Defendant, on the 16th day of October, 1877, was arrested and brought before E. L. Dalrymple, a justice of the peace of Greene county, on a charge of petit larceny, and on his plea of guilty was fined $10. At the November term, 1878, of the Greene county circuit court, defendant was indicted for the second offense of petit larceny, upon which he was tried and convicted, and his punishment assessed to three years imprisonment in the penitentiary. Motions for new trial and in arrest of judgment having been overruled, he appeals to this court.
It appearing on the trial that the justice of the peace before whom defendant was first convicted, was temporarily absent from the State, evidence was offered by the State identifying a certain book then in court, as being the docket of said justice, and also identifying the complaint filed before said justice and the warrant issued thereon for the arrest of defendant. This evidence, as well as the docket, complaint and warrant so identified, was received by the court against defendant’s objection. It is insisted that said evidence ought not to have been received, first, because the docket of the justice could only be identified by the justice himself; second, because the act of 1877 conferring jurisdiction on the justice to try the case was unconstitutional, and third, that as the statute authorized a certified transcript of a justice’s docket to be read as evidence, the original could not be so used.
It provides as follows: “Section 1. Section 1 of chapter 186 of the general statutes of Missouri is hereby amended to read as follows; Section 1. Hereafter circuit courts and justices of the peace shall have concurrent jurisdiction in all cases of misdemeanors, except in cities having courts of exclusive criminal jurisdiction. Section 2. Section 2 of said chapter 186 of the general statutes-of Missouri, is hereby repealed. Section 3. Section 3 of said chapter 186 of the general statutes of Missouri, 1865, is hereby amended by striking out the words “ assault, battery, affray, or other breach of the peace,” in the third and fourth lines of said section, and inserting in lieu thereof the words “ a misdemeanor,” so that said section when so-amended shall read as follows: Section 3. When a com
It will be observed that said sections 1, 3 and 11, as amended, are fully set out in the act. Section 3 of said act furnishes an illustration of what was intended to be forbidden by section 34, article 4 of the constitution. If said section had only contained the words “ Section 3 of said chapter 186 is hereby amended by striking out the words ‘ assault, battery, affray or other breach of the peace’ in the third and fourth lines of said section, and inserting in lieu thereof the words ‘a misdemeanor,’ ” the amendment would have been in clear violation of said constitutional provision. The object of the prohibition from making amendments in such a way was to prevent the laws from becoming involved in the confusion which would necessarily result from such legislation; and to prevent the inconvenience it would occasion of hunting through various books to find the act amended and then apply to it the amendatory act to ascertain what the law as amended was. To prevent this it requires the entire act, when the amendment relates to the entire act, to be set out in full, or when the amendment relates only to certain sections of an act to be amended, that only the sections as amended should be fully set out. The amendments made by the act of 1877