Jenks Tp. Poor D. v. Sheffield Tp. Poor D.

Citations

• 135 Pa. 400
• 19 A. 1004
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1194

Syllabus

<p>1. The act of June 4, 1879, P. L. 78, was intended to establish a general system for the relief and employment of the destitute poor throughout the state, and its general plan or purpose is that each county shall be or become a single poor district; it does not, however, immediately abrogate the office or authority of township overseers of the poor.</p> <p>2. These are to continue until the county commissioners of the particular county have provided a place for the accommodation of the poor; whether, however, by reason of thus tending to produce local results, the act is wholly unconstitutional, not decided, though it would seem that the prohibition of local or special legislation does not extend to the affairs of poor districts.</p> <p>3. At all events, said act cannot be held constitutional in part, and in part unconstitutional: its provisions were obviously intended to operate as a whole; and, moreover, in view of the constitutional limitations upon the-creation of municipal indebtedness, it would seem impossible, while setting aside §§ 3 and 4 as invalid, to sustain the other sections.</p> <p>(a) The act of March 31,1868, P. L. 535, required township-road commissioners in Warren county to discharge the duties of overseers of the poor, “so far as their care and maintenance is concerned, until such poor are committed and delivered to the Rouse hospital,” and empowered them to increase the road taxes, or to levy a separate poor tax, for that purpose:</p> <p>4. Said act did not create the township-road commissioners overseers of the poor and erect them into a separate corporation as such, but merely imposed the care of the poor upon them in their capacity as road commissioners, and it rendered the township-road fund responsible for any debts incurred under it.</p> <p>5. The repeal of said act by the act of May 9,1889, P. L. 155, did not abate a proceeding then pending in the Court of Quarter Sessions for the recovery by a poor district in another county, from a t