McAllister v. State

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal turns upon the constitutionality of section 90 of Article 27 of the Code of Public General Laws. The traverser was indicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City on the 28th day .of February, 1890, under-sections 88, 89, and 90 of Article 27 of the Code (Act of 1888, chapter 312,) commonly known as “the Oleomargarine Law,” and entitled an “Act to prevent deception in the sale or use of butter, and cheese, and to-preserve the public health.” ³⁹¹ The indictment contained three counts. The first charging the traverser with selling an article of food, an article manufactured out of an oleaginous substance designed to take the place of butter.

The second, with unlawfully offering for sale as an article of food an article in imitation and semblance of natural butter; and the third with having in possession with intent to sell, a certain compound which was coated or colored with annotto or other coloring matter made in whole or in part from animal fat or vegetable oils, not produced from unadulterated milk or cream, whereby the said product, &c., did resemble butter, the product ot the dairy. The traverser demurred to the third count, which was overruled, and upon the plea of not guilty was acquitted by a jury upon the first and second counts, and found guilty on the third count. The traverser filed a petition for writ of error, assigning for causes of error that sections 88, 89, 90 and 91 of Article 27 of the Code of Public General Laws, entitled “Fraud, Butter, Oleomargarine,” are unconstitutional and void ; that the different sections of said Act are in conflict and repugnant to each other ; that the different parts of the 90th section, under which the traverser was convicted, are in conflict; and because the third count of the indictment does not charge any offence