BEE-KEEPING NOT A NUISANCE. 
Dillon on Mnn. C'orp. Sec. 261. Horr 
& Bemis, Sec. 252, last paragrph. 
Emmett vs. Council Bluffs, +6 Iowa, 
66. Pye vs. Peterson, 45 Texas, SI 2. 
State iis. Matt, 61 Md.. 262. Davis 
vs. Clifton, 8 N. C. C. P., 236. Horr 
& Bemiss, Sec. 144. 
The power cannot he given in 
general terms to abate that which 
comes under the general definition of 
a nuisance, in advance of a judicial 
determination. Dillon on Mun. Cor. 
Sec. 308; and in Gates us. Milwaukee, 
10 Wallace, 497. Judge Miller says : 
“ This would place every house, every 
business, and all the property in the 
city at the uncontrolled will of the 
temporary local authority. So the 
words “injury” and “annoyance,” 
used in Sec. 751, Mans. Dig. have been 
too often defined in like Charters to 
need further explanation here. It 
simply gives a power over nuisances, 
and does not mean any injury or any 
annoyance that sensitive or timid or 
nervous people may imagine or fear. 
The bees must he per se a nuisance 
to justify this sweeping ordinance, 
under which, according to its letter, a 
man cannot live in Arkadelphia, if lie 
owns bees, no difference where he 
keeps them; for personal property, 
wherever kept, is in law with the 
owner. In Harvey vs. Dewoody, 18 
Arkansas, 252 ; where the Mayor and 
other town officers were sued in 
trespass for tearing down an old 
house which the owner had permitted 
to remain vacant and open, and to be 
used as a privy, until it became 
unhealthful and dangerous, an 
ordinance was passed to abate it. To 
a plea setting up the ordinance and 
facts on which it was based as a 
defense, on demurrer to this plea, it 
was held a good defense. 
The counsel for Arkadelphia try to 
gather comfort from this case, but it 
would be parallel if the Des Arc 
Council had passed an ordinance 
requiring all wooden houses to be 
torn down, without regard to condition 
or occupancy, or compensation to the 
owner. We would then have a case 
like the sweeping ordinance prohibit¬ 
ing bees, and requiring their removal 
for public good, without compensation. 
Would a plea setting up an ordinance 
requiring all wooden buildings to be 
destroyed, have protected the officers 
in the Dewoody case ? 
1 shall not attempt to follow the 
learned counsel, or review their 
authorities: as far as they have any 
bearing on the case, they sustain my 
position: 1. That the power is not 
given to prohibit bees by the statute. 
2. That bees must at the time and 
place, and under all circumstances, 
be a nuisance, per se, or the ordinance 
violates property right, and is not 
sustained by law. 
I have not stopped to criticise the 
manner in which the ordinance is 
brought in the record. It is the basis 
of the action, and by law must be 
filed, at least in the Circuit Court, 
for the Court cannot take judicial 
notice of it. It must be read at the 
trial, and brought on the record as 
the basis of the suit. Abbott’s Trial 
Evidence, page 770. Mans. Digest, 
Sec. 2,835. 
I suppose, as no point is made in 
argument upon the motion of 
Appellant to dismiss the appeal, that 
it was thought to be unnecessary to 
argue it. Cardon’s testimony was 
taken upon that motion, to prove 
merely that an appeal was in fact 
prayed, and to make him amend his 
transcript, and the Court overruled 
the motion to dismiss the appeal. 
Appeals from Mayor’s Courts regu¬ 
lated by Mansfield, Sec. 2,432. 2,425, 
2,436, required nothing but a bond: 
Perrin ex parte, 41 Ark., 194, the 
jurisdiction of Justice of the Peace: 
appeal from Mayor taken in the same 
manner as from Justice. Mansfield, 
Sec. 797. This is a quasi criminal 
proceeding; if so, the appeal was 
rightly perfected. But if governed 
by civil code, then it is not to be 
dismissed for informality. Mansfield, 
4,141 mode of appeal in civil case, 
4,1 34, 4,1 35 ; and it was amendable. 
But all that was required was the 
filing of the bond, as the proceeding 
was criminal. 
It is desired that the Court pass 
upon the question, however, for the 
profession are in great doubt as to 
what is meant by appeal from Mayor, 
as in case of Justice of Peace, as 
provided in Sec. 797. In view of the 
fact that there are two modes of 
appealing from a Justice—one by 
above Sections 2,432, 2.436, in crim¬ 
inal cases; the other in civil cases, by 
Sections 4,134, 4,135, (Mansfield,) 
which differs from the mode of appeal 
in criminal cases. I submit that 
when the Mayor sits in a misdemeanor 
case, whether for violating an ordi¬ 
nance, or a law, the appeal must 
follow criminal procedure. If he sits 
as a Justice of the Peace in a civil 
case, the appeal must be taken 
according to Sections 4,134, 4,135. 
