Homewood v. Mayor of Wilmington , 10 Del. 123 ( 1875 )

The Court,

Gilpin, C. J.,

charged the jury: That it appeared • from the testimony of Mr. Hawkins, the clerk of the market, that the proceedings in the case had been instituted at the instance and upon the complaint of the butchers of the city, from which it might be reasonably inferred that they were principally, if not the only persons who were to be benefited by the ordinance and the enforcement of it. But although it was in that aspect of it in derogation of the common law and the common. right of the citizen, the power conferred by the charter on the city council to establish ordinances for the regulation of such business within the limits and on the streets of the city was a police power, and every ordinance should receive a reasonable interpretation so as best to subserve the purpose and promote the object, that is to say, the true and legitimate purpose and object for which the power to establish the ordinance was granted in the charter.

The words of the ordinance in question were peculiar, and certainly they do not clearly and unquestionably convey the idea or the meaning claimed for them by the counsel for the respondents. In the first place, it declares, so far as it is now necessary to notice its language, “ that any person occupying or using any land or building for the purpose of producing or preparing beef, mutton, lamb, veal, or pork, for sale or market, shall be deemed a shinner or butcher,” and in the next place, that this vague and general definition shall not “ apply to any farmer unless such farmer shall exercise the business of farming for the purpose of producing or preparing beef, mutton, lamb, veal, or pork, for sale or market.” And it was under these latter words that the appellant was charged as the agent of his father, or rather the father as his principal, with exercising the business of farming for the purpose of producing or preparing mutton for sale or market, and selling it on the streets of Wilmington contrary to the ordinance. And when we come to learn the size of the farm, the scale on which the appropriate and general business of farming is carried on upon it, and the value and importance of the several and usual farming purposes for which it is carried on, and the limited number of sheep kept on it and the insignificant amount of mutton produced on it and sold from it, we cannot conceive how it can reasonably be said or believed 'that such a farmer is exercising the business of farming for such a purpose. So far as it is intended to apply to farmers, the violation of the ordinance does not consist at all in the business simply for the purpose of producing or preparing mutton for sale or market, but in exercising the business of farming for that purpose. And what did that word purpose in that connection import ? It had a well-established meaning and signification in our language and was properly defined to be that which a person sets before himself as an object to be reached or accomplished, the end or aim to which the view is directed in any plan, measure, or exertion ; 2, intention, design; 3, end, effect, consequence; 4, of purpose, on purpose, for the purpose, that is, with previous design.

If, therefore, the jury believed from the evidence that the appellant and his father were exercising the business of farming for the purpose of producing or preparing mutton - for sale or market at the time when the appellant sold the mutton as alleged on the streets of Wilmington, he was guilty of a violation of the ordinance in question, but if they did not so believe from the evidence, he was not guilty of a violation of it.

Verdict, not guilty.