FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR ROOK — PART VIII. 563 



on the same reasoning to turn bees at large to carry communicable dis- 

 eases peculiar to them to other bees ought to be an offense of the same 

 grade. 



The power of a municipal corporation, as a town or village, to restrain 

 or prohibit within its limits the keeping of bees, or to denounce them 

 as a nuisance, is commonly reported as a fruitful source of vexation to 

 keepers of bees, but one case only is reported as involving a judicial de- 

 termination of that particular point And here, too, a few preliminary 

 observations will be necessary to proper understanding of this phase of 

 the nuisance laws. Cities, towns, and villages, as municipal corpora- 

 tions or public bodies, receive their powers by express grant from the 

 legislative authority of the State, and with the exception of some un- 

 enumerated powers without which the corporate body could not exer- 

 cise its essential functions as such, their powers are limited to those ex- 

 pressly named in the grant. This grant of power is usually contained 

 in the general laws of the State governing cities, towns, and villages, 

 and is called the charter power, the law or statute itself being usually 

 known as the charter. Keeping these facts in mind will aid the unpro- 

 fessional man in understanding the terms to be encountered in an ex- 

 amination of local laws in regard to the power of a municipal corpora- 

 tion to legislate upon this subject. 



Every state has its own peculiar policy toward these municipal corpor- 

 ations, and no two are exactly the same. They all, however, follow the 

 same general plan, with variations influenced by local conditions. As 

 the power of the state legislature is limited that its acts must be con- 

 sistent with the constitution, so the power of a municipal corporation 

 to make by-laws, as its ordinances or enactments are commonly known, 

 must be in harmony with its charter, with this further distinction, that 

 while the legislature of the state may exercise unlimited discretion in 

 all matters not prohibited by the constitution, a municipal corporation 

 is restricted in legislative action to those matters in which it is ex- 

 pressly authorized by its charter. 



It is the general rule that cities, towns, and villages have conferred 

 upon their common councils power to declare, abate, and remove nuis- 

 ances. In the case of nuisances per se, whether at common law or by 

 statute, or by ordinance in those cases in which the council may de- 

 clare such nuisances, the power to abate by summary action is either 

 expressly given or exists by necessary implication. Summary abate- 

 ment means arbitrary removal or destruction without judicial process. 

 Nearly, if not quite, all city charters contain grants of power to license, 

 regulate, and restrict all businesses, pursuits, and avocations, and also 

 a section known commonly as a "general welfare clause," by which the 

 corporate body is empowered generally to enact such ordinances, rules, 

 and regulations as may be necessary to preserve the peace, safety, and 

 health of its inhabitants and promote their general welfare. To under- 

 take to set out the specific provisions of the charter of the municipal 

 corporations of the various states would extend this article far beyond 

 its intended scope. 



