Petty v. State

• Decision Date: 03 June 1893
• Citation: 22 S.W. 654,58 Ark. 1
• Parties: PETTY v. STATE
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

22 S.W. 654

58 Ark. 1

PETTY v. STATE

Supreme Court of Arkansas

June 3, 1893

Appeal from White Circuit Court, GRANT GREEN, JR., Judge.

Judgment affirmed.

The appellant pro se.

The word store has a well defined and understood signification which is broader than the word shop. The words are not synonymous. See 45 Ark. 348; 25 Am. Rep. 646; 19 N.H. 135; 29 Ala. 651; 2 Am. Cr. Rep. 470; 3 Cr. Law. Mag. 640. The legislature never made it a crime to keep open a shop, unless it was in fact a store.

James P. Clarke, Attorney General, for appellee.

In common parlance "shop" and "store" mean about the same thing. See Webster, Int. Dic.; Anderson, Law Dic.; 14 Gray, 378; 15 id. 199; Browne, Jud. Int. Words. Our statute requires that words shall be taken in their common acceptation. 56 Ark. 386.

POWELL J. Mansfield, J., dissents.

OPINION

POWELL, J.

At the January term, 1893, the appellant, N. B. Petty, was indicted by the grand jury of White county, charged with the crime of Sabbath breaking by keeping open a store on the 12th day of June, 1892, in said county, and upon trial was found guilty and appealed to this court.

The evidence of the only witness shows that the appellant, in the year 1892, was engaged in selling meats and also vegetables in their season; that he occupied a latticed building which had doors and locks thereon; that witness was in the employ of appellant; that he helped appellant sell meats and vegetables for about three months in the summer of the year 1892; and that the shop was open every Sunday during that time. The place is designated by witness as a butcher shop.

It is contended by counsel for appellant that the keeping open this shop does not come within the inhibition of the statute (sec. 1887 Mansfield's Digest, as amended by the act of the General Assembly, March 2, 1885), which is as follows: "Every person who shall, on Sunday, keep open any store or retail any goods, wares and merchandise, or keep open any dram shop or grocery, or who shall keep the doors of the same so as to afford ingress or egress, or retail or sell any spirits or wine, shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in any sum not less than twenty-five dollars, nor more than one hundred dollars."

Webster's International Dictionary gives the following definitions to "shop" and "store:" "Shop. A building or an apartment in which goods, wares, drugs, etc are sold by retail. Synonymous with store, warehouse." "Store. Any place where goods are sold, whether by wholesale or retail; a shop." Anderson's Dictionary of Law gives the following definition of shop: "A place kept and used for the sale of goods. In this country shops for the sale of goods are frequently called stores." Rapalje & Lawrence's Law Dictionary defines store as synonymous with shop. These definitions are supported by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in the cases...