90 Neb. 21 | Neb. | 1911
The village of Scribner is an incorporated village with less than 5,000 inhabitants. An ordinance of the village provided that a license tax upon each occupation and business therein named was levied “on each hawker of goods by retail, by sample, or by taking orders or otherwise, per day $2.00. This does not include commercial travelers selling only to dealers.” Another provision is “on each person engaged in canvassing or soliciting orders for any article, goods or merchandise, except books or printed matter, per day $2.00.”
This action is brought to recover the penalty for a violation of these provisions by the defendants. The amended petition charges that the defendant, the Moyune Tea Company, carried on within the village, and on certain specified dates in 1906 and 1907, the business “of a hawker of goods by retail, by sample, or by taking orders or otherwise.” Another count is that on the dates specified the defendant, in the village of Scribner, did “engage in
A number of defenses are pleaded in the ansAver, but as the case stands we think it unnecessary to do more than refer to two points in order to dispose of appellant’s contentions.
The .district court instructed the jury that there was no evidence that the defendant or its agent Avas hawking or peddling goods, and that upon that claim the verdict should be for the defendant, and that the only question for their consideration was whether the defendant, through' its agent, was engaged in the soliciting of orders for the sale of goods at retail in the village at any time in the months charged. The plaintiff assigns as error the refusal of the court to give each of instructions Nos. 6, 7 and 8, requested by it. We think the gist of the sixth instruction Avas given by the court in the second one given upon its own motion. We are also of the opinion that instruction No. 7 was an erroneous statement of the law, and therefore was properly refused. This was the vieAv taken by the district court when it directed the jury that under the evidence in the case the defendant or its agent was not guilty of haAvking or peddling goods. The substance of instruction No. 8 was given by the court on its own motion, hence it was not error to refuse it.
The evidence shoAvs that the Moyune Tea Company carries on a grocery business in the city of Fremont, Dodge county, in Avkicli county the village of Scribner is situated, that it maintained a delivery wagon and employed William Mohr to deliver groceries, teas and flavoring extracts; that he made periodical visits to the village of Scribner, and that on these visits he Avould deliver
The jury found that the defendant was not guilty of canvassing or soliciting orders under the other provision of the ordinance. Under the evidence, we cannot see Iioav any other verdict would have been proper; Mohr Avas not soliciting or canvassing, as these words are usually defined. Webster’s New International Dictionary defines the Avord “canvass”: - “(2) To solicit or seek.orders, contributions, support, subscriptions, votes, or political support before an election, etc.; to solicit, commonly followed by for, as to canvass for a seat in Parliament; to canvass for a book, a publisher, or in behalf of a charity,” and defines “solicit”: “To ask earnestly; to make petition to;
The judgment of the district court was correct, and is
Affirmed.