6 ESSENTIALS OF YETEEINARY LAW 



What a statute expressly provides is legal, but 

 the permissions of the statute must not be pre- 

 sumed to extend beyond the plain meaning of the 

 words. In Massachusetts there was a statute 

 which gave permission for any person to kill a 

 dog wandering around without a collar. That law 

 did not make such lack of collar sufficient evidence 

 of lack of ownershii3 to justify one in taking the 

 dog for his own use.^ The permission to kill was 

 based upon the idea that the dog would not be 

 killed unless he were a nuisance. If he had value, 

 the person taking him would be depriving another 

 of his property for his own use; that is stealing.^ 

 3. Nation, State, or City. In the United States 

 we find different governmental entities, with their 

 appropriate organizations, and with sometimes 

 conflicting authority. The Constitution of the 

 United States gives to Congress exclusive legis- 

 lative power over certain subjects, and concur- 

 rent jurisdiction over certain others. Where 

 Congress has exclusive authority the states must 

 not intrude. Where the jurisdiction is concurrent, 

 the enactments of the state will be respected, only 

 in so far as they do not conflict with Congressional 

 action. By the express provision of the Constitu- 

 tion of the nation, all power not expressly given 

 to the Congress, or prohibited to the states, is 

 resented to the individual states. The nation was 

 made up from a union of states. This is not at 

 all the relationship of the state and the towns or 

 cities. The state is not composed of towns and 

 cities, nor of counties. The counties, towns and 



4 Cnmmings v. Perham, li! "■ Public Health, Chap. II. 



Mass. .")."."). 



