Weed v. Maynard

By the COURT. The power of the board of supervisors to cleanse the streets of the city of San Francisco is subject to legislative control, both as to the extent of the work to be done and the mode in which the power is to be exercised.

Assuming in favor of the appellant that no legislative restraint upon either the power or the mode had been imposed prior to the passage of the act of April 3, 1876 (page 795), it is obvious that the purpose of the act was to regulate both the power and the mode. Theretofore the extent of work to be done and the agency through which it was to be accomplished were committed entirely to the judgment of the board. But in the act referred to it is provided that the streets of the city are to be kept clean “in the following manner”: The force to be employed in the work (except so far as it may be recruited from the House of Correction) is not to exceed twenty horses and carts with drivers, and twenty-five additional men as scrapers and sweepers, from the 1st of October to the 1st of April in each year, and for balance of the year fifteen horses and carts with drivers, and twenty additional men as scrapers and sweepers. By the second section of the act the work is to be superintended by two competent persons appointed by the board, at a salary not to exceed one hundred dollars per month to each. These superintendents are to report daily at the office of the superintendent of public streets “the names of all men, and men and teams employed the previous day and where employed, ’ ’ and also the license number of the carts employed in the work. The third and fourth ■sections of the act provide for the appointment of a superintendent of the work of cleansing the public sewers, who is to make like daily report to the superintendent of public streets; three horses and carts and thirteen men (with such re-enforcement from the House of Correction as may be) being the whole force to be employed in the business.

[36]As observed already, one of the purposes—in fact, the principal purpose—of the act was to limit the authority of the board in the respect indicated, and we know no rule or statutory construction by which the clear scope of that act in this respect is to be defeated by mere reference to its title, “An act to confer additional powers upon the board of supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco.” The title thus prefixed apparently had especial reference to the sixth and last section of the act, by which section the board was “invested with full power and authority to cause the persons sentenced or committed to the House of Correction to be employed in cleaning the public streets, highways and sewers of the city and county of San Francisco. ’ ’