State v. Inhabitants of Trenton

• Decision Date: 09 June 1892
• Citation: 24 A. 478,54 N.J.L. 444
• Parties: STATE ex rel. Stahl v. INHABITANTS OF TRENTON.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

24 A. 478

54 N.J.L. 444

STATE ex rel. STAHL

v. INHABITANTS OF TRENTON.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 9, 1892.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Mandamus proceedings by Ernest C. Stahl against the inhabitants of the city of Trenton to compel defendant to designate the New Jersey Staats Journal as an official newspaper of the city. Writ denied.

Argued February term, 1892, before REED, Garrison, and Dixon, JJ.

Mr. Beasley, for relator.

Mr. Kellstab, for defendant.

DIXON, J. The relator applies for a writ of mandamus directing the authorities of the city of Trenton to designate the New Jersey Staats Journal as an official newspaper of the city, in accordance with a supplement to "An act concerning official newspapers in cities of this state," approved April 11, 1889, (P. L. 1889, p. 200.) The city opposes the application, upon the ground that the supplement is a special act, purporting to regulate the internal affairs of cities, and is therefore unconstitutional. The supplement directs that, "in all cities in which a newspaper printed in the German language shall have been published at least once a week for a period of not less than three years prior to the passage of this act, such newspaper printed in the German language shall be designated as an official newspaper of the city," etc. In the official newspapers of the cities in this state various municipal proceedings are required to be printed at municipal expense. This is the sole object of their designation. What newspapers shall be so selected is therefore a matter of merely local concern, and manifestly this act attempts to regulate an internal affair of the cities to which it applies. Consequently the question arises whether it is general or special. It relates, not to all cities, but to those only in which a German newspaper had been published for three years before its passage. The fact of the publication of a German newspaper for three years before April 11, 1889, is made the sole basis for the classification of cities, in order to determine whether they shall be required to publish their municipal proceedings in a German newspaper. The characteristic thus made the basis of the legislative classification of cities is one to which the purpose of the law relates, but, in my judgment, it is not one of sufficient importance to warrant the classification. To have such efficacy, the characteristic must in some reasonable degree justify the peculiar legislation attempted, and render it appropriate...