Commonwealth v. Hood
| Decision Date | 01 April 1903 |
| Citation | 183 Mass. 196,66 N.E. 722 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. HOOD. SAME v. COOK. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; John A. Aiken, Judge.
Hood and Cook were convicted of dealing in junk, old metals, and secondhand articles without licenses, and except. Exceptions overruled.
M. J. Sughrue, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.
Danl. L. Smith and Chas. G. Chick, for defendants.
These were complaints for violation of the provisions of Rev. Laws, c. 102, §§ 29-32, concerning junk, old metals, and secondhand articles. Each complaint alleged that the defendant was the keeper of a shop for the purchase, sale, and barter of old metals and secondhand articles, not being duly licensed so to do.
In Hood's case the evidence was that he was a manufacturer and dealer in dental supplies, having a store at which he bought old gold and silver. None of this was sold by him in the condition in which he bought it, but it was all taken to his refinery, and there manufactured into dental supplies, and then sold in that form to dentists, in the regular course of business, at the defendant's store.
In Cook's case the evidence was that he kept a place of business at which he purchased old gold and silver articles, all of which he sent to the United States mint at Philadelphia, where the gold and silver articles were refined and made into coin, which was returned to him, less the expenses. None of the articles purchased by him were sold by him at his store or elsewhere, and the coin received from the mint was used in his business.
The principal objects of the statutory provisions cited are to make it possible that junk, old metals, and secondhand articles stolen or embezzled may be traced and restored to their owners, and that the speedy destruction of the identity of such articles may not make it impossible to convict the thief. Each of the defendants kept a shop for the purchase of old gold and silver articles, and each, when he bought such articles, immediately caused their identity to be destroyed-the one by melting them down in his refinery, and the other by sending them to the mint to be there refined and made into coin. The business carried on by each at his shop was within the mischief at which the statute was aimed.
Each defendant contends that the shopkeeper does not require a license unless he both buys and sells or barters the articles at his shop. Looking at the language and...
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Commonwealth v. Silverman
...South Hadley, we are of opinion that the sales made by him were sufficient to warrant the conviction under the statute. In Com. v. Hood, 183 Mass. 196, 66 N.E. 722, it held that one who kept a shop where old gold and silver was bought was required to have a license under the statute and cou......