Commonwealth v. Gardner

Citations

• 133 Pa. 284
• 19 A. 550
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 900

Syllabus

<p>1. The carrying about from house to house of small packages of goods and offering them for sale, constitutes peddling within the purview of the act of April 17, 1846, P. L. 364, forbidding the sale by any person, as a hawker or peddler, of foreign or domestic goods, wares and merchandise, in the county of Schuylkill.</p> <p>2. Whether the goods are the property of him by whom they are carried and offered for sale, or of another who employs the seller upon a salary, is immaterial; an agent who sells from door to door goods manufactured by his principal, but has no personal interest in the goods or their proceeds, is a peddler within the meaning of said act.</p> <p>3. The prohibition of the act is not directed against the sale, from house to house, by a farmer or gardener, of the natural products of the soil grown by himself; but against the itinerating vender, who carries his goods about on his back or in a cart or wagon, in search of customers: per Mr. Justice Williams.</p> <p>4. Said act being directed not to the right of an owner to sell his goods, but to the manner in which he may sell them, it is not in violation of the constitutional right of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, secured by § 1, art. I. of the constitution of Pennsylvania, but is a valid exercise of the police power of the state.</p> <p>5. The sale from house to house within the county of Schuylkill by agents of the manufacturer, of goods manufactured by a corporation which is chartered in Rhode Island, whose factory is located in that state, and whose stockholders are all non-residents of Pennsylvania, is not interstate commerce.</p> <p>6. The laws against peddling do not invade the exclusive right of Congress to regulate inter-state commerce, as they do not interfere with the free interchange of commodities-between citizens of different states, and the citizen of another state while in Pennsylvania is subject to her police powers to the same extent as her own citizens.</p>