Cаn a city or town “contract any debt, pledge its faith, or loan its credit” for the рurpose of acquiring a site for a cotton and truck platform?
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Tbe issue of tbе notes by tbe defendant in payment of tbe purchase price of tbe property was not submitted to a -vote of tbe people and bence tbe vаlidity of tbe indebtedness depends upon whether a cotton and truck platform is a “necessary municipal expense,” within tbe purview of tbe North Carolina Constitution, Art. VII, sec. 7. Tbe -law is an expanding science designed to march with tbe advancing bаttalions of life and progress and to safeguard and interpret tbe changing neеds of a commonwealth or community. Consequently it has been observed by tbe sagеs that tbe luxuries of one period oftentimes constitute tbe necessities of another. However, the latest interpretation of tbe term “necessary municipal expense” is found in
Henderson v. Wilmington,
Tbe defendant insists that tbe proposed cotton and truck platfоrm should be classified as a necessary municipal expense for tbe reаson that such'a structure and tbe proposed use thereof constitute a “market.” Tbe statutes duly enacted by tbe General Assembly and tbe decisions of this Court havе established tbe proposition that municipal markets constitute a “necessary municipal expense,” authorizing governing authorities to issue notes or bonds withоut popular vote for tbe acquisition and maintenance thereof. C. S., 2674, 2687, 2791 and 2794.
Smith v. New Bern
But is а cotton and truck platform a market as contemplated and defined by law? Apparently tbe term market was first defined by this Court in 1874 in tbe case of Smith v. New Bern, supra. Tbe Court said: “Markеt, a public place appointed by public authority, where all sorts of things necessary for tbe subsistence or for tbe convenience of life are *697 sоld.” The definition so given bas been widely quoted with approval.' Various definitions may be found in 18 R. C. L., p. 367. The term is usually associated with the sale, inspection and supervision of food and food products designed for use by persons and extended by some courts to include food for domestic animals. Manifestly the underlying idea in the term is the sale of products intended and designed primarily for human consumption.
In the casе at bar the evidence discloses that the purchase was made and the рlatform erected “to get revenue for the town, and for the purpose of a cotton platform to buy and weigh cotton and load and unload, ... to store truck on when it got overloaded.” There is no evidence that any citizen of the town bought any' truck from the platform for the purpose of consumption. Obviously the purchase and operation of the platform was a commerciаl enterprise, promising a profit for the municipality, but upon the admitted facts, thе enterprise did- not constitute a necessary governmental expense of the defendant town, and the motions for nonsuit should have been allowed.
Reversed.