Page:Railway Company v. B'Shears 01.pdf/7

59 Ark.] of Fulton for the use of said company, in accordance with the requirement of section 5501 of Mansfield's Digest. There does not appear to be any ambiguity or obscurity in this section of the statute. Where a statute is unambiguous, as a general rule, but little room is left for construction.

In the case of Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheaton, 202, it is said: "Although the spirit of the instrument, especially of a constitution, is to be respected not less than its letter, yet the spirit is to be collected chiefly from its words. It would be dangerous in the extreme to infer from extrinsic circumstances that a case for which the words of the instrument expressly provide shall be exempt from its operation. Where words conflict with each other, where the different clauses of an instrument bear upon each other, and would be inconsistent, unless the natural and common import of the words be varied, construction becomes necessary, and a departure from the obvious meaning of words is justifiable. But if, in any ease, the plain meaning of a provision, not contradicted by any other provision in the same instrument, is to be disregarded, because we believe the framers of that instrument could not intend what they say, it must be one in which the obscurityabsurdity [sic] and injustice of applying the provision to the case would be so monstrous that all mankind would, without hesitation, unite in rejecting the application." Quoted in Sutherland on Statutory Construction, pp. 315, 316, sec. 238.

Mr. Sutherland says: "One who contends that a section of an act must not be read literally must be able to show one of two things: either that there is some other section which cuts down or expands its meaning, or else that the section itself is repugnant to the general purview. The question for the courts is, what did the legislature really intend to direct; and this intention must be sought in the whole of the act, taken together,