress fully appreciated that moral suasion would be abortive in dealing with those who would unnecessarily inflict cruelty upon either children or animals.
It is also contended that because sec. 6 of the act in questions ordains that “fines and forfeitures collected upon or resulting from the complaint or information of any member of the Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals under
It is further contended that sec. 3 of the act under consideration relating to the transportation of animals by railroad companies is a restriction upon interstate commerce, and therefore void. We will not stop to inquire whether there is any merit in this contention because the section upon which this prosecution was predicated is complete in itself and separable from and independent of sec. 3. It may therefore be enforced without reference to that section. District of Columbia v. Green, 29 App. D. C. 296.
The next and last contention is that said act of August 23, 1811, was repealed by sec. 1636 of the Code [31 Stat. at L. 1434, chap. 854]. That section expressly saves from repeal all acts of the legislative assembly of the District of Columbia relating to “police regulation,” and, as we have already held that the section upon which these informations were based is a police regulation, it follows that it was not repealed by sec. 1636 of the Code.
The judgment appealed from, therefore, is affirmed, with costs.
Affirmed.