Consolidated Gas Co. v. Mayor of Baltimore

Robinson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Ordinance No. 7, 1881, passed by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, in pursuance of the Acts of 1880, chapters 187 and 235, provides, “that any mechanical tools or implements, whether worked by hand or by steam or other motive power, machinery, manufacturing apparatus, or engines, owned by any individual, firm or corporation in said city, and properly subject to valuation and taxation ⁵⁹⁰ therein, which said tools, implements, machinery, apparatus or engines, shall he actually employed and used in the business of manufacturing in said city,” shall be exempt from taxation. The appellant was incorporated under the laws of this State, for the purpose of manufacturing illuminating gas in Baltimore City. The question in this appeal, is whether the gasometers .and gas mains or pipes belonging to the Company are, under the above ordinance, exempt from taxation ?

And this depends upon whether they constituted part of the machinery actually used by it in the manufacture of gas ?— the language of the ordinance, being “any machinery, •etc., actually employed and used in the business of manufacturing.” The process of manufacturing gas is, according to the testimony, as follows : The coal is put in air-tight retorts and heated to a temperature sufficient to drive off the volatile matter, which, in fact, contains everything to be found in illuminating gas, the residuum in the retort being coke. This volatile matter or gas then passes into a condenser of a lower temperature, to free it from the tar which is present with the gas; — it then goes into what is called a ■scrubber, by which the ammonia is washed out in the form of ammoniacal liquor; thence it. is drawn by an exhauster, driven by a steam engine, through purifiers over slacked lime, and thus freed of all impurities. It then passes through the station metres for the purpose of ascertaining the quantity produced; thence to the gasometer and then through the mains or service pipes to the house of the -consumer. The gasometer is a huge, air-tight reservoir for the stor•age of the gas thus produced, and the' pressure which is necessary to force the gas through the mains to the consumer.

The pressure is generated by the exhauster, which forces the gas through the purifiers into the gasometer. ⁵⁹¹ The gasometer being automatic, it rises or falls according to the supply and consumption of gas, the pressure which is communicated to it by the exhauster being