be so. Erle, C. J., said: "The mischief is to my mind precisely the same whether the party stands under the shelter of an oak tree, or of a roof or a covering of canvass; and I think the words are large enough to embrace it. . Beyond all doubt the mischief which the statute intended to remedy was that which was known to exist, viz.: the injury resulting to improvident persons by the opening of betting-houses or offices; but I think it was intended to go further and to prohibit the trade of betting wheresoever it might be carried on. If the prohibition had stopped at 'houses, offices and rooms,' certain persons, minded to carry on this traffic, would resort to trees in the park, and the legislature may well have thought that a practice which should be placed under control, and for that purpose inserted the general words." The exchequer chamber reversed this decision on the ground that the "place" should be one capable of having an owner. That court concurred in the view taken by the common pleas so far that the place being an open one, and not a "house," "office" or "room," would not alone prevent it being a "place" within the statute.1 It was held that a bicycle is not a "carriage" within the meaning of a turnpike act which scheduled animals and vehicles and defined tolls to be paid, and contained this paragraph: "For every carriage of whatever description and for whatever purpose which shall be drawn or impelled, or set or kept in motion, by steam or any other power or agency than being drawn by any horse or horses or other beast or beasts of draught, any sum not exceeding 58." 2 A city charter granted authority to impose a license tax upon persons engaged in certain enumerated callings, and "upon any other person or employment. which it may deem proper, whether such person or employment be herein specially enumerated or not." And it was held not to empower the city to impose such tax upon a railroad corporation, for it is neither a person nor an employment within the ordinary acceptation of those words. This 1 19 C. B. (N. S.) 765; Haigh v. Corporation of Sheffield, L. R. 10 Q. B. 102. See Clark v. Hague, 2 E. & E. 281; Morley v. Greenhalgh, 3 B. & S. 374; Eastwood v. Miller, L. R. 9 Q. B. 440; Gallaway v. Maries, L. R. 8 Q. B. Div. 275; Shaw v. Morley, L. R. 3 Ex. 137 ; 2 Williams v. Ellis, L. R. 5 Q. B. Div. 175. conclusion was aided by the consideration that such corporations are not ejusdem generis with the persons and employments specially enumerated. The court say, whilst the obvious import of the general words "is to extend the power of the city to tax other persons and employments than the enumerated classes, regardless of whether they are taxed by the state or not, it cannot be said to necessarily convey the idea that these new taxable subjects shall be different in character or higher in degree." It was also held when a particular class of persons or things is spoken of in a statute, and general words follow, the class first mentioned must be taken to be the most comprehensive and the general words treated as referring to matters ejusdem generis with that class; the effect of general words when they follow particular words being then restricted.2 1 § 281. Where an act made it penal to convey to a prisoner, in order to facilitate his escape, "any mask, dress or disguise, or any letter, or any other article or thing," the general words were construed without restriction on account of the preceding enumeration, and included a bar. A statute enacted that it should be lawful for any two justices upon complaint made upon oath that there was cause to suspect that purloined or embezzled materials, used in certain manufactures, were concealed "in any dwelling-house, out-house, yard, garden, or other place or places," to issue a search-warrant for the search there, with authority to deal with the person in whose house, etc., they were found. It was held that a warehouse, occupied for business purposes only, and not within the curtilage of, or connected with, any dwelling-house, was "a place" within the meaning of the statute. Erle, J., said the only point here is whether a warehouse is one of those "other 1 Lynchburg v. N. & W. R. R. Co. 80 Va. 237. Where, by statutory definition, the word "person" includes corporation, when applicable according to nature of the subject, a general power to levy tax upon "factors, brokers and vendors of lottery tickets, and upon agents and managers of gift enterprises, and upon all other persons exercising, within the city, any profession, trade or calling or busi- 3 Reg. v. places." In deciding that, we must construe the statute with reference to the object of the legislature in passing it." The statute 15 and 16 Vict., ch. 81, § 2, empowered the justices of the county to appoint a committee of their body for the purpose of preparing a basis or standard for fair and equal county rates, to be founded on the full and fair annual value (interpreted by section 6 to mean the net annual value) of the property ratable to the poor rate, in every parish in the county. Section 5 empowered the committee to order in writing certain specified parish officers and other persons, having the custody or management of any public or parochial rates or valuations of the parishes, to make written returns to the committee of the amount of the full and fair annual value of the property in any parish liable to be assessed toward the county rate; the date of the last valuation for the assessment of such parish; and the name of the surveyor or other person by whom such valuation was made. By section 7 the committee may, by their order in writing, require the "overseers of the poor, constables, the assessors, collectors, and any other persons whomsoever, to appear before them," "and to produce all parochial and other rates, assessments, valuations, apportionments, and other documents in their custody or power relating to the value of, or assessments on, all or any of the property within the several parishes, or which may be liable to be assessed toward the county rate; and to be examined under oath" "touching the said rates, assessments, valuations, or apportionments, or the value of property aforesaid." By another section neglect or refusal to comply subjected the delinquent to a penalty. It was held in Regina v. Doubleday,' that section 7 authorized the committee to call before them all persons whomsoever able to give evidence of, and produce any documents relating to, the subjects mentioned, and did not restrict the committee to ascertaining by the examination of the persons, and the inspection of the documents specified in section 5, the amount at which the property is rated to the poor rate; that, therefore, a person having in his possession private accounts and documents relating to the annual value of collieries and coal mines assessable to the county rates and 13 El. & EL 501. able to give evidence touching their net annual value incurred the penalty by refusing to obey the order of the committee. The general words were construed according to their ordinary meaning, unrestricted by the particular words which preceded them, because the purpose of the act obviously required it. So an act relating to nuisances, under which an inspector had a visitorial power, provided a penalty for preventing him " from entering any slaughter-house, shop, building, market or other place" where the things to be inspected were kept. It was held that a yard was "a place" within the meaning of the act. The court, in Young v. Grattridge,' expressed the opinion that it was not confined to places ejusdem generis with those mentioned, where animals, or carcasses, etc., to which the provisions of the act related, might be kept for sale or preparation for sale as food for man; "and I think," said Lush, J., “that there is nothing qualifying the generality of the term place,' and that a yard is within the term." 6 § 282. Reddendo singula singulis.- General words in a legislative act are often, where the sense requires it, and in furtherance of the intention, to be taken distributively, reddendo singula singulis. They are thus applied to the subjectmatter to which they appear by the context most properly to relate, and to which they are really most applicable. Thus, the words "according to the provisions of said act, and of this act," obviously import that the requisitions of the two acts (that act itself, and another thereinbefore mentioned), in their respective particulars, are to be duly complied with; as if the one under its circumstances requires signature to an instrument only, and the other that it be under hand and seal. In the construction of the words, "for money or other good consideration paid or given," "paid" is referred to "money" and "given" to "consideration." This method of limiting the effect of expressions which are obviously too wide to be construed literally is most frequently adopted when the opening words of a section are general, while the succeeding parts branch out into particular instances. Where several words IL. R. 4 Q. B. 166. 2 Dwarris on St. 613; Rex v. Inhabitants of Stoke Damerel, 7 B. & C. 570. 3 Dwarris on St. 613. importing power, authority and obligation are found at the commencement of a clause containing several branches, it is not necessary that each of those words should be applied to each of the different branches of the clause; it may be construed reddendo singula singulis; the words giving power and authority may be applicable to some branches, those of obligation to others.' Where the words were, "the finding of a cow by and on the land," the court said by Patterson, J.: "I think we must say, 'reddendo singula singulis,' that the finding was to be 'on' the land while there was food on it, and by the owner of the land with hay, at other times."2 Words in different parts of a statute must be referred to their proper connections, giving each in its place its proper force.3 § 283. Interpretation affected by other statutes. All consistent statutes which can stand together, though enacted at different dates, relating to the same subject, and hence briefly called statutes in pari materia, are treated prospectively and construed together as though they constituted one act.' This is true whether the acts relating to the same subject were passed at different dates, separated by long or short intervals, 2 Dwarris on St. 613; Reg. v. Cumberworth Half, 5 Q. B. 484, 491. 3 McIntyre v. Ingraham, 35 Miss. 25. 4 United States v. Freeman, 3 How. 556; State v. Clark, 54 Mo. 216; Converse v. United States, 21 How. 463; Jacoby v. Shafer, 105 Pa. St. 610; Neeld's Road, 1 Pa. St. 353; People v. Weston, 3 Neb. 312; Manuel v. Manuel, 13 Ohio St. 458, 465; Hendrix v. Rieman, 6 Neb. 516; State v. Babcock, 21 Neb. 599; Davidson v. Car 1 Rex v. Bristol Dock Co. 6 B. & C. Me. 412; Phelps v. Rightor, 9 Rob. at pp. 191, 192. (La.) 531; Earl of Ailsbury v. Pattison, 1 Doug. 28; Gayle's Heirs v. Williams' Adm'r, 7 La. 162; Perkins v. Perkins, 62 Barb. 531; Mayor, etc. v. Howard, 6 Har. & J. 383; State v. Mooty, 3 Hill (S. C.), 187; Black v. Tricker, 59 Pa. St. 13; Green v. Commonwealth, 12 Allen, 155; Van Riper v. Essex P. R. Bd. 38 N. J. L. 23; Dugan v. Gittings, 3 Gill, 138; State v. Mister, 5 Md. 11; Mobile, etc. R. R. Co. v. Malone, 46 Ala. 391; Crawford v. Tyson, id. 299; Griffith v. Carter, 8 Kan. 565; Mitchell v. Duncan, 7 Fla. 13; Bryan v. Dennis, 4 id. 445; Rex v. Palmer, 1 Leach, C. C. 352; McWilliam v. Adams, 1 Macq. H. L Cas. 120; Eskridge v. McGruder, 45 Miss. 294; 6 Bac. Abr. 382, 383; Mt. Holly Paper Co.'s Appeal, 99 Pa. St. 513: Bowles v. Cochran, 93 N. C. 398; Whipple v. Judge, etc. 26 Mich. 345; Storm v. Cotzhausen, 38 Wis. 139. son, 1 Wash. Ty. 307; United States v. Harris, 1 Sumn. 21; Leroy v. Chabolla, 2 Abb. (U. S.) 448; Scott v. Searles, 1 Sm. & Mar. 590; White v. Johnson, 23 Miss. 68; Hayes v. Hanson, 12 N. H. 284; State v. Baltimore, etc. R. R. Co. 12 Gill & J. 399, 431; McLaughlin v. Hoover, 1 Oregon, 31; McFarland v. Bank of the State, 4 Ark. 410; Merrill v. Crossman, 68 |