Public

Pertaining to a state, nation or whole community; proceeding from, relating to or affecting the whole body of people or an entire community. Open to all; notorious. Common to all or many; general ; open to common use. Morgan v. Cree, 46 Vt. 786, 14 Am. Rep. 640; Crane v. Waters (C. C.) 10 Fed. 621; Austin v. Soule, 36 Vt. 650; Appeal of Eliot, 74 Conn. 586, 51 AU. 558; O'Hara v. Miller, 1 Kulp (Pa.) 295. A distinction has ben made between the terms "public" and "general." They are sometimes used as synonymous. The former term is applied strictly to that which concerns all the, citizens and every member of the state; while the latter includes a lesser, though still a large, portion of the community. 1 Greenl. Ev. § 128. As a noun, the word "public" denotes the whole body politic, or the aggregate of the citizens of a state, district, or municipality. Knight v. Thomas, 93 Me. 494, 45 Atl. 499; State v. Luce, 9 Houst (Del.) 396, 32 Atl. 1076; Wyatt v. Irrigation Co., 1 Colo. App. 480, 29 Pac. 906.

— Public appointments. Public offices or stations which are to be filled by the appointment of individuals, under authority of law, instead of by election.

— Public bnilding. One of bliich the possession and use, as weli as the property in it, are in the public. Pancoast v. Troth, 34 N. J. Law, 383.

— Public law. That branch or department of law which is concerned with the state in its political or sovereign capacity, including constitutional and administrative law, and with the definition, regulation, and enforcement of rights in cases where the state is regarded as the subject of the right or object of the duty,
—including criminal law and criminal procedure,
—and the law of the state, considered in its quasi private personality, i. e., as capable of holding or exercising rights, or acquiring and dealing with property, in the character of an individual. See Holl. Jur. 106, 300. That portion of law which is concerned with political conditions; that is to say, with the powers, rights, duties, capacities, and incapacities which are peculiar to political superiors, supreme and subordinate. Aust. Jur. "Public law," in one sense, is a designation given to "international law," as distinguished from the laws of a particular nation or state. In another sense, a law or stafute that applies to the people generally of the nation or state adopting or enacting it, is denominated a public law, as contradistinguished from a private law, affeeting only an individual or a small number of persons. Morgan v. Cree, 46 Vt. 773, 14 Am. Rep. 640.

— Public offense. A public offense is an act or omission forbidden by law, and punishable as by law provided. Code Ala. 1886, § 3699. Ford v. State, 7 Ind. App. 567, 35 N. E. 34 ; State v. Cantieny, 34 Minn. 1, 24 N. W. 458.

— Public passage. A right, subsisting in the public, to pass over a body of water, whether the land under it be public or owned by a private person.

— Public place. A place to which the general public has a right to resort; not necessarily a place devoted solely to the uses of the public, but a place which is in point of fact public rather than private, a place visited by many persons and usually accessible to the public. See Slate v. Welch, 88 Ind. 310; Gom-precht v. State, 36 Tex. Cr. R. 434, 37 S. W. 734; Russell v. Dyer, 40 N. H. 187; Roach v. Eugene, 23 Or. 376, 31 Pac. 825; Taylor v. State, 22 Ala. 15.

— Publio purpose. In the law of taxation, eminent domain, etc., this ls a term of classification to distinguish the objects for which, according to settled usage, the government is to provide, from those which, by the like usage, are left to private interest, inclination, or liberality. People v. Salem Tp. Board, 20 Mich. 485, 4 Am. Rep. 400. See Black, Co.nst. Law (3d Ed.) p. 454, et seq.

— Publio service. A term applied in modern usage to the objects and enterprises of certain kinds of corporations, which specially serve the needs of the general public or conduce to the comfort and convenience of an entire community, such as railroads, gas, water, and electric light companies.

— Public, true, and notorious. The old form by which charges in the allegations in the ecclesiastical courts were described at the end of each particular.
—Public use, in constitutional provisions restricting the exercise of the right to take private property in virtue of eminent domain, means a use concerning the whole community as distinguished from particular individuals. But each and every member of society need not be equally interested m such use, or be personally and directly affected by it; if the object is to satisfy a great public want or exigency, that is sufficient. Gilmer v. Lime Point, 18 Cal. 229; Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, 12 Sup. Ct 468, 36 L. Ed. 247,

— Public ways. Highways, (q. v.)

— Public welfare. The prosperity, well-being, or convenience of the public at large, or of a whole community, as distinguished from the advantage of an individual or limited class. See Shaver v. Starrett, 4 Ohio St. 499. As to public "Accounts," "Act," "Administrator," "Agent," "Attorney," "Auction," "Blockade," "Boundary," "Bridge," "Carrier," "Chapel," "Charity," "Co.mpany," "Co.rpora-tion," "Debt," "Document," "Domain," "Easement," "Enemy," "Ferry," "Funds," "Grant," "Health," "Holiday," "House," "Indecency," "Lands," "Market," "Minister," "Money," "Notice," "Nuisance," "Officer," "Peace," "Policy," "Pond," "Printing," "Property," "Prosecutor," "Record," "Revenue," "River," "Road," "Sale," "School," "Seal," "Stock," "Store," "Tax," "Trial," "Verdict," "Vessel," "War," "Works," "Worship," and "Wrongs," sce those titles.