McLane v. Hobbs

• Decision Date: 09 April 1891
• Citation: 21 A. 708,74 Md. 166
• Parties: MCLANE v. HOBBS, REGISTRAR OF ELECTION, ET AL.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

21 A. 708

74 Md. 166

MCLANE v. HOBBS, REGISTRAR OF ELECTION, ET AL.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

April 9, 1891

Appeal from circuit court, Frederick county.

The appellant, William E. McLane, applied to the appellee Evan N Hobbs, the officer of registration of district No. 2 of Frederick county (which includes Frederick city) to have his name registered as a qualified voter of said district, but was refused registration. He then appealed from the rulings of said officer of registration to the circuit court, but his appeal was dismissed. Laws Md. 1890, c. 573, § 14, relating to elections and registration of voters, provides that "all persons who prior to the passage of this act shall have vacated or removed from, or have gone with their parents from, the place of their actual abode, domicile, dwelling place, or habitation within this state, and shall have taken domicile, dwelling place, abode, or habitation out of this state, shall be conclusively presumed to have thereby intended to abandon their legal residence in this state, and to have surrendered their right to registration as legal voters in the state, unless within thirty days after the passage of this act they go in person before the clerk of the circuit court for the county from which they shall have so removed, or before the clerk of the superior court of Baltimore city, if their removal shall have been from said city, and make and acknowledge before such clerk an affidavit that when they so removed they did not intend to change their legal residence within the state, but that they had a fixed purpose to return at a definite time, and that they intend to return to this state, and to take up their actual domicile and habitation therein, on or before six months next preceding the Tuesday after the first Monday of November eighteen hundred and ninety."

Argued before ALVEY, C.J., and MILLER, IRVING, BRYAN, ROBINSON, and BRISCOE, JJ.

William H. Purnell and F. C. Norwood, for appellant.

Ed. S. Eichelberger and Wm. P. Mauslby, Jr., for appellees.

BRISCOE J.

This appeal is from the rulings of the circuit court for Frederick county on an appeal of the appellant from the refusal of the appellee Hobbs to register his name as a qualified voter of district No. 2 of Frederick county, which includes Frederick city. The facts of the case set out in the record are these, the appellant being the only witness: He testified that he was born in election district No. 2, (Frederick city,) Frederick county, but removed to Washington city, in the District of Columbia, about the year 1870, where he married, went to housekeeping, and worked at his trade,--that of a brick-layer; that he continued to reside in said city until March, 1888, when he removed back to the election district aforesaid in Frederick county, Md., bringing with him his wife and children; that he built and owns the house in which he lives, and has continued to occupy it, with his family since his removal to the county, in 1888; that, not being able to secure work in his specialty--that of brick-laying--in Frederick, he has continued his work in Washington city, where he goes every Monday morning, but returns to his home in Frederick every Saturday evening, and that he has continued to do this since March, 1888. The proof further shows that the appellant never applied for registration since his return to Frederick until the October sitting, 1890, and had not voted there for the last five or ten years, and did not make either of the affidavits required by section 14, c. 573, Acts 1890.

These being the undisputed facts of the case, the following prayer was offered by the petitioner, which was rejected, at the hearing, by a divided court: The petitioner, by his counsel prays the court to rule as a matter of law, upon the undisputed facts offered in evidence, that the said petitioner is a qualified voter, and entitled to...