105 Neb. 672 | Neb. | 1921
Defendant, as superintendent of employees of the World Publishing Company, was charged with a violation of the statute prohibiting the employment of women in “manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile establishments” for añore than nine hours a day or in the nighttime after 10 p. m. (Laws 1919, ch. 190, tit. 4, art. II, sec.5). The complaint filed alleged that the World Publishing Company was a “manufacturing, mechanical or mercantile establishment.” The case was tried upon a stipulation of facts, by which it is shown that the said company is a corporation engaged exclusively in publishing and printing a daily newspaper, with morning, evening and gunday editions, and that the corporation does no job printing or contract work of any kind; that eight women are employed in the mailing room, and they affix the names of subscribers to newspapers by means of a device which moistens a printed name slip, detaches it from a roll, and glues it to the particular paper in question. These women were employed after 10 o’clock p. m. and before 6 o’clock a. m., which, if the company is found to be within the provisions of the act, is a time when such employment is prohibited. The district court found that the company Avas not Avithin the act and dismissed the case. To this ruling the county attorney took exception, and now presents here the sole question of whether or not the neAvspaper publishing company, in this case, is a manufacturing or mechanical establishment within the meaning of the law.
In the case of Evening Journal Ass’n v. State Board of Assessors, supra, the court said (page 41) : “It is true that in the production of his papers, which he sells, he employs manual labor and mechanical skill. But so does the sculptor who produces, a? the result of his handiwork and genius, the statue; so does the painter who executes his painting with his palette and his brush; so does the lawyer who prepares his brief, or the author who writes a book, But neither the sculptor nor the painter
A newspaper publishing house not being, then, a manufacturing establishment, can it be said to be a mechanical establishment, within the purview of the lawr?
The definition of mechanical as given by Webster’s New International Dictionary is: “(1) Of, pretaining to, or concerned with, manual labor; engaged in manual labor; of the artisan class. (2) Of, pertaining to, or concerned with, machinery or mechanism; made or formed by a machine or Avith tools.”
The statute is not directed specifically at mechanical labor wherever the same may be performed, but at all labor performed by women in those institutions only which are to be classed as mechanical establishments. For the general purpose of the law, it was evidently deemed best by the lawmakers to describe in what establishments female labor should be regulated, rather than to attempt to regulate certain kinds of labor in all establishments. Almost all business establishments employ some mechanical element in their operation. The mere fact that machinery or mechanical appliances, or mechanical or manual labor, is used, or found to be employed, does
In the case of City of New Orleans v. Robira, 42 La. Ann. 1098, the court said that photography was not a mechanical pursuit, since the mind of the party engaged in the business was chiefly concerned, the hands and body being less so.
What has been said with regard to manufacturing has also some bearing in the interpretation of the word “mechanical,” as applied to establishments. A newspaper cannot be said to be the product of mechanical effort anymore than it can be said to be a manufactured article, nor can it be said that a newspaper publishing house, taken as an entirety, is a mechanical establishment within the meaning of the law.
The exception- taken by the county attorney to the ruling of the district court is, therefore,
Overruled.