TAXATION AND LICENSE. 65 



one portion of the community as against another.^'** In an. 

 Indiana case it is said : "The plain purpose and intent of this 

 act is not to provide a revenue for public uses, but to discour- 

 age the keeping of dogs, and indicating it to be the policy of 

 the State to protect one species of valuable property from de- 

 struction by another species, which is in terms declared use- 

 less. ... It is a matter of no consequence how the sum 

 charged to the owner of a dog may be collected. If it be 

 deemed more convenient to place it upon the tax duplicate, it 

 does not therefore make it a tax and subject to the constitu- 

 tional objection." ^"^ 



In a similar case it is said : "We cannot assent to the posi- 

 tion taken by the appellant that if the sum required for 

 a license exceeds the expense of issuing it, the act transcends 

 the licensing power and imposes a tax. By such a theory the 

 police power would be shorn of all its efficiency. The exer- 

 cise of that power is based upon the idea that the business 

 licensed or kind of property regulated is likely to work mis- 

 chief and therefore needs restraints which shall operate as a- 

 protection to the public. For this purpose the license money 

 is required to be paid." ^^^ 



The fact that a man applied for a license to keep a dog is- 

 competent evidence that he was owner or keeper of the dog, 

 where a complaint was brought against him for not having a 

 license.^^^ The owner of a dog does not escape the penalty 

 imposed in the act by procuring a license after the statutory 

 period has elapsed.^'* The complaint may be made by any- 



'™ Longyear v. Buck, 83 Mich. 236. 



"™ Mitchell V. Williams, 27 Ind. 62. And see Cole v. Hall, 103 111. 30;; 

 Hoist V. Roe, 39 O. St. 340. 



Refusing to take out a dog license is not an "offense of a trifling nature,"" 

 within the meaning of a statute regulating appeals from summary con- 

 victions before justices: Phillips v. Evans, [1896] i Q. B. 305. 



"° Tenney v. Lenz, 16 Wis. 566. 



"' Com. V. Gorman, 82 Mass. 601. For the description in a license, see- 

 Com. V. Brahany, 123 id. 245. 



"' State V. Colby (N. H.), 36 Atl. Rep. 252. 

 5 



