Geis v. State

Ernes., J., delivered the opinion of the Court. An ordinance of the Major and City Council of Balti1 inore, being section 29 of Article 8 of the City Code of 1898,. provides that: “All hackney coaches, buggies, cabs and gigs, kept for hire, and all wagons, furniture carriages, carts, drays, package carts, boats (other than open row boats, of every description) and scows, owned or commonly used or employed in the city, shall be numbered with plain, conspicuous figures, on plates of tin, to be provided as hereinafter directed, * * * and the owner or owners of such carriages, boats or scows, shall annually appear at the office of’ the Comptroller and have entered in a book kept for that purpose, his or her name, place of abode, and the description of every such carriage, boat or scow by him or her owned, and the number thereon to be affixed, and such owner or owners shall take out a license containing his, her or their number signed by the City Comptroller with the City Seal thereto affixed, and no owner shall be permitted to use or employ or let for hire on any street, lane or alley, nor in any water within the city any” vehicle, boat of scow as previously mentioned, “until he, she or they shall first comply with” the ordinance; and for a violation of its provisions a fine of five dollars is prescribed. By section 59 of the City Charter of 1898 the Collector of Water Kents and Licenses is charged with the duty of collecting all license fees imposed by ordinance, and in the City Code of 1906 (Articleél, section 76,), the Collector is substituted for the Comptroller as the officer having authority to execute the provisions we have quoted. The appellant was indicted and convicted upon the charge that he commonly used and employed in the City of Baltimore a certian wagon, of which he was the owner, without ²⁶⁷ having obtained a license as required by the ordinance.

The case was tried before the Court below upon an agreed statement of facts, with a stipulation for a judgment thereon, according to the conclusion reached, and for a right of appeal to this Court, in conformity with the practice sustained as proper in Keller v. State, 12 Md. 322 ; Bramble v. State, 88 Md. 687 , and other cases. It appears from the agreement as to the facts that the appellant is a resident of Anne Arundel County, where he owns two farms and a lumber yard. One of the farms is six miles and the other three miles distant from the City of Baltimore. The lumber yard is located in Brooklyn, about a mile from Baltimore by way of the Light Street Bridge.

For the operation of his farms and his lumber industry the appellant owns and uses twenty-five wagons and carts of various kinds and twenty-six mules and horses. One or more of the teams visit Baltimore every two or three days for the purpose of hauling manure from the city to the farms, or bringing out lumber for delivery in the county, or taking produce from the farms to one of the city markets. With one or two exceptions, all of the teams are thus employed, but not with equal frequency. They are all used in both the farm and lumber delivery work in the county.

TJpon an average estimate each of the wagons goes to Baltimore about twenty times a year, and no team makes more than fifty trips to the city within such a period. The wagon to which the indictment refers was within the corporate limits of Baltimore when its driver was arrested, and it had been sent to the city for building material to be used in the appellant’s business. No license had been procured by the appellant for the use of any of his vehicles on the city streets. The fee to be paid for such license, as fixed by the ordinance, is two dollars for every “wagon, cart or other carriage of burden, drawn by one horse or mule,” and the same amount for each additional animal so used.

The defense sought to be maintained, upon the facts stated, is that the wagon mentioned in the indictment was not “commonly used or employed in the city,” within the ²⁶⁸ ■meaning of the ordinance, and that its owner, therefore, was mot subject to the license regulations. In support of this theory the appellant refers to the