108 Mo. App. 163 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1904
— Ten days prior to the first day of the regular May term, 1904, of the Mississippi county court, the relators filed with the clerk of the circuit court, their petition for a license to keep a dramshop, in the city of Charleston, a city of the fourth class in said county containing over 2,000 and less than 2,500 inhabitants. At the May term, the county court took up the petition and made the following order thereon:
“In the matter of the petition of O. C. Bell, B. E.' Einley and William Langston to keep a dramshop in block (1) one original town of. Charleston, the matter is taken up and the court finds that Charleston is a town of more than two thousand inhabitants; that O. C. Bell, B. E'. Finley and William Langston are law-abiding, assessed, taxpaying, male citizens above the age of twenty-one years, and that said petition is signed by more than two-thirds of the assessed, taxpaying citizens and guardians of minors, of the city of Charleston, owning property in said original block one, and after due consideration the court refuses the prayer of the petitioners because of the adoption of the local option law at an election held on the eleventh day of December, 1903.”
After this order was made, the petitioners presented their petition to this court asking that we, by writ of mandamus, compel the defendants as justices of the county court, to issue a license to relators to keep a dramshop as prayed for in their petition. An alternative writ was issued and served on the defendants. They made return to this writ, setting up that the court made the following order upon a proper petition.
“Now on this fourth day of November, 1903, come J. T. Heggie, John M. Rowe, C. S. Reynolds, Thomas Vowels, John A. Miller, A. J. Rushing, John Lett and others and present their petition to the court, praying the court to order an election to be held in the county at the usual voting precincts for holding any general
“Upon examination of said petition presented and the pollbooks of the last previous general election, the court finds that said petition is signed by more than one-tenth of the qualified voters of the county who reside outside of the corporate limits of any city or town, having, at the time of such petition, a population of twenty-five hundred inhabitants or more, who are qualified to vote for members of the Legislature.
“ It is therefore ordered by the court that a special election be held in this county at the usual voting precincts for holding any general election for State officers, within forty days from the fourth day of, November, 1903, to-wit: on Friday, December 11,1903, for the purpose of determining whether or not spirituous and intoxicating liquors, including wine and beer, shall be sold within the limits of this Mississippi county.
“It is further ordered by the court that notice of the said election herein ordered be given by publication in the Weekly Enterprise, a newspaper published in the county, for four consecutive weeks, the last insertion to be within ten days next before the eleventh day of December, 1903, the date of said election.
“It is further ordered that all persons voting at the said election who are against the sale of intoxicating-liquors, shall have written or printed on their ballots ‘against the sale of intoxicating liquors,’ and all those who aré in favor of the sale of such intoxicating liquors shall have written or printed on their ballots, ‘for the sale of intoxicating liquors.’ (Filed November 4, 1903. J. T. Heggie, County Clerk.)”
The clerk’s certificates show that said election was held in said county pursuant to said order and notice and that the returns thereof were duly made and the result ascertained according to law and within five days
“Order for special election to vote on the proposition to- prohibit the sale of intoxicants in Mississippi county, Missouri:
‘ ‘ On the presentation of a petition signed by over 375 citizens, qualified to vote for State and county officers, the court orders that a special election be ordered and held at the various precincts or voting places in ■said county and that the clerk give due notice of same through the Weekly Enterprise, and it is further ordered that the clerk prepare the necessary pollbooks, tally sheets and tickets, with such other blanks as will be necessary to hold said election, and that the time for holding said election be fixed on the eleventh day of December, 1903, to determine whether or not intoxicating liquors, including wine and beer, shall be sold in the county, tickets to read, ‘ For the sale of intoxicating liquors.’ ‘Against the sale of intoxicating liquors.’ ”
We deny the peremptory writ of mandamus and dismiss the petition of the relators at their cost.