City of St. Louis v. Bowler

• Citation: 94 Mo. 630,7 S.W. 434
• Parties: CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. BOWLER.
• Decision Date: 19 March 1888
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Missouri

7 S.W. 434

94 Mo. 630

CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. BOWLER.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March 19, 1888.

1. LICENSE — POWER OF MUNICIPALITY UNDER CHARTER — SEWING-MACHINE AGENTS.

Defendant was convicted for selling sewing-machines, as agent, without a license, as required by an ordinance of the city of St. Louis. Held, under the provisions of the city charter providing that the city authorities may "license, tax, and regulate * * * agents, * * * real-estate agents and brokers, financial agents and brokers, * * * mercantile agents, insurance agents, * * * and all other business, trades, avocations, or professions whatsoever; * * * to license, tax, regulate, or suppress all occupations, professions, and trades not heretofore enumerated, of whatever name and character," — that said ordinance was valid, making defendant liable for a violation thereof.

2. SAME — CONSTITUTIONAL LAW — EQUAL TAXATION — EQUAL PROTECTION OF LAWS.

An ordinance of the city of St. Louis requiring a license tax of sewing-machine agents, and making them liable to fine for a violation thereof, made under a provision of the city charter, held not in conflict with article 10, § 3, of the state constitution, providing for equal and uniform taxation, where the ordinance imposed a uniform tax on all of a class; nor with the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, guarantying to all equal protection of the law.¹

Appeal from St. Louis court of criminal correction; E. A. NOONAN, Judge.

Defendant, A. C. Bowler, was convicted in the district police court of St. Louis for failing to pay a license tax as a sewing-machine agent, required by ordinance 12,473 of the city, and sentenced to pay a fine of $25. He appealed to the St. Louis court of criminal correction, and was there adjudged guilty. He then appealed to the St. Louis court of appeals, and the case was transferred from that court to this court.

Taylor & Pollard, for appellant. Leverett Bell, for respondent.

SHERWOOD, J.

The charter of the city of St. Louis authorizes the mayor and assembly "to license, tax, and regulate * * * agents, * * * real-estate agents and brokers, financial agents and brokers, * * * mercantile agents, * * * insurance agents, * * * and all other business, trades, avocations, or professions whatever; * * * to license, tax, regulate, or suppress all occupations, professions, and trades not heretofore enumerated, of whatever name and character." Under the provisions of ordinance 12,473, a license tax of $25 is required of any one acting as agent, solicitor, or canvasser for sewing-machines. Section 11, art. 20, c. 37, Rev. Ordinances, makes it a misdemeanor to fail to take out a license as aforesaid. The defendant, thus failing, was convicted in the district police court, and in the court of criminal correction, and appeals to this court.

1. If the charter of the city authorized the passage of ordinance 12,473, the validity of a subsequent ordinance to punish violations of the former one follows as a matter of course. The charter in this case differs very widely from the charter passed upon in Laughlin's Case, 49 Mo. 559; for there the charter then under consideration was not nearly so broad in its grant of powers as is the present charter; and it was determined in that case that the profession of law was not ejusdem generis with any of the trades and avocations in the then existing charter, to-wit: "Auctioneers, grocers, merchants, retailers, * * * photographers, artists, agents, porters, runners, drummers," etc. And that section of the charter concludes with the words: "And in all other business, trades, avocations, and professions whatever." In the present instance, it will be observed that the concluding words are, "all occupations, professions, and trades not heretofore enumerated, of whatever name or character." This language is so very comprehensive that no necessity exists to invoke the rule of ejusdem generis in the case at bar, if the language employed in the concluding words is to have accorded to it its usual signification. But the very terms of the charter authorize the licensing of "agents," and the defendant's calling falls within the ordinary meaning of that term, if, indeed, it may not properly be included in the term "mercantile agents," i. e., those engaged in the sale of commodities. In City v. Herthel, 88...