763 
The most recent legislation by Congress relating to the sale of 
milk in the District was enacted on February 27, 1907, under the 
title “An act to amend section eight hundred and seventy-eight of 
the Code of Law for the District of Columbia.”® The purpose 
of the amendment was to extend to dairymen the right, enjoyed by 
dealers in other beverages, to register with the clerk of the supreme 
court of the District of Columbia distinctive marks for the identifi- 
cation of the vessels in which deliveries are made, and thus to secure 
exclusive right to the use of such vessels, under pain of fine or im- 
prisonment imposed on any person trespassing against such right. * 6 
The general statute commonly known as the pure food and drugs 
act, c June 30, 1906, by its terms covers much of the field covered by 
the District milk act of March 2, 1895, and the District pure-food 
act of February 17, 1898; so much so, in fact, that in a prosecution 
under the act last named, based upon the sale of adulterated milk, 
its validity was attacked on the ground that it had been repealed by 
implication through the enactment of the federal pure food and 
drugs act. The police court decided that the local statute had been 
so repealed and acquitted the defendant, but upon appeal by the 
District d the case was disposed of without the court finding it neces- 
sary to decide whether the earlier act had or had not been repealed. 
The court of appeals, however, referring to the question of repeal, 
said: 
Tlie question as to the entire repeal of the earlier act, the operation of which 
was confined to the District of Columbia by the later general law, is one of great 
importance chat ought to be authoritatively settled. It is unfortunate, there- 
fore, that the police court did not content itself with quashing the information 
and dismissing the prosecution, in accordance with its view of the law, without 
going further and adjudging the defendant not guilty. While it seems probable 
that the court took an erroneous view of the law, we are without jurisdiction 
to express an opinion upon the question, by reason of the judgment actually 
rendered. 
Since the rendering of the decision from which the foregoing 
quotation is taken, the health department has prosecuted vendors of 
adulterated milk and cream under either statute, according as prose- 
cution under the one or the other was most convenient or seemed 
likely to yield the better results, and the question as to whether there 
has or has not been a repeal of the District pure-food law of February 
17, 1898, has not been settled. 
The results of the extensive investigations recently made by the 
Federal Department of Agriculture into the condition of the dairy 
farms and dairies supplying milk to the District, and of the milk 
° 34 Stats., 1006. 
6 See page 818 for full text of this law. 
c 34 Stats., 768. 
d D. C. v. Burns, 32 Appeals, D. C., 203. 
