Criminal Law and Practice in Scotland
| Published date | 01 October 1950 |
| Date | 01 October 1950 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X5002300404 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Criminal
Law
and
Practice
in
Scotland
STREET
TRADING
McIver v, Robertson
McIVER, the unsuccessful appellant in this case, was a street
photographer, whose practice was to take photographs of selected
pedestrians in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, and, having taken a
photograph, to hand to
the
pedestrian aprinted card on which there
appeared the
intimation-"
you have
just
been photographed for
Movie
Cards-Flashlight
Pictures-s-a for
IS.
9d., post free. You may
call and see
them
from tomorrow." An address was given. No photo-
graphs were actually sold in the street. On January 17th last
McIver
was found acting in this way.
He
later appeared in the Central Police
Court to answer a charge of having contravened the local Street
Trading
Bye-laws and was convicted. His appeal against conviction failed.
The
Bye-law under which this prosecution was brought was made
by Glasgow Corporation by virtue of powers contained in section 5
tion to make bye-laws regulating the hawking, selling or offering or
exposing for sale in any street of goods or articles of any description
other than coal, coke, char or any other fuel of which coal or coke is a
constituent, subject to a proviso with regard to newspapers.
The
bye-
law was in the following
terms-"
No person shall engage or be
employed in street trading in the City as herein defined unless he has
been granted apermit for
that
purpose by the
Corporation"
and
street trading is defined substantially in the terms of section 5.
McIver
had no permit.
In
the opinion of the High Court Judges who heard the appeal
the question was a narrow one.
"At
first sight," said the
Lord
Justice-
Clerk, who delivered the leading opinion, " one would be inclined to
say
that
abye-law of this kind was intended to strike at the familiar
type of street trading where the street trader has in his possession
certain articles which he proceeds to dispose of on the spot and
Mr.
Duffy (counsel for the appellant) pressed on us very strongly
that
the
actual presence of the goods on the street was essential. As I say, it
is a narrow point
but
I am
not
prepared to give effect to
Mr.
Duffy's
contention.
It
seems to me
that
the definition of street trading especially
in its reference to offering for sale covers the sort of transaction which
took place here.
There
is no
doubt
that
what the appellant was doing
was trading, and with a view to trading he
ma.,
as he himself admitted,
offer to sell certain goods, and it seems to me that it would be taking
too narrow a view to say that the fact that the ultimate product was not
258
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