the Act, the Legislature had conveyed its intention in express terms (a). In an Act (59 Geo. 3, c. 50) which provided that no person should acquire a settlement in a parish by a forty days' residence in a tenement rented by him, unless, if a house, it was "held," and if land, it was occupied" by him for a year, effect was given to the two different words as expressing different ideas, by holding that a house need not be "occupied " for the purpose of acquiring a settlement (b); though, it was observed, this was probably not really intended by the Legislature (c). The 9 Geo. 4, c. 14, which admits of no acknowledgment of a debt to bar the Statute of Limitations unless it be signed by "the party chargeable thereby," was held not satisfied by the signature of an agent, partly because other provisions spoke expressly of agents as well as of principals, and thus showed that the Legislature had not in its contemplation the maxim that qui facit per alium facit per se (d). [And so, in a case already referred to, the use of the word "bond" in the portions of the act giving the remedy, narrowed the construction of the phrase "bond or obligation" previously used, and precluded their construction as embracing recognizances.

138

$384. Omitted Words of Earlier Act when not supplied in Later. -[An omission in a later Act of words used in an earlier one, and not supplied by any natural sense of the words employed or suggested by the interaction of some other rule of construction, cannot be read into the later statute so as to restrict its operation;"" although it may seem likely, that the omission of the qualifying words was uninten

140

(a) Fitzpatrick v. Kelly, L. R. 8 Q. B. 337. See Pope v. Tearle and Roberts v. Egerton, L. R. 9 Q. B. 494, 43 L. J. M. C. 129 and 135.

(b) R. v. North Collingham, 1 B. & C. 578; R. v. Great Bolton, 8 B. & C. 71.

(c) Per Best, J., in R. v. N. Collingham, ubi sup. See other illust. in Lawrence v. King, L. R. 3 Q. B. 345; Exp. Gorely, 4 DeG. J. & S. 477; Gale v. Laurie, 5 B. & C. 156; Cornhill v. Hudson,8 E.& B.

429; Wiley v. Crawford, 1 E., B. & E. 253.

(d) Hyde v. Johnson, 2 Bing. N. C. 776.

138 McMicken v. Com'th, supra, ante, § 281.

139 See Ford v. Ford, 143 Mass. 577, ante, § 380.

140 As to the presumption against retrospective operation: see Gaston v. Merriam, 33 Minn. 271, ante, § 381.

141 Sec, for an instance, R. v Llangian, 4 B. & S. 249; 32 L. J M. C. 225, ante, § 199.

144

tional."" Thus when an act subjected certain vegetable substances "used for cordage" to duty, and a later act enumerated as dutiable the same substances, without adding the qualifying words "used for cordage," the court refused to supply the same." So, where an act prohibited the carrying of concealed weapons, with an exception as to persons journeying out of the state, and a later act, covering the whole subject-matter of the former and consequently repealing it, omitted this exception, it was held to be wiped ont." Again, where the later of two acts upon limited partnerships omitted the infliction, prescribed by the earlier, of a penalty for the omission of certain matters required by both, the court said: "we must presume that the [earlier] act. . and the decisions under it were well known to the law-makers at the time the [later] act. . was passed. The omission to prescribe the penalty.. is good reason for concluding that no such liability was intended." As applied to the construction of revisions and codifications and their effect upon such portions of the older enactments incorporated in them, which they do not reproduce, the effect of their omission has been already considered."" Unlike a mere change in the phraseology, such an omission, which cannot of course be supposed to have been unintentional," is, in general to be regarded as a repeal of the omitted acts or provisions, and the courts are not at liberty to revive them, by construction.]

§ 385. Words construed in Bonam Partem. It is said, and in a certain and limited sense truly, that words must be taken in a lawful and rightful sense. When an Act, for instance, gave a certain efficacy to a fine levied of land, it meant only a fine lawfully levied (a). The provision that a judgment

in the Lord Mayor's Court, when removed to the Superior Court, shall have the same effect as a judgment of the latter, would not apply to a judgment which the inferior tribunal had no jurisdiction to pronounce (a). So, an Act which requires the payment of rates as a condition precedent to the exercise of the franchise would not be construed as excluding from it a person who refused to pay a rate which was illegal, though so far valid that it had not been quashed or appealed against (b). A statutory authority to abate nuisances would not justify an order to abate one, when it could not be obeyed without committing a trespass (c). A highway surveyor, who is required by the Highway Act of 1862 to "conform in all respects to the orders of the board in the execution of his duties," is, like the clergyman who had sworn canonical obedience to his bishop (d), bound to obey only lawful orders, which his superior has authority to give; so that he is personally liable for his act, if the board had no jurisdiction to make the order under which he did it (e). The 199th section of the Companies Act, 1862, providing for the winding up of companies of more than seven members not registered under the Act, applies only to companies which may be lawfully formed without registration, but not to those which are prohibited unless regis. tered (f). [Perhaps, upon this ground, as well as that of a presumption against an intended operation beyond the immediate or specific object of the enactment, rest the decisions that an act validating certain sales made by persons in a fiduciary capacity in whose appointment or qualification there existed some defect or irregularity, cured only defects in proceedings of such courts as had jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and did not validate a sale made by a trustee who was irregularly or defectively appointed or qualified by a court that had no jurisdiction to make such an appoint

(a) Bridge v. Branch, 1 C. P. D. 633.

(b) R. v. Windsor (Mayor of), L. R. 7 Q. B. 908. See, also, Bruyeres v. Halcomb, 3 A. & E. 381.

(c) Publ. Health Act, 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 55; Mayor of Scarborough v. Rural Authority of Scar

borough, 1 Ex. D. 344.

(d) Long v. Grey, 1 Moo. N. S.

411.

(e) Mill v. Hawker, L. R. 10 Ex. 92; comp. Dews v. Riley, 11 C. B. 434, 2 L. M. & P. 544.

(f) Re Padstow, etc., Assoc. 20 Ch. D. 137, 51 L. J. 345.

150

ment;"" that an act declaring in force all ordinances of a city or other corporation "in operation" at the date of its passage, did not embrace one which had before been judicially pronounced inoperative; and that an act authorizing the conveyance by a certain county to the state of such lands. as the former should then hold by virtue of tax deeds issued upon sales for delinquent taxes theretofore made, was inapplicable to lands of which the tax deeds held by the county were void on their faces, though there were no lands to which the act, thus construed, could apply."]

8 386. Multiplicity of Words.-Where words have each a separate and distinct meaning, its exact sense ought, prima facie, to be given to each; for the Legislature is not supposed to use words without a meaning. But the use of tautologous expressions is not uncommon in statutes. Thus, an Act which makes it felony "falsely to make, alter, forge, or counterfeit" a bill of exchange, gains little in strength or precision by using four words where one would have sufficed. It cannot be doubted that he who falsely makes, or alters, or counterfeits a bill is guilty of forging it (a). [It is not permissible, therefore, to wrest words from their proper and legal meaning, simply because they are superfluous;19 just as it is unsafe, in the construction of a special act, to depart from the plain meaning of its language in order to give it any other effect than that of an express affirmation of a duty which would otherwise have been implied."]

3387. Same and Different Meanings in Same Word. It has been justly remarked that, when precision is required, no

149 Halderman v. Young, 107 Pa. St. 324.

150 Allen v. Savannah, 9 Ga. 286.

151 Haseltine v. Hewitt, 61 Wis. 121. And see ante, § 115. A general statute relating to gaming, giving an action to recover money lost at gaming to the loser or any other person," does not include the wife of the loser, but means persons competent to sue: Moore V. Settle, 82 Ky. 187. (See Opin. of Justices, 136 Mass. 578, where an act authorizing the governor to appoint nine persons

to constitute a board of health, etc., was held to authorize the appointment of a woman.) And the limitation to twenty days of the time within which a certiorari might be taken to the judgment of a justice of the peace was held to apply only in cases where the justice had jurisdiction: Graver v. Fehr, 89 Pa. St. 460, 464; and see Lacock v. White, 19 Id. 495.

(a) Teague's Case, R. & R. 33. 152 Hough v. Windus, L. R. 12 Q. B. D. 229.

153 See Morris, etc., Co. v. State, 24 N. J. L. 62.

safer rule can be followed than always to call the same thing by the same name (a). ["It is the bungling attempts of the penman to say the same thing in different words, which so frequently involves the meaning of the Legislature in uncertainty." It is, at all events, reasonable to presume that the same meaning is intended for the same expression in every part of the Act (b). But the presumption is not of nuch weight. In the 12 & 13 Vict. c. 96, for instance, which makes any "person" in a British possession charged with any crime at sea liable to be tried in the colony, and provides that where the offence is murder or manslaughter of any "person" who dies in the colony of an injury feloniously inflicted at sea, the offence shall be considered as having been committed wholly at sea; the word "person would include any human being, when relating to the sufferer, but would, as regards the offender, include only those persons who, on general principles of law, are subject to the jurisdiction of our Legislature, and responsible for their acts (c). In the enactment which makes it felony for anyone, “being married," to "marry" again while the former marriage is in force, the same word has obviously two different meanings, necessarily implying the validity of the marriage in the one case, and as necessarily excluding it in the other (d). So, it seems to have been once thought, that, in the Act of Anne, which gave the loser at play a right to recover by action his losses above 107., when lost at a single sitting, and gave an informer the right to recover them, and treble value besides, if the loser did not take proceedings in time, the expression "a single sitting" might receive two different meanings, according as the plaintiff was the loser, or an informer: that is, that a sitting suspended for dinner should be held single and continuous when the loser sued, but be broken into two

(a) Sir G. C. Lewis, Obs. and Reas. in Polit., vol. i. p. 91.

154 Mayor of Philad'a v. Davis, 6 Watts & S. (Pa.) 269, 278, per Gibson, C. J.

(b) Courtauld v. Legh, L. R. 4 Ex. 40, per Cleasby, B.; R. v. Poor Law Comm'rs, 6 A. & E. 68, per Lord Denman. Re Kirkstall Brewery, 5 Ch. D. 535. Comp.

the judgments of Cockburn, C. J., in Smith v. Brown, L. R. 6 Q. B. 729, and of Baggalay, L. J., in the Franconia, 2 P. D. 174.

(c) See U. S. v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 631; and see R. v. Lewis, Dears., C. & B. 182, and other cases cited, sup. § 174 et seq.

(d) R. v. Allen, L. R. 1 C C. 367.