or any other caucus of the voters of a township. It often happens that a village or township caucus is called as a general caucus, and is not strictly speaking, a party caucus. There is nothing pointed out in your letter that would indicate that the caucus held on the eighteenth was not legal. In answer to your second question, I desire to say that it is against the spirit, if not the letter, of the law for one to participate in more than one party caucus, unless the caucuses are of his own party. Where a general caucus is called and voters participate therein regardless of their political views, and thereafter a party caucus is held, the voters belonging to that party, I believe, would have the right to participate therein. In answer to your third question, I would say that there is no provision in the law that requires a property qualification in order to hold a township office. Section 103 of Act No. 57 of the Public Acts of 1897, provides that in order to hold a township office, one must be a citizen of the United States, and a duly qualified elector of the township. This, I believe, is the extent of the qualifications necessary to hold a township office. Yours respectfully, HORACE M. OREN, Township highway commissioner or village authorities—Power of to keep open and repair State roads running through village. MR. C. DANIELS, Port Hope, Mich. : ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, } MY DEAR SIR-Your letter of 24, inst., to the Secretary of State, and by him referred to me, received and considered. The question you ask, is whether or not the highway commissioner in a township or the village authorities are authorized, under the law, to keep open and repair the State roads running through the village. In answer thereto, I desire to call your attention to Act 163 of the Public Acts of 1889, the same being Section 1324a, Howell's Annotated Statutes, Volume 3. Section 1 of that act provides: "That all State roads which now or hereafter may be within the corporate limits of any city or village within this State, shall be under the supervision of the common council or board of trustees of such city or village, with power to control, vacate or alter such roads within their corporate limits." This, I believe, fully covers the point in question, and vests such authority in the board of trustees of the village. Yours respectfully, HORACE M. OREN, Oleomargarine-Coloring of -Bill to exempt Upper Peninsula. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, } March 28, 1899. HON. F. C. CHAMBERLAIN, House of Representatives, Lansing, Mich. : MY DEAR SIR-Your letter of 25, inst., received and considered, whereby you request my opinion upon the proposition to exempt the upper peninsula from the provisions of a certain bill now before the Legislature of this State, providing a penalty for coloring oleomargarine or any other substance for butter. As I understand the matter, you wish my opinion as to whether or not such exemption in a general act of the Legislature would be permissible under the constitution of this State. In answer thereto, I desire to call your attention to Cooley's Constitutional Limitations (6th Ed.), commencing on page 479, as follows: "Laws public in their objects may, unless express constitutional provision forbids, be either general or local in their application; they may embrace many subjects or one, and they may extend to all citizens, or be confined to particular classes, as minors or married women, bankers or traders, and the like. The authority that legislates for the State at large must determine whether particular rules shall extend to the whole State and all its citizens, or, on the other hand, to a subdivision of the State or a single class of its citizens only. The circumstances of a particular locality, or the prevailing public sentiment in that section of the State, may require or make acceptable different police regulations from those demanded in another, or call for different taxation, and a different application of the public moneys. The Legislature may therefore prescribe or authorize different laws of police, allow the right of eminent domain to be exercised in different cases and through different agencies, and prescribe peculiar restrictions upon taxation in each distinct munici pality, provided the State constitution does not forbid. These discrimi nations are made constantly; and the fact that the laws are of local or special operation only is not supposed to render them obnoxious in principle. The legislature may also deem it desirable to prescribe peculiar rules for the several occupations, and to establish distinctions in the rights, obligations, duties, and capacities of citizens. The business of common carriers, for instance, or of bankers, may require special statutory regulations for the general benefit, and it may be a matter of public policy, to give laborers in one business a specific lien for their wages, when it would be impracticable or impolitic to do the same for persons engaged in some other employments. If the laws be otherwise unobjectionable, all that can be required in these cases is, that they be general in their application to the class or locality to which they apply; and they are then public in character, and of their propriety and policy the legislature must judge." In note 2, on page 479, above cited, I find the following: "To make a statute a public law of general obligation, it is not necessary that it should be equally applicable to all parts of the State. All that is required is that it shall apply equally to all persons within the territorial limits described in the act." Citing "State v. County Com missioners of Baltimore, 29 Md. 516; Pollock v. McClurken, 42 Ill. 370; Haskel v. Burlington, 30 Iowa, 232; Unity v. Burrage, 103 U. S. 447." The above is the general rule in the absence of any constitutional provision to the contrary. In the case of People v. Hanrahan, 75 Mich. 611, commencing on page 617, the court uses the following language: "The Legislature has power to declare that certain acts committed in a particular locality shall constitute a criminal offense, and shall be punished as a felony, while the same act, if done in another locality or section of the State, would not be a criminal offense at all. Such are the laws which prohibit fishing in certain waters, and many other laws which the Legislature declares shall only be operative in certain designated portions of the State. There is no provision in our constitution, as there is in some of the states of the Union, that all laws shall be uniform and equal throughout the state, and consequently the legislature is not prohibited from legislating for particular localities." In the case of Feek v. Township Board, 82 Mich., commencing on page 413, the court said: "There is no written provision in the constitution forbidding the Legislature from enacting laws for particular localities, or suspending the general laws in certain localities. The prohibition, if it exists in this respect, must therefore come from some great underlying principle of right and justice inherent in the nature and spirit of the social compact, whose universal application and binding authority command the assent of every freeman. The right of the judiciary to declare statutes unconstitutional as violating some great underlying principle of natural right or justice, when such statute violates no part of the written constitution, is not universally admitted. It does not arise in this case, and need not be discussed, nor decided. No such underlying principle as that the Legislature shall not enact laws for a particular locality, different from those applicable to other portions of the State, or, which is the same thing, shall not suspend the operation of general laws as to any particular locality, has ever been recognized in this State. On the contrary, there is an unbroken record of instances where such legislation has been had without question, and such laws have been upheld by the decisions of this court. In this state it is not a question of legislative power, but of expediency, and the exercise of legislative discretion." There are many other cases which might be cited to the same effect. and also instances where the Legislature of the State has made exemp tions similar to the one in question. I am therefore, clearly, of the opinion that if the Legislature should see fit to exempt the upper peninsula from the provisions of this bill, such action would in no way violate any provision of the constitution of this State. Yours respectfully, HORACE M. OREN, Health law--Person performs duties of health officer of village until successor is appointed— Township health board. H. W. SCHMIDT, M. D., Chelsea, Mich. : ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, } MY DEAR SIR-This department has been so crowded with work since the convening of the legislature that there has been some delay in replying to your letter of February 20. I have conferred with the State Board of Health in reference to the contents of your letter, and that board seems to be of the opinion that you are required to perform the duties of health officer of the village until your successor is appointed, and raises some question as to your authority to act as health officer of the township. I am unable to find anything in the law that requires you to hold the office of health officer until your successor is appointed and qualifies. Under Section 54, Chapter 7, Act No. 3, of the Public Acts of 1895, being the act for reincorporation of villages in this State, the matter seems to rest, so far as the village is concerned, with the common council. Of course, I am not in a position to know what ordinances may have been passed by the village council pertaining to the matter in question. The State law with reference to health officers, Section 1634, Howell's Statutes, refers to township health officers, and I am of the opinion that your appointment as health officer would be good, and that you should look to the township board of health for instructions in the premises. I am inclined to think that the council of the village can make such arrangement as it sees fit relative to your performing the duties of health officer, providing, of course, the duties of such officer of the village do not conflict with the duties of township health officer. Yours respectfully, HORACE M. OREN, County clerk's deputy holds office with a portion of the records at a place other than county seat. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE MR. EDWIN N. GARDNER, County Clerk, Cheboygan, Mich. · } MY DEAR SIR-Your letter of 16, inst., received and considered, whereby you submit for my consideration the following: "Do you think it would be legal for a county clerk to appoint a deputy clerk and for said deputy to hold his office with a part of the records at any place other than the county seat?" In answer to this question I desire to call your attention to Section 577 of Howell's Annotated Statutes, which provides that the county clerk shall keep his office at the seat of justice for the county. I do not believe that it was the intention of the legislature in providing for the appointment of a deputy county clerk, to permit the records of such office to be kept at any other place than at the county seat, and I am therefore of the opinion that it would not be lawful to establish a branch office in any particular, under the charge of a deputy, in the absence of statutory provision permitting it. Yours respectfully, HORACE M. OREN, School law-Truant officer, duties of; also duties of all school officers to assist truant officer. MR. EDWARD D. MISNER, Dexter, Mich. : ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, } MY DEAR SIR-Your letter of 24, inst., relative to the duties of truant officer, received and considered. The law with reference to the compulsory education of children, and defining the duties of the truant officer, etc., is Act 95 of the Public Acts of 1895, as amended by Act 67 of the Public Acts of 1897, and Compiler's Sections 182 to 189, inclusive, of the general compilation of school laws of 1898. Section 3 of this act provides: "It shall be the duty of the truant officer to investigate all cases of truancy or non-attendance at school. and render all service within his power to compel children to attend school; and, when informed of continued non-attendance by any teacher or resident of the school district, he shall immediately notify the persons having control of such children," etc. Section 6 of said act provides for the making of complaint by the truant officer, and for proceedings to compel the attendance of children at school, and also provides for prosecution of parents or guardians who fail to comply with the provisions of the act. The latter part of this section provides as follows: "It shall be the duty of all school officers, superintendents or teachers to render such assistance and furnish such information as they have at their command, to aid said truant officer in the fulfillment of his official duties." If there is any violation of the act in question in your district, you should call the attention of the truant officer to it, and it might be advisable to call his attention to the act in question, defining his duty in the premises, and upon his failure to act, I should advise you to lay the matter before the district board, in order that such proceedings may be taken as may be deemed advisable. Yours respectfully, HORACE M. OREN, |