Beard v. City of Boston

• Decision Date: 26 February 1890
• Citation: 151 Mass. 96,23 N.E. 826
• Parties: BEARD, Treasurer v. CITY OF BOSTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

151 Mass. 96

23 N.E. 826

BEARD, Treasurer v. CITY OF BOSTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

February 26, 1890

COUNSEL

J. Brown, for plaintiff.

A.J Bailey, for defendant.

OPINION

HOLMES J.

The question raised by the agreed facts is whether a woman sentenced to the reformatory prison for women for five years and properly removed to a state lunatic hospital, is within St.1883, c. 148, § 1. That section is as follows: "When a state-prison convict is committed to a state lunatic hospital, the charges for his support shall be paid by the commonwealth, until the expiration of his term of sentence to the state-prison." By the second section, the expenses of all persons held in prison on a charge of felony and committed before sentence to a state lunatic hospital, under Pub.St. c. 213, §§ 15, 30, and Id. c. 214, §§ 16, 19, 20, shall be paid by the commonwealth.

It is argued for the defendant that the general object of the statute plainly is that those who are a charge upon the commonwealth by reason of their sentence shall not be put back upon the city or town of their settlement because of their insanity. See Pub.St. c. 87, § 33; Smith v. Inhabitants of Lee, 12 Allen, 510. Women, it is said, when convicted of an offense for which men would be sent to the state-prison, cannot be sent there, but may be sent to the state reformatory prison for women. Pub.St. c. 215, § 15. This is none the less a prison that it is called a "reformatory." It is a state-prison, and the charge of supporting the inmates falls upon the commonwealth. Therefore it is concluded that it would be irrational to take the word "state-prison" in section 1 in its narrowest sense, and thus to make the question between state and town depend upon sex in the case of convicts, when there is no such distinction before sentence, under section 2, and when there can be no difference in point of policy.

We have been impressed by these considerations, but we are of opinion that they are outweighed by the arguments on the other side. In the first place, there is the greatest difficulty in escaping from the words of section 1. "State-prison" is habitually used in our legislation as a proper name. For instance, in Pub.St. c. 221, the state-prison is mentioned along-side of the reformatory prison for women, and the latter is mentioned in antithesis to the former, in Pub.St. c. 215, § 15, already cited. In the section which we have to construe, "state-prison" is not used merely as an adjective, but it is referred to explicitly as an individual thing,--"until the expiration of his term of sentence to the state-prison." "State-prison convict," too, we think, would not be understood by people generally to designate women in the state reformatory prison.

Legislation is often tentative, beginning with the most obvious case, and not going beyond it, or to the full length of the principle on which its act must be justified. In laws about settlement and analogous questions, which are matters of arbitrary statute, it would be very unsafe to extend the written words beyond their fair meaning.

In the...