6 ESSENTIALS OF VETERINARY 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 ownership 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 
reserved 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 
*Cummings v. Perham, 42 5 Pustic HEALTH, Chap. IT. 
Mass. 555. 
