60 Pa. Super. 458 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1915
Opinion by
The defendant was convicted and fined $1,000 by a magistrate in the City of Scranton for a violation of Section 4 of the Act of July 26, 1913, P. L. 1439, in refusing to furnish to the bureau of mine inspection and surface support an accurate map or plan of the workings or excavations of the Delaware and Hudson Company’s
The-act was intended to protect the subjacent support of streets and highways, by requiring the adequate natural support to be kept or permitted to remain under the streets; or, where it was necessary to remove the coal, in lieu of the natural support, artificial support was to be supplied. The act authorized municipal corporations in the anthracite regions to create a bureau of mine inspection and surface support. It defined the qualifications of its members, their powers and duties, and required all persons affected by the act to furnish mine maps within three months after the creation of this bureau. The act forbids coal to be mined out unless surface support, as indicated, is permitted to remain, and provides a penalty for any violation of the act.
It will be seen that the purpose of the act and the mischief it was intended to remove could become active and have force and effect as law only by the creation, organization and existence of the bureau therein specified. The machinery which worked out the purpose of the act was lodged in the bureau. It was therefore the life and spirit of the act. The legislature in a sense delegated to one of its municipal subdivisions the power to supply by ordinance the essential feature to cause the act to operate and make it effective. There was no positive command on the municipal corporation to act. It might adopt and enforce the act if it so desired, and if, through exigencies of public affairs, it was necessary to withdraw from the benefits of the act, they could repeal the ordinance which secured these benefits. Therefore, the provisions of the act, and all that is attempted to be secured through its effective operation, lie dormant until life is given it by municipal legislative action and is kept in it by the continuance of such action. When
The assignments of error are overruled and the judgment is affirmed at the cost of the appellant.