The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-02-24
BALTIMORE ORPHAN ASYLUM.

lum u.s. \. DeMangin, Teresa DeMangin and Ann |
DeMangin, in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, |
Judge krebs delivered the following opinion, IN /
which the facts of the fully stated, that
no other recital of them is necessary for the proper
presentation of the points involved.
The petitioner, a Benevolent Institution incorpo
rated by the laws of this State, to educate, and
maintain poor orphan and other destitute chill |
dren' applied to this Court for the Habeas Corpus
which has been issued in the for the purpose
of recovering the custody of boy now years OF |
age, who it is alleged was legally placed in the SAID
Asylum, and seized whilst there, and torclbly
carried away by of these respondents The re
spOndents, one of whom is the mother OF the other
two and the sister of the childs mother, claim the
child upon the ground, as they alege that the
father, who has been dead about two years, com
mitted the custody of it to one OF these respondents
and that she and they together have had charge OF
him for four years last past, and that his mother,
since the death of her husband, has acquiesced in
the custody commenced.
The Asylum denies the facts upon which the re-
spondents rest their claim to the custody of this
child and insists that they are not at all sustained
by the evidence.
The discussion to which this case has given rise
has presented many interesting questions of law,
and of fact. The former being questions of vital
Importance to this Institution and to all others of
a kindred character.
To sustain its right to the care and custody of the
child the Asylum produces in evidence, an instru-
ment OF writing signed and sealed, by two Justices
of the Peace of the city of Baltimore, and dated
on the I'd day of January, 1885, in which they de-
clare ''that that day, this boy, Joseph Leistner,
male orphan, was produced before them, that they
were Satisfaction representations made to them,
which they believed to be true that he without
means sufficient for his maintenance and education,
and that they did, in virtue of the Act of Assembly
In such case made and provided place the said male
orphan in the Baltimore Orphan Asylum, under the
care and direction of the female directors thereof
to be by them taken of, instructed and bound
out, agreeably to the several Acts of Assembly, in
such made and DrOyidpd Tho Asv1un also
proved, that before this action the part of these
Justices of the Peace, the mother had desired and
FULLY consented, and agreed that the Asylum should
take the child and that she still desired that should
remain there. The power and authority of these
Justices of the Peace, to deal with this child they
have done or their jurisdiction in the matter, is de-
rived by the Asylum from the Act of Incorpora-
ton by which the Institution was established and
the several supplements thereto 1t is entitled an
Act for incorporating society to educate and main
tain poor orphan and other destitute female children
by the name of the Orphaine Charity School, and
was passed in January, 1905
Its fifth section enacts ''That when any parent
or guardian any Orphans Court shall have placed
any female child, children, in the before men
toned school, they shall be subject to the same re-
gulations, that apprentices by the laws of this
State, until it shall be thought proper, by the fe
male directors OF said school, to bind out such fe-
male child or children which the said directors are
hereby directed to do for the term, and in the man
ner, that other females shall may be bound" By
aSupplement the name of this Corporation was
Asylum, and another supplement of 1e47, provides
that sit may take charge of, and receive, any poor
Orphans and other destitute male children, upon the
same terms and in the same manner as by its acts
OF Incorporation sit may take charge of, and
ceive female children of like condition. After its
sphere of benevolence had thus been extended to
include boys, its changed to that by which
1t is at present designated, and then by supple
ment passed in 1852 it was provided "That when
any ro justices OF the peace shall have placed any
child or children in the aforementioned Asylum,
Srrah obi oh, -La1
the like regulations, power, and authority though
placed in said Asylum by any Orphans court" thus
giving to two justices of the Peace the same power
to place children in the said Asylum which the
original act of incorporation gave to Orphans
Courts. 1t has been insisted in behalf of those re-
presented that these Acts of Assembly alone do
not confer upon the justices of the Peace or upon
the Orphans Courts any power to commit children
to this Asylum; that they are not sufficient basis
for the jurisdiction which they have attempted to
exercise, and that their acts in reference to Orphan
and destitute children are of no effect and validity
unless they are in conformity with the provisions of
the Acts of Assembly for the regulation of appren-
tees, and are applied to of the classes of chill
dren described in those provisions; and that they
can in no case, place child in the Asylum, if any
relation or other persons will come forward and
give bond and security, as required by the Act of
Assembly, for the maintenance, clothing, and edu-
cation of the child.
If these positions are to be sustained the benevo-
lent operations of these institutions will be much
embarrassed and their usefulness greatly impaired
All the acts OF incorporation and supplements there
to, by which they have been created and regulated
in the exercise of the powers and privileges con-
ferred upon them, must then be regarded as mere
parts of the system of legislation of this State in
reference to apprentices This will be to confound
based upon principles totally different. The APP
prentice system is founded upon the principle of
cprocal benefits. The master takes the apprentice
and supports and lnstructs him, until such time
he is sufficiently taught to render his services val
liable, and to enable him to compensate the master
for all expenses incurred by him on account of the
apprentice But in the case of those benevolent in
situations mutuality of benefits does enter into
the consideration of the parties in forming the rea
tons between them and the objects of their bounty:
no idea of equivalents between the two parties is
entertained, but the advantages derived by the one
proceeds altogether from the disinterested benevo-
lence of the other
am of opinion, then, that this court is not to
look to the laws passed in reference to apprentices
for description of the class of children that NAV
be placed by the justices of the peace in this asv
lum, for any directions and regulations in regard
to the manner in which they are to do it. Their
powers and authority upon the subject are con
ferred by the act of Incorporation and its supple
ments already referred to, and are to be ascer.
tanned by proper construction of their terms and
provisions.
In constituting these Acts of Assembly. this Court
Is required to keep in view most benign rule OF
Interpretation prescribed by the Legislature in the
Seventh Section of the Act of Incorporation anG
which prompted doubtless by lust apprecia
ton of the benevolent and praiseworthy motives o.
the individuals, who willing to assume these of
fees of charity and by confident expectation thai
great advantages would result to society from theil
labors. That section provides "that this act of in
corporation and erery part thereto shall be good anG
available iii lar, IN all things according to the tru
intent and meaning thereof, and shall be construed
repued, and ddjudged, an all fduord5lv or
behalf of said Institutions, efectualy to an
srer the raiuable ends intended thereby
The valuable ends intended are the education
and maintenance of poor orphans, and other destitute
male and female children. until IL shall he
proper to bind them out. These are the objects O
the benevolence of this institution. The Asylum re
quires the charge custody of children of this class
by virtue of the provisions of the fifth section of thu
act ofincorporation and its supplement above quo
ted, which provide ''that when anv parent guar
dian, or Orphans Court tteo Just of the Peac
shall haze placed any child, or children in the saic
school, they shall be subject to the same regulations
and without the aid of this liberal rule of construc
ton. Itwould be easy to deduce from this language
manifest power and authority, to be exercised b,
the justices, at their discretion and when they hav
exercised it, by placing the child in the Asylum tn
institution acquired the absolute custody and charg
OF it, for the benevolent purposes intended thereby
These laws do not provide any formalites to be OBJ
served In the mode of placing children in the Asy
lum, nor direct that the act shall be evidenced b,
any written instrument. But this institution, fo
greater security and for the purpose of more readi
ly preserving the evidence of the transaction hav
adopted an appropriate form of writing which wa
used by the justices, upon the occasion of placing
this boy in the ASYLUM and which is the instrument
OF writing offered in evidence as the ground of thu
right by which it claims to hold him. and am of opin
ion, that they had authority and jurisdiction to d.
what this instrument of writing certifes was dom
by them in regard to this child and that this act
theirs gives to this Institution thecustody of him
unless the respondents show that he does not be
long to the class of children that they authorized
to place there, or that they have superior right
to his custody. The justices certify in substance
that he does belong to that class when they say that
he is without sufficient means for his maintenance
and education. The Asylum takes children ''to edu
cate and maintain" them, because they have moi
sufficient means for that purpose, and therefore
poor and destitute" in such sense as to make
them the objects of its benevoence.
1t has been urged that the statement by these