Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/555

527 INJUNCTIONS AGAINST LIQUOR NUISANCES, 527 must be some interferences actual or threatened with property or rights of a pecuniary nature, but when such interferences appear the jurisdiction of a court of equity arises, and is not destroyed by the fact that they are accompanied by, or are themselves violations of the criminal law." * Now it may perhaps be said that the maintenance of an illegal saloon, or a gambling, or other disorderly house, is not only a nui- sance in the sense in which that word is used in the criminal law, but often works a very substantial injury to property rights. This is quite true, and upon proof of the injury it has been held that an adjoining owner is entitled to an injunction against the maintenance of a house of ill fame.^ Conversely, in default of proof of such injury the court has refused to enjoin the illegal sale of liquor,^ or the illegal running of street cars on Sunday.* It may well be, moreover, that a house in which liquors are illegally sold, or which is rendered disorderly by other unlawful acts, is of such a character as to aftect the public in their use of the adjoining highway, or in their enjoyment of other public prop- erty rights. In such case an injunction might well be granted, though an indictment would usually afford an adequate remedy. But it is equally true that often the illegal sale of liquors or gam- bling may be so conducted as to work no perceptible injury to any such public right. Suppose, for example, that a hotel conducted in an entirely orderly manner serves wine to its guests at table. Is the Attorney General entitled to an injunction? In the absence of a statute, clearly not. Can he be given the right by statute? We may, I think, concede that such legislation would not fall 1 See also Attorney General v. Utica Fire Ins. Co., 2 Johns. Ch. 371, 378; In re Sawyer, 124 U. S. 200, 210; Attorney General v. Tudor Ice Co., 104 Mass. 239, 240. The right of the Attorney General, as representing ihe parens patricB, to restrain the commission by corporations or public bodies of ultra vires or illegal acts tending to the public injury, seems to rest upon special grounds. Such cases are concededly ex- ceptional. See Attorney General v. Oxford &c. Ry. Co., 2 W. R. 330, 331 ; Attorney General v. Cockermouth Local Board ; L. R. 18 Eq. 172 ; Attorney General v. Great Eastern Ry. Co., 11 Ch. D. 449; Attorney General v. Shrewsbury Bridge Co., 21 Ch. D. 752; People V. Ballard, 134 N. Y. 269; Attorney General v. Tudor Ice Co., 104 Mass. 239. 2 Cranford v. Tyrrell, 128 N. Y. 341 ; Hamilton v. Whitridge, ii Md. 128. Cf. An- derson V. Doty, 37 Hun, 160, coutra. 8 State V. Uhrig, 14 Mo. App. 413; Campbell v. Scholfield, 3 Pittsb. (Pa.) 443; Oglesby Coal Co. v. Pasco, 79 111. 164, semble. Compare State v. Crawford, 28 Kan. 726.
 * Sparhawk v. Union Passenger Ry. Co., 54 Pa. St. 401.