70 Md. 237 | Md. | 1889
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Maryland sued James A. Davis, clerk of the Circuit Court for Cecil County, upon his bond as clerk, and the breach alleged is the failure to pay over to the State one-half of the marriage license fees received by him since the first of July, 1886. The clerk claims that under the Act of 1886, chapter 49T, no part of the license money goes to the State, hut that it all goes to the clerk for his services in issuing the license and performing the duties required of him by the law.
By chapter 261, of the Acts of 1886, section seven of Art. 60 of the Code relating to marriages was repealed, amended and re-enacted, so. that marriage licenses were reduced from four dollars and fifty cents, to .one dollar, fifty cents of which was to he retained by the clerk for issuing the same, and the remaining fifty cents thereof was to he turned into the State treasury. By chapter 49T of the same session of the Legislature, (1886,) sections four, five, six, seven and eight, of Article 60, of the Code, were repealed, amended and re-enacted in different forms, and four additional sections were added. These Acts, although passed on different days, as their respective numbers very clearly indicate, were approved by the Governor on the same day, and the question presented is whether they are so irreconcilably inconsistent that they cannot stand together, and the first in date must yield to the later Act of the Legislature.
Careful comparison of the two Acts shows their provisions to he so inconsistent that they cannot he reconciled, and can not both he the law. The latest expression
It should be added also that not only is section seven expressly repealed hy 1886, ch. 497, and is not reproduced in the same or similar language, but it contains a section repealing all Acts or parts of Acts inconsistent with it. Its last section fixes the first day of July, 1886 for it to go info effect. Chapter 261 was not made to go into effect immediately, and was therefore under the Constitution a law on the first day of June after its passage, and was therefore the law for one month, when it was superseded, hy chapter 497. We see no escape from this conclusion; and must look to section 7 C in chapter-497 for the marriage license fee and what is to he done with it. It reads thus: “The clerk of the Court shall receive one dollar for every license issued as aforesaid, and for the performance of the other duties required by this Act.” Additional duties are required of him, and hy the plain reading of the statute he is to have all the fees for discharging the duties required of him. He is to keep a marriage license hook and keep the same indexed, and is to record in it all matters about which he is required to interrogate applicants for license. Eor this large increase of duty the Legislature would seem, in this Act, to he providing compensation larger than before accorded, and has reserved no part of the license money for the State treasury. It seems to have intended to impose
The judgment of the Circuit Court must be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.