Case ID: pa-super_35/html/0030-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Newcastle City v. Treadwell, Appellant.
    
      Sunday law — Municipal ordinance — Sale of newspapers — -“Goods, wares and merchandise.”
    
    A municipal ordinance forbidding the sale .on Sunday of “goods, wares, merchandise, or other articles and things whatsoever,” applies to newspapers kept for sale upon the shelves or tables of a newsdealer.
    Argued Oct. 8, 1907.
    Appeal, No. 100, April T., 1907, by defendant, from judgment of Q. S. Lawrence Co., June T., 1907, No. 83, on case stated in suit of City of Newcastle v. A. W. Treadwell.
    Before Rice, P. J., Henderson, Morrison, Orlady, Head and Beaver, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    
      November 18, 1907:
    Case stated on an appeal from a judgment of the mayor of the city of Newcastle.
    Porter, P. J., found the facts to be as follows:
    This case comes before the court on an appeal from the judgment of M. Louis Hainer, mayor of the city of Newcastle, wherein the defendant was adjudged guilty and sentenced to pay a fine of $25.00 for keeping open on Sunday, June 2, 1907, a room or place for the purpose of selling therein and thereat newspapers, and did therein and thereat sell newspapers on the Sabbath, commonly called Sunday, in violation of an ordinance of the city of Newcastle, entitled: “An ordinance prohibiting under penalty the desecration of the Sabbath or Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday,” approved June 30, 1900, which provides, inter aha:
    “Section 1. Be it ordained and enacted by the Select and Common Councils of the City of Newcastle, Pennsylvania, that it shall be unlawful for any person to keep open any store, room, or place, or maintain any stand, for the purpose of selling therein or thereat any fruits, candies, goods, wares, merchandise, or other articles and things whatsoever, or to sell any of the aforesaid in any such store, room, or place, or at any such stand, or at or in any other place within said city on the Lord’s Day or the Sabbath, commonly called Sunday. But this provision shall not apply to keeping open any room or place for the purpose of selling, or to the sale of any necessary medical- or surgical supplies, milk and such necessaries of life and other articles and things as are or may be necessary in works or matters of necessity, mercy and charity.”
    The court affirmed the judgment.
    
      Error assigned was the order of the court.
    
      H. K. Gregory, with him T. W. Dickey, for appellant.
    
      James A. Gardner, for appellee.
   Per Curiam,

The validity of the ordinance which is set forth in the opinion of the learned judge below, for the violation, of which the defendant was convicted, is not questioned by his counsel. Nor is it claimed by them that it would be invalid even though it applied in terms to the sale of newspapers at a place or stand maintained and kept open for that purpose. Their contention is that neither the words "goods, wares and merchandise,” nor the words “other articles and things whatsoever” as used in the ordinance ought to be construed to include newspapers. The learned judge below held that newspapers upon the shelves or tables of a news dealer for sale may be properly regarded as goods, wares and merchandise, and in that conclusion we all concur. As was said in the well-considered case of Smith v. Wilcox, 24 N. Y. 353, a newspaper is the subject of property, and, when it is made the subject of sale in places open for that purpose, it is certainly merchandise. See also Commonwealth v. Osgood, 144 Mass. 362. We cannot agree with the appellant’s counsel that this construction is not in accordance with the common understanding of the meaning of the words; nor do we find anything in the context to warrant a conclusion that the corporate authorities in adopting the ordinance intended to exclude this particular kind of merchandise from its operation. .

The judgment is affirmed.