1882.] DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 23 



impute to the law-making power the folly of having enacted, almost 

 simultaneously, laws whose provisions are so inconsistent and contradi'c- 

 toiy that one of them must be declared to be inoperative. Swift, in his 

 digest, lays down the rule as follows: "Later statutes repeal prior con- 

 trary statutes. This must be understood when the statutes are expressly 

 contrary or negative words are used; otherwise, if both the statutes can 

 be reconciled, they must stand and have a concurrent operation." This 

 rule of construction has been approved by our courts in numerous cases, 

 and now let us apply it to the case in question. Prior to 1880 the leg- 

 islature had created the State Board of Agriculture, and, for the purpose 

 of preventing the spread of contagious diseases among dom.estic animals, 

 had invested it with power to prohibit the introduction of such animals 

 into this state, and when such diseases existed in this state to quaran- 

 tine all infected or suspected animals, and to make all investigations 

 and regulations necessary for the prevention, treatment, cure, and extir- 

 pation of such disease, and had further provided for the punishment, 

 by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, of any person who 

 should fail to comply with such regulations. 



In this state of the law the legislature saw fit to direct its attention 

 to the specific disease of glanders, apparently considering it to be of 

 such a dangerous character as to require a distinct and separate enact- 

 ment for its extirpation. It Avas not thought suflicient to leave the 

 control of this disease in the hands of the Board of Agriculture, and 

 the legislature therefore dealt with it directly, and called into use for its 

 suppression the machinery of the criminal law of the state. It consti- 

 tutes the acts of commission and omission specified in chapter V, 

 Ofi"ences against the Sovereignty of the State. It not only, by direct 

 enactment and under suitable penalties, established a quarantine in 

 respect to all animals infected with this disease, but especially directed 

 its power against horses thus infected on account of their greater liabil- 

 ity to spread the contagion, by commanding their owners to cause their 

 immediate destruction. It will be observed that this statute is not an 

 act in relation to the Board of Agriculture; it neither confers additional 

 power nor imposes new duties upon the board. Its commands are 

 directly to the citizen. It merely selects the Board of Agriculture, as it 

 might have chosen any other agent, as the tribunal to determine a fact, 

 and tlien charges the citizen, upon being duly notified of the existence 

 of such fact, with the performance of a certain duty to the state. 



The legislature, having thus dealt with the glanders, saw fit, at the 

 same session, to enlarge the powers of the Board of Agriculture for the 

 purpose of enabling it to encounter more successfully the evils attending 

 the spread of contagious diseases in general among domestic animals, 

 and therefore passed the act entitled " An act conferring upon the State 

 Board of Agriculture power to kill diseased animals." 



This act is not criminal in its nature ; it imposes no new duty upon 



