Ex parte the Tax Sale of Lot No. 172

Grason, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, dated May 1st, 1874, and setting aside a tax sale made and reported by the Oityr Collector. The main question, presented upon this appeal, is, whether sections 874, 875, 876 and 878 of Article 4, of the Public Local Laws are still in force, or whether they have been repealed by the Act of 1872, chap. 384. Those sections have not been repealed in express terms, and, if repealed at all, it is by implication merely, because of irreconcilable conflict between them and the provisions of the Act of 1872.

We have very carefully examined Article 81 of the Public General Law to which the Act of 1872 is an amendment. It is amended in several respects ¹⁹⁸ by the latter Act, but we are of opinion that it is not more in conflict with the Local Law since its amendment, than it was as it originally stood before the passage of the amending Act. Section 41 is amended so as to make all other taxes, liens on real estate, as well as State taxes, which alone had, before the passage of the Act, been liens. This section of the Act of 1812, clearly .applies to the City of Baltimore as it is apparent, from its very terms, that the Legislature intended to change the law in this respect and to apply that change to the whole State.

Section 49, before being amended, required the statement and notice therein described to be left with the party by whom the taxes were to be paid, or at his usual place of abode. As amended the statement and notice were to be left with the party by whom the taxes were to be paid, or one of them, if there was more than one, or at his or their usual place of abode, or at the usual place of abode of one of them, or set up on the land or premises, where land or other real estate is to be sold, or delivered to any person in possession thereof. It will be seen that the amendment merely made some change in the mode of serving the statement and notice, and provided what should be done in place of notice, when it could not be personally served. Under the 50 th section as it originally stood the collector was bound to levy upon the party’s personal property, and by the amendment he was authorized to levy upon either realty or personal.

Sections 54, 55, 56, 51 and 59, which directed the mode of proceedings to sell real estate for taxes, were repealed by the Act of 1812, and section 63 enacted in their place. This section provides that tax sales shall be reported to the Circuit Court of the judicial circuit where said lands are situate, or when situate in the City of Baltimore, to the Circuit Court of said City, and directs the mode of proceeding after such report shall have been made. This was a new feature in tax sales applied to the Counties by the Act of 1861, ch. 186, and was ¹⁹⁹ expressly extended to Baltimore City by the Act of 1870, chap. 312, and by section 63 of the Act of 1872, is reenacted and applied to the whole State, including Baltimore City. It is supposed that the Act of 1872 applies to Baltimore, because section 50 requires the notice of sale to be published in a newspaper published in the County or City, and stuck up at the Court House door of the County or City, and if no newspaper be printed in the County, said notice was required to be set up at two other public places in the neighborhood, in addition to that at the Court House door of the County or City.

It will be observed that the “City of Baltimore” is not named in any of the sections except the 63rd, which clearly applies to the wdiole State, and which requires the reports of sales for taxes in Baltimore City to be made to the Circuit Court of that City. In the 50th section,.as we have already stated “ County or City ” is mentioned, and there are other cities in the State besides Baltimore City, and the Legislature may have well had them in contemplation when the word City was used. But the 63rd section would seem to indicate that the Legislature, at the very time of the passage of the Act of 1872, had in view the fact that there was then in force and effect a law or laws which presented a mode of proceeding in tax sales different from that contained in the bill upon which it was acting, for instead of providing that the Judge should give notice if he found the proceedings regular and in accordance with the provisions of that Act, that is the Act of 1872, he was required to give notice if he should find the proceedings regular and in accordance with the' provisions not of this Act, but “ of law.” Upon an examination of the Code it will be found that in many of the sections of Article 81 as it was originally adopted, including the sections expressly repealed by the Act of 1872, the “Mayor and City Council of Baltimore,” “the City of Baltimore” and the Appeal Tax Court” are named and referred to. But it never w ²⁰⁰ supposed that Article 81, before the passage of the Act of 1872, repealed by implication the Local Law, Article 4,