Case Name: Ex PARTE KOSER
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1882-03-10
Citations: 60 Cal. 177
Docket Number: No. 10,711
Parties: Ex PARTE KOSER.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 60
Pages: 177–215

Head Matter:
[No. 10,711
In Bank.]
March 10, 1882.
Ex PARTE KOSER.
Sunday Law—Constitutional Law—Police Power—Head Lines of Titles and Chapters of Codes—Stare Decisis—Freedom of Religion.—The Sunday law (§§ 300, 301 Penal Code) is not unconstitutional. (McKinstry, J., Ross, J., and Sharpstein, J., dissenting.)
Id.—Id.—Id.—Id.—Id.—Id.—Case Distinguished.—Bx parte Westerfeld, 55 Cal. 550, distinguished.
Application for a writ of habeas corpus.
T. H. Laine, for Petitioner.
The sole question to be considered and determined in this case may be stated in a few words, viz: Is the law found, in the Penal Code of this State at sections 300 and 301 constitutional 1 The petitioner affirms that it is not.
The Penal Code was passed April 14,1872, and repealed all Sunday laws then existing. This Code had a chapter in it composed of fragments of the various statutes we have called attention to, together with fragments of other laws before that time passed, that had no reference to Sunday either as a day of rest or a day devoted to religious matters.
That chapter is Chapter 7, of Part 1, Title 9, of this' Penal Code, and bears this title, viz: “Of Crimes against Religion and Conscience, and other offenses against Good Morals.” It consisted of nine sections—a most heterogeneous mass of matter. We have no State Religion, and consequently no crimes against religion cognizable by the State. A crime against conscience would also be something of a curiosity.
A law is a rule of action or of civil conduct, and not so many pages, lines or sections, in a statute book; and every such rule is a distinct law. In this chapter of nine sections, therefore, there are contained seven distinct laws on seven distinct subjects, viz: 1. Sec. 299—a law against improper amusements on Sunday where liquors are sold. 2. Secs. 300 and 301—a law against keeping open places of business on Sunday. 3. Sec. 302—a law against disturbing religious meetings. 4. Sec. 303—a law against the sale of liquors at theatres, etc., by women. 5. Secs. 304 and 305—a law against the sale of liquors at camp meetings. 6. Sec. 306—a law against procuring females under seventeen years old to play musical instruments in certain public places. Sec. 307—a law against procuring a female under seventeen years old to exhibit herself for hire.
We are prepared to admit that under the old Constitution, and perhaps under the new, a Sunday law could be enacted that the Courts would uphold. We concede that by an overwhelming weight of authority such a law can be passed without interfering with the rights of conscience or religious liberty. But we insist that such Sunday laws are all founded upon a different theory than the one under consideration; that is to say, that they are all founded either upon the theory that the day should be observed as a holy day, set apart to religious duties, upon which no secular business should be done, unless it be works of necessity or charity; or upon the theory that there should he a day of rest set apart and maintained under the police power of the State. But this law is of neither character. It does not devote the day to any sacred purpose; it does not prevent the doing of any secular business whatever; nor does it give, or pretend to give, rest to man or beast. The crime it proposes to create does not consist in opening places of business nor in keeping them open, nor does it consist in performing labor or doing business; but in keeping open certain places of business for the purpose of doing business; and in its exceptions labors of necessity and charity are overlooked and unprovided for.
This code, by its heading or title of the chapter, shows that it was not intended to set apart a day of rest nor a day on which secular business was to be prohibited. It declares no business nor the doing of any, wrong or illegal, on that day. It is, therefore, in no just sense a law, but an unauthorized and wanton legislative interference with the reserved rights of the citizen, and as we submit, in violation of the first section of the bill of rights of the old Constitution, which says “All men are by nature free and independent, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness,” and of these rights this law is an abridgement for no just or legal cause.
We submit that the law is unconstitutional and void, as being in open and direct violation of § 25 of Art. ii, which reads, so far as material here, as follows: “Sec. 25. The Legislature shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say, * * second, for the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors.” It is most clearly a special law within the meaning of our constitution, as settled by this Court in Ex parte Westerfield, 55 Cal. 550. We defy any one by any course of fair reasoning to sustain this law, if the bakers’ Sunday law in that case considered was a special law, such as our Constitution forbade the enacting of; and we have no doubt that it was. This law, we submit, is much more bald in that respect than the bakers’ law.
Again, as to its being a special law, see the clear statement of Justice Myrick on that point, found in Earle v. S. F. Board of Education, 55 Cal. 494-5.
But this law is equally unconstitutional and void as being in plain and direct violation of the latter clause, of Art. 1 Sec. 21. >The whole section reads:
“Mo special privileges or immunities shall ever be granted which may not be altered, revoked or repealed by the Legislature; nor shall any citizen or class of citizens be granted privileges or immunities which upon the same terms shall not be granted to all citizens.”
Privilege, special, means pertaining to or constituting a species or sort limited in range, means to grant some particular right or exemption, to invest with a peculiar right or immunity, as to privilege a representative from arrest, to privilege officers and students of a college from military duty. Immunity means freedom from arrest and the like, or to give a. peculiar privilege. Mow this statute divides the citizens, or people of the state into various classes, viz: store keepers, bar keepers, hotel keepers, boarding house keepers, barbers, bath keepers, saloon keepers, bankers, market keepers, restaurant keepers, livery stable keepers, and retail drug store keepers, and it grants to some of these classes the privilege of keeping their places open on Sunday for purposes of business and gives to them also an immunity from arrest, while it denies the same privilege to others and subjects them to arrest. (Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations, 4th Ed. 488,494.)
That this law binds no section of the great body of the people is evident from the fact that while it was enacted much as it now stands as early as 1858, yet during all these years it has remained a dead letter on the statute book. The reason is that it is opposed to the letter and spirit of our institutions. And even now the great mass of the people have no respect or love for it. Only a few belonging to a single class, namely, temperance people, so called, in some of the small towns and out lying places, are making a clamor about it.
Garber, Thornton & Bishop, also for Petitioner.
This case falls within the class which are to be decided upon principle, rather than according to the mere weight of authority. This is so even as to the invocation of the doctrine of stare decisis based upon prior adjudications by this Court—a fortiori, as to the effect to be given to the decisions and opinions of other Courts and Judges. (Willis v. Owen, 43 Tex. 48; Houghton v. Austin, 47 Cal. 666.)
The law in question, even if general and uniform in its operation, would have been unconstitutional. So far as adjudication has been had in this State, this question has been decided both ways; and we submit that, authority aside, the better reasoning is that of Ex parte Newman. The question is summed up by Cooley, who is quoted as authority for the validity of the law in the last California opinion. But we submit that a fair construction of the text of Cooley rather leads to the inference that such laws are only sustainable on authority, and that if the question were res integra, and the point to be decided upon principle, the opposite conclusion would be reached. For after stating the two grounds upon which laws prohibiting ordinary employments on Sunday, are to be defended, viz : First, as laws against the desecration of the Christian Sabbath, and, second, as an exercise of the police power establishing sanitary regulations; he says: “ The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania have preferred to defend such legislation on the second ground rather than the first; but it appears to us that if the benefit to the individual is alone to be considered, the argument against the law which he may make who has already observed the seventh day of the week, is unanswerable.” And as to the first ground, he says: “ But the Jew who is forced to respect the first day of the week, when his conscience requires of him the observance of the seventh also, may plausibly urge that the law discriminates against his religion, and by forcing him to keep a second Sabbath in each week, unjustly, though by indirection, punishes him for his belief.” Then he adds, however, that on this ground, the law must be based upon the ground that it only requires the proper deference and regard which those not accepting the common belief must pay to the pub- lie conscience, and that upon that ground, these laws are supportable by authority. (Cooley Con. Lim., p. 594.)
It seems to us necessary to a clear understanding of these questions, to keep distinct the different grounds upon which these Sunday laws have been sustained, and that only confusion can result from the blending of them together in one view. If a law, for instance, were enacted requiring a cessation of all labor on Monday and Tuesday of each week, according to the views of Judge Cooley, it could not be sustained at all, because the only ground upon which he puts the validity of Sunday laws would be entirely wanting. According to him the argument of those who chose to observe some other day of the week, against such a law would be unanswerable. On the other hand, in many of the cases usually cited in support of the constitutionality of these laws, the opposite view is taken.
In so far as it may be urged that this law derives any support from the fact that it sets aside Sunday, rather than another day as a period of enforced idleness, we submit that both on principle and authority, at this day, the contention cannot be deemed even plausible; and that what Judge Cooley calls a plausible argument is in fact an unanswerable one— sucha law does give a preference to our religion, and does indirectly punish all but a certain favored class for their belief.
But, as is said by Mr. Justice McKinstry, by some Courts “ these laws have been sustained as simply requiring a periodical cessation of labor—the power to pass them resting upon the right of the Legislature to pass laws for the preservation of health and the promotion of good morals.”
And Mr. Justice Field, in Ex parte Newman, sustains the law as a proper exercise of the police power, saying that the Legislature can pass laws for the preservation of health and the promotion of good morals-—that capital unrestricted by law will exact so much work as to injure the laborer—that the fact that the civil regulation accords with the divine law and the opinions of the majority, affords no argument against it—that the law against homicide is not less wise, because the Divine Command is “ Thou shalt do no murder;” and that with the motives of the Legislature, the Courts have nothing to do.
Following out this line of reasoning, we suppose, it must be held that the Legislature may enact that whenever a man is struck on one cheek he must turn the other—that it shall be a misdemeanor to swear by the earth, or to give alms except in secret, or to pray standing in public, or to wear golden ornaments, or to invite to a dinner any but the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind. For each and ‘ all of these things, it might as well be urged that they came within the police power, as that such power justifies the enforced observance of Sunday as a day of rest. If it were to-morrow proposed to compel by law the cessation of all business on Monday and Friday of each week, would any Court uphold such a statute ? And yet, the religious sanction aside the difference between such a law and the Sunday law, would only be one degree. If it once be admitted that the Legislature has power to thus provide for the public health and good morals, where is the limit to its exercise ? And if the public health can thus be provided for, what the objection to laws prohibiting the use or the culture of tobacco, or even tea or coffee, as injurious to health—to laws regulating the number of hours in each day, during which grown men of sound health may labor ? If the question were of the first impression, and entirely unaffected by religious feelings, and it were proposed now for the first time to set apart each Monday as a day of rest, would not all agree, as a plain dictate of common sense, that such a law does not fairly fall within the limits of the police power—that it is not necessary for the public health or morals that any such a restriction on the freedom of individuals should be imposed—that such a regulation is entirely outside the scope of legislative power ? That there would be just as much propriety in enacting the number of hours out of the twenty-four during which all should sleep, on pretense of compelling a restoration of exhausted energies, as in prescribing the number of hours in every week during which all must refrain from their ordinary avocations ?
We think it is fair to infer from his later opinions-that Judge Field would now materially modify the views expressed by him in Ex parte Newman; (Missouri v. Illinois, 4 Otto, 142.)
The pretext is that experience has demonstrated that one day’s rest in seven is needful to recuperate the exhausted energies of body and mind. In point of fact, experience has demonstrated no such thing. How much, and when a man should rest, depends upon the kind of work he does and his habits, and a variety of considerations. But this law does not compel this weekly cessation of labor. If it is to be justified as resting upon a legislative adjudication that one day’s rest in every seven is necessary—if that is the principle upon which it rests, then the Court, in order to sustain it on that ground, must be able to see that the principle is carried out in the enactment. For example, if any class of the community can be said to stand in need of this fatherly protection of the law, it is the operatives in factories, who, as Judge Field says in Ex parte .Newman, are the slaves of capital. But by this statute they are left absolutely unprotected. From the whole scope of the statute, it is perfectly evident that the ground upon which it is sought to be sustained as a police regulation, was entirely absent from the minds of the framers. It was as it purports to be, a law to punish crimes against religion and conscience—to compel, in the language of Judge Cooley, a decent deference and respect to the public conscience, and to prevent the desecration of a day which a particular creed declares shall be remembered to keep it holy. Consequently its prohibitions are directed, not against working too much, not against the failure to recuperate the exhausted energies by needed rest; but against the publicity and openness with which that work may be prosecuted. As Judge Field says, had the statute contemplated a mere sanitary regulation, it would have been made applicable to all who might be injured by undue application to labor—at the least, the exceptions would only have embraced those who, from the nature of their avocations could take the needed rest at other periods, or whose ministrations on Sunday are absolutely imperative. As said in Ex parte Maguire, the lawmaking power of the State is ample to make laws affecting all sects alike, and not inhibited by the Constitution, which will accomplish the object so much talked about—the prevention of a too incessant application to worldly affairs.
The provisions of the new Constitution against special leg islation apply with equal force to statutes passed prior to its adoption, as to those subsequently adopted. (Matter of Oliver, etc., 21 N. Y. 12; Bensley v. Ellis, 39 Cal. 313.)
The evil to be guarded against—the mischief to be remedied, was not the mere act of voting for such laws, but the partial and unjust operation of such laws when passed. What the framers of the Constitution intended was to prevent the unfairness and injustice resulting from the unequal operation of the laws, and every special law, whether passed before or after the adoption of the Constitution, was equally within its intent and spirit. Equally too within its letter. It says, the Legislature shall not pass special statutes, and all statutes heretofore enacted inconsistent with this provision shall be void. Is not this substantially the same as saying, the provisions and inhibition of this Constitution shall equally apply to existing as to subsequent statutes ? What motive could the framers of the Constitution have had in denying to this provision a retrospective operation ? If the nullification of the existing statute, could divest a vested right, or impair the obligation of a contract, or otherwise work an injustice, the case might be different; but all such consequences are guarded against by other provisions. (Mitchell v. Hagenmeyer, 51 Cal. 108; Broom’s Maxims pp. 35-6; 10 Otto, 307; 13 Id. 389.)
The only argument advanced, we believe, in the cases cited to show that existing special laws are saved, is that it could not have been the intention to annihilate at one fell swoop the vast body of existing special legislation. But why not ? If it was well to prohibit future Legislatures from perpetrating these enormities, was it not equally wise to abolish those already perpetrated, saving only as is done, vested rights, etc.?
The statute is in conflict with the provisions of the State Constitution— that all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation—and with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
In so far as experience has demonstrated that the public health demands exactly one day’s rest in seven—in so far as this legislation is based upon and justified by this consideration, the occasion, the justification, and the legislative action, are all general in their nature. It is not because excessive devotion to business is deleterious in one locality, under particular circumstances, or to particular classes or individuals; but because all are so constituted as to require this relaxation, that this law is to be submitted to. It must, then, have a uniform operation, or it can legally' have no operation.
• Now, it seems to us that in determining’ whether its operation is uniform, we need only ask whether it bears upon all who fall within the reasons alleged for its enactment. If the only reason which can be given to justify the law be one which equally applies to every member of the community, then it can not fairly be said to operate uniformly, unless it operates equally and impartially upon every member of the community. If the reason be a religious reason—if the law is to be upheld because it is within the power of the Legislature to compel the observance of the divine command to remember this day and keep it holy, then all should be compelled alike. And so if the' object be the public health. (16 Wall. 97; Pell v. Newark, 40 N. J. L. 80; Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396; Kelley v. The State, 6 Ohio St. 272; Mayor v. Dearman, 2 Sneed. 122; Wally’s Heirs v. Nancy Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554; Bank v. Cooper, 2 id. 599; 2 Coke’s Institute, 51; Cooley Con. Lim. 492; Omnibus R. R. Co. v. Baldwin, 6 P. C. L. J. 763; Parrott’s Case, 5 P. C. L. J., supplement.) We have seen that while a formidable looking array of authorities can be marshalled in support of - Sunday laws of uniform operation, that the supporters of such laws are by no means agreed on any one principle upon which they can be rested; and that Judge Cooley, who is the most recent and generally esteemed the most authoritative exponent of this branch of' the law, hardly attempts to justify such legislation on principle, and so far as he goes, repudiates the idea that it is within the police power, and puts it on the sentimental and religious idea connected with the observance of the Sabbath as a matter of conscience. The thought thus avowed by Judge Cooley, though not always put forward, underlies and accounts for the whole course of judicial action on this subject. As a rule, the Judges have carried with them to the bench the impressions of early religious and Christian training. We all know how difficult it is for any one to divest..himself^ entirely of the bias thus resulting—how slowly the most enlarged and enlightened understandings have practically embraced and carried out the philosophy of perfect religious freedom and toleration. We do not have to go very far back to the times when the best men justified and enforced laws working all kinds of disqualification, punishment and disfranchisement for nonconformity in matters of conscience.
But it is time that the law shall take the most advanced ground on these questions, and that Courts shall recognize the fact that the cause of true religion is always injured and never advanced by calling to her aid the sanctions and punishments and rewards of secular authority.
J. H. Campbell and John Reynolds, for the People.
We do not understand that the petitioner makes any question that the law, as it stood at the adoption of the present Constitution, was constitutional and valid, as held by repeated decisions of the Courts of last resort in this and other States. And as to that proposition we are satisfied to submit the case upon the opinion of the learned Chief Justice in Ex parte Burke, Cal. and the cases there cited.
It is claimed, on the part of the petitioner, that the law under which he was convicted consisted of Sections 300 and 301 of the Penal Code, and that the amendment to Section 301 in 1880, operated as a re-enactment of both sections.
The Act of 1880, amending Section 301, makes no reference in its title to Section 300, and deals only with the exception in Section 301, adding a proviso which limits the exception, as to certain of the classes named in the section amended.
We submit, if the Legislature had no power under the present Constitution to pass Section 301, its action was void, and it left the Code as it stood before. Or if, as claimed, Section 301 could not be amended as it was, without also reenacting Section 300, then the Act of 1880 was void for want of a proper title, and the Code was unaffected by it. (Leonard v. January, 7 Cal.) The law under which petitioner was convicted, whether it consists of Section 300 alone, or of the two sections together, either as they stood before, or as they existed after the amendment of. 1880, is not violative of any provision of the present Constitution, even if the law had been passed under it or re-enacted after its adoption.
The law is not local or special. It certainly is not local, for it operates alike all over the State. It is not special in the sense in which that term is used in the Constitution. A general law, uniform in its operation, is one which is public, and affects alike all persons in the class to which it relates. There is nothing in conflict with this in either of the opinions in Ex parte Westerfield, 55 Cal. 550. There the Act was held to be special because it discriminated between certain persons of the same class and pursuing the same business.
“ Special,” is opposed in signification, to “ general.” And so when we get the definition of a general law, whatever comes within that definition is not a special law. That this is a general law operating alike all over the State, quod the classes of persons to which it applies, is made very clear by the opinion of the learned Chief Justice in Ex parte Burke.
Nor does this statute grant any privilege or immunity to any citizen or class of citizens which, upon the same terms and under like circumstances, may not be enjoyed by all citizens.
Article i, Section 21, of the present Constitution, is but an express definition of Section 11, Article i, which is the same as the corresponding section of the old Constitution. (Brooks v. Hyde, 37 Cal. 377.)

Opinion:
Thornton, J.
The petitioner, Koser, was convicted of keeping open a saloon on Sunday, November 9, 1881, for the purpose of transacting- business therein, contrary to the provisions of Section 300 of the Penal Code. He was sentenced under this conviction and imprisoned, and sued out this writ to be discharged from such imprisonment as unauthorized by law.
The legality of the imprisonment depends on the constitutionality of the laws known as the Sunday laws, which are comprised in Sections .300 and 301 of the Code above cited. These sections are as follows:
" 300. Every, person who keeps open on Sunday any store, workshop, bar, saloon, banking-house or other place of business for the purpose of transacting business therein, is punishable by fine not less than five nor more than fifty dollars.
" 301. The provisions of the preceding section do not apply to persons who, on Sunday, keep open hotels, boarding houses, barber shops, baths, markets, restaurants, taverns, livery stables or retail drug stores, for the legitimate business of each, or such manufacturing establishments as are usually kept in continued operation; provided, that the provisions of the preceding section shall apply to persons keeping open barber shops, bath houses, and hair-dressing saloons, after twelve o'clock M. on Sunday."
Most of the questions arising in this case were passed on in Ex parte Andrews, 18 Cal. 678. The statute considered in the case cited was for the greater part the same as the sections of the Penal Code above quoted. The principal difference between them is the addition of the proviso in Section 301, which was inserted by an act of the Legislature approved April 15, 1880.
It is urged that this statute is a special law, and is violative of the second subdivision of Section 25 of Article iv of the Constitution of this State. This section and subdivision prohibit the Legislature from passing- special laws " for the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors." It is also urged that it violates the last clause of Section 21 of Article i of the Constitution, which is as follows: "Nor shall any citizen or class of citizens be granted privileges or immunities which upon the same terms shall not be granted to all citizens;" and it is further said to be violative of Section 11 of the same Article, prescribing that all laws of a general nature shall have a uniform operation."
As is said by Judge Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, "the Legislature is to make laws for the public good," and further, "that what is for the public good, and what are public purposes, and what does properly constitute a public burden, are questions which the Legislature must decide upon its own judgment, and in respect to which it is vested with a large discretion which cannot be controlled by the Courts, except, perhaps, when its action is clearly evasive, and where, under pretense of a lawful authority, it has assumed to exercise one that is unlawful." (Cooley's Con. Lim., 156-7.)
The offense defined in the sections of the Code above quoted is of the class mala prohibita. Independent of statute, it is not an offense, and the Legislature in making the sections was merely adding to the class of public offenses which it deemed expedient should be prohibited by statute. In making the exception in 801, it merely declared that in its judgment, there was something in the nature of the callings specified in such section, which rendered it improper to include them within the act. The exclusion made by Section 801 was not arbitrary and the discrimination was reasonable. It was very easy to perceive that there are features in the character of the callings referred to in Section 301, and in their relation to the community in which they exist, which render such exclusion proper, and one upon which the Legislature might wisely exercise its judgment in leaving them unaffected by penal enactment. Certainly, the Legislature is intrusted with an enlarged discretion to determine what shall be punished criminally and what shall not be, to fix upon what shall be put in the class of mala prohibita, and what shall not be included.
It is consistent with this view, to conclude and hold that such a law is a general one, uniform in its operation, and that by it no privilege or immunity is granted so as to bring it in conflict with the clause of the Constitution above referred to.
The classification made in Section 301 is based on reasonable grounds, and, as has been above remarked, is not arbitrary. This will be readily recognized when we compare the callings excluded from prohibition with those made subject to it, so far as they are specifically mentioned in Section 300. Let a comparison be made between hotels, boarding houses, barber shops, baths, markets, restaurants, taverns, livery stables and retail drug stores, specified in Section 301, and stores, workshops, bars, saloons and banking houses, specified in Section 300, and a difference in their essential features, as regards society and the health and comfort of those who constitute a community, will be at once admitted. Unless such a distinction is made, as has been by the provisions of Section 301, the Legislature,in endeavoring to preserve the health and physical wel-being of the member of a community, would be exercising its power so as to put it in peril.
The circumstance that the callings excluded appear to form an exception from a general law in the shape which the legislation has taken, has given rise to the idea that the law contravenes the provisions of the Constitution. If the law had specified the kinds of business to which the prohibition extended, without mentioning those excluded, we do not think that the impression of its invalidity as conflicting with the paramount law, would have so taken possession of the minds of those who urge its unconstitutionality.
To hold such enactments unconstitutional and void would, in my judgment, impose an unwarrantable restriction on the legislative power. A kindred power is exercised in fixing the grades of criminality, as in the distinction between petit larceny and grand larceny, and classifying homicide and arson by degrees of criminality and affixing to each a different degree of punishment. Such a power is exercised in Section 304 of the" Penal Code, where the act of erecting or keeping a booth, tent, stall, etc., for the purpose of selling or otherwise disposing of wine or spirituous or intoxicating liquors within one mile of any camp or field meeting, for religious worship, during the time of holding such worship, is made punishable by fine. Why confine the operation of such enactment to one mile ? Why not extend it to one mile and a quarter ? The Legislature is allowed to exercise its judgment as to the distance, and properly so.
Declaring the provisions of the sections referred to invalid as violative of the Constitution, would be to strike at the foundation of the legislative power to determine what acts, of those not mala in se, shall be punished criminally, and what shall not be punished. In most cases acts not mala in se are by statute declared penal offenses, while acts, apparently of a like nature, are not declared to be penal. What other power than the Legislature can or should draw the line, on one side of which is liability to punishment, and on the other side no such liability is incurred.
We are referred by the learned counsel to the case of Ex parte Westerfield, 55 Cal. 550, as determining the question that the law in question is a special law. The distinction between the Statute passed on in that case and the Sections 300 and 301 of the Penal Code is palpable. The former selected a particular class, viz., " persons engaged in the business of baking for the purpose of sale," and forbade them from laboring during a specified period. This was clearly a special law, and was properly held to be so. Every one engaged in any other calling or profession was permitted to labor. It may be further said that the discrimination by such act was not made on any reasonable grounds, but appeared to be entirely arbitrary. We observe nothing in the case cited in conflict with the views above expressed.
The contention that the " statute under consideration is in conflict with Sections One (1) and Four (4) of the first Article of the Constitution, was discussed and passed on in Ex parte Andrews, above cited. A statute, so far as the question to be passed on here is concerned, similar to the sections of the Penal Code above cited, was before the Court in that case, and its constitutionality was sustained. We concur in the views there expressed as to this matter, and deem it unnecessary to say anything further as to this contention.
As to the headings of the chapters in which Sections 300 and 301, Penal Code, are found, we cannot on a full consideration of them see anything to lead to a different conclusion from that reached therein. Granting that they may be resorted to to determine as to the correct interpretation of the sections included in the chapter (and nothing further, in our opinion, is determined in Barnes v. Jones, 51 Cal. 305), we cannot perceive that their headings are conclusive of the question of power of the Legislature to pass such statute. The Legislature may hold their power to enact a statute to be derived from a clause or section of the Constitution, which does not confer it. But such error would not render the law so passed, unconstitutional, if the power to enact it was conferred by the organic law.
In my opinion the Act above referred to is constitutional, and the petitioner should be remanded to the custody of the officer.