Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1852-07-30
1EWlSBURG UNION COUNTY, PENN, FRIDAY, JULY 3O 1852

H. Susquehanna And it is only " then, a
in that case" that the road may be so {
rs tended, and may be so made.
Or Now, if this be not the obvious sen
in and meaning of the statute, the seco
proviso is .urplusage; the words "a. hel
g matter provided" and " then in that case
had better be eliminated and blc:ted o
e, from the face of the section. No rule
If more familiar in the Interpretation of sta
% utes than " one part of 4 statute Must
so construed by another that the who
mag, if possible, stand, and that if it C.
IS be prevented, no clause, sentence, or wol
h shall be supcrfuous, void, Or Insignificant.
y by the reading l give this statute, this ru
has its force and effect; by the gloss gire
ito it by the defendants, thi. rule is viol;
ted, and the statute is blottcd out wit
; , eras,Ges, and the whole act itself mad
void, insignificant and worse than that tisrer
J dered darby to intend an abrogaiion Of
solemn grant, at TO mean i practical absul
3 dity AID impossiE;iity.
For while it is not assumed that Ia
Legislature intended directly and openl.
to rob the Susquehanna Company of it
franchise, of its charter, yet it is contcnde'
that the Legislature cid intend to give tn
same po,vcr, for the same p.7'ose, Ly tn
same ,cay, to the Sunbury & Erie Rail
road, ,one year after it had parted with thai
franchise to the Susquehanna Railroad
Company. Which Interpretation involves
not only direct Legislative outrage, but
a Legislative absurdity in the very terms
and object of that statute.
For, if the Sunbury Il Erie Road can
come from Sunbury down the valley OF
the Susquehanna, and the Susquhanna
Road has the same right unimpaircd, they
must both come over the same ground, and
not merely lie side by side, which is absurd
enough, but even worse than that, they
must lie the one on the top of the other,
and, furthermore, to make this the more
apparent, the .Susquehaana Road is re-
quircd by its charter to rass through "Hal-
flax and Millerburg in Dauphin county, to
Sunbury in Northumberland county,"
while the tenth section of the act of 1852
requires the said Sunbury & Erie Compa-
ny, if they shall construct Railroad &c,
TRY shall make the towns of Dauphin,
Halifax and Millersburg in Dauphin
county, points on said Road.
Now here they are both required to do
one and the same thing, by one and the
same way, and, as they say, at one and
the same time! Is this fair interpreta-
ton of a statute! Truly, qui heret tn
litera, h0ret IN cortice.
Again, it is we'll worth while to examine
a peculiar feature in this section, which
will aid materially in establishing the
proper construction of this statute
1t will he remembered, that it is in the
second Proviso that Bridgeport is first
mentioned, coupled with the condition
precedent on which the Sunbury & Erie
Railroad Company are TO exercise their
newly acquired franchise; and it will be
further observed that this condition Of
putting under contract the portion of the
Road between Bridgeport and Sunbury is
first imposed upon the Susquehanna Com
pany, ut the instance of this Sunbury &
Erie Railroad, who have been intermed-
ding with the rights, the vested rights Of
the Susquehanna Company: for by its
charter of 81 it was under no such res
traint as is imposed by the 9th section.
But Of that, hereafter
BY the 10th section it says, that if
the said Sunbury & Erie Railroad Compa-
ny shall construct a railroad from Bridge
port" &c. Why Bridgeport? for if it
has right already under the first proviso
upon payment of taxes, why say onc word
of Bridgeport z unless the Legislature in
tended, as it did intend, to say-that it
was not to have the right to go south Of
Sunbury, by the valley, unless the Susque-
hanna Road should forfeit its franchise by
and then, and in that case, the
Sunbury & Erie Railroad Company should
succeed to those franchises, by the came
line and through the same places as the
Road was required TO go.
But the Court are asked to say more
than this--to go farther than this 1t is
asked, by this forced construction and
implied Interpretation of the 9th sec
ton, to repeal the charter Of the Susque-
hanna Railroad; for what else could be
the result of such an Interpretation as
would thus allow another road to occupy
the same ground, run through the same
towns, to the same termini, over the same
line, (for there can in this be but one line,
such is the nature of the country l--wha.
else, l say, could be the effect cf such an
but the destruction and alb
solute extinction of prior company,
whose rights had been vested under sol
cmn charter granted by the State' Con.
aructio 1cgis non .tact 'njur'am." And
this is all done by implication, and yet
the law says, "such implied repeals are
not favored by the law, and they carry
along with them tacit reflection upon
the legislature that they should ignoran,ly
and without knowing it, make an act re-
pugnant to and inconsistent with another,
and, the repeal itself conveys reflection
on the wisdom of former parliaments. -
Broom's Legal Maxims, II.
The best method of interpreting a stat
ute, is by referring to the time and circum-
stances under which it was made. That
is not only the natural method, but
it has become maxim of the law that