stoves in such cars while being loaded with potatoes in the winter; that this was known and permitted by plaintiff; that the stove was sound, of the kind commonly used, and was properly set up in the usual manner; that due care was exercised in firing and caring for the same, thus squarely raising an issue of fact for the jury as to defendant's negligence. We think, under the authorities cited, that the charge of the court upon that issue was fully as favorable to the plaintiff as it was entitled to. The judgment is affirmed.

MOORE, C. J., and McALVAY, BROOKE, STONE, OSTRANDER, and BIRD, JJ., concurred.

1. CRIMINAL LAWSTATUTES.

PEOPLE v. QUIDER.

USURY-COMPLAINT OFFENSE CHARGED

A complaint charging respondent with being the agent and manager of a loan company that was engaged in business under an assumed name, that respondent did loan $25 to a person named at a rate of interest in excess of seven per cent. contrary to the provisions of Act No. 105, Pub. Acts 1911, without procuring a license under the ordinance of the city of Detroit relating thereto and without paying the required license fee or filing a bond, in behalf of himself, the company, or proprietors thereof, stated an offense: it was not necessary to aver that he was not acting in a representative capacity which would render the act lawful.

2. SAME.

A single loan violated the act: it was not necessary to charge respondent with engaging in the business.

3. SAME CRIMINAL LAW-INTEREST.

In criminal proceedings the accused is entitled to demand and

know the nature and cause of the accusation against him, and though a detailed recital of the evidence is not required, the elements of the offense must be so stated that he can know what he is to meet, and prepare for his defense.

4. SAME-EVIDENCE-JUDICIAL NOTICE-ORDINANCES. Courts take judicial notice of public acts, general or local, passed by the legislature, but not of private laws or munici pal ordinances. Municipal courts may take notice of local ordinances without proof, but courts of general jurisdiction must have evidence of the proper enactment and publication of ordinances.

5. SAME RECORDER'S COURT OF CITY OF Detroit-JURISDICTION -EVIDENCE.

The recorder's court of the city of Detroit, while in certain particulars and for certain purposes a municipal court, is nevertheless in its most important functions a State court of original jurisdiction, authorized to administer the general laws of the State.

6. SAME-JUDICIAL NOTICE.

In trying respondent for usury under the statute, the recorder's court of the city of Detroit erred in taking judicial notice of the city ordinance requiring a license fee of loan companies and others.

7. SAME.

Other points raised being decisive of the case in appellant's favor, the court refuses to pass upon the constitutionality of the act.

Exceptions before sentence from the recorder's court of the city of Detroit; Connolly, J. Submitted June 20, 1912. (Docket No. 141.) Decided October 2, 1912.

Gordon W. Quider was convicted of taking usury. Reversed.

Hugh Shepherd, Prosecuting Attorney, and Arthur W. Kilpatrick, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.

Ormond F. Hunt, for respondent.

STEERE, J. In this case respondent was prosecuted and

convicted in the recorder's court in the city of Detroit of loaning money in said city and charging interest thereon in excess of 7 per cent. per annum without having first obtained a license from the city authorities, in violation of Act No. 105 of the Public Acts of 1911; the same being entitled "An act relative to the loaning of money and prescribing rates of interest, penalties and forfeitures for violation of the provisions of such act and repealing," etc., certain previous acts. Complaint for such alleged offense was made, in the first instance, before, and warrant issued out of, the police court of said city. When respondent was arraigned in said court, his counsel ap peared specially, and moved to quash the complaint and warrant for various reasons set forth in writing and duly filed in the court and cause. Said motion was overruled, and a trial ordered, resulting in defendant being found guilty by the police justice. An appeal was taken and the proceedings removed to the recorder's court, where said motion to quash was renewed and argument had thereon; a written opinion on such motion being subsequently filed and entered denying the same, and ordering that said cause proceed to trial. Counsel for respondent then orally objected to a jury being sworn to hear the case on the ground that the complaint and warrant were insufficient for various reasons stated, and that the law under which the proceedings were instituted was invalid. This objection was overruled, and a jury was sworn by direction of the court. Respondent's counsel then moved the court to discharge said jury for the reasons previously given, which motion was denied. To these several rulings exceptions were timely taken. A trial followed resulting in conviction as stated.

The complaint, which the warrant followed in stating the offense, charges that respondent

"Being then and there agent and manager of American Loan Company, which said American Loan Company is an assumed name, the name or names of the owner or owners of which are unknown to

this complainant, did then and there loan a certain sum of money, to wit, the sum of $25, in the city of Detroit, to the said Philip Hibbert, and did then and there unlawfully charge interest and other compensation therefor in excess of the rate of 7 per cent. per annum on the said loan of twenty-five dollars ($25.00), without they, the said Gordon W. Quider, the said American Loan Company, or the said owner or owners of the said American Loan Company, or either of them, first obtaining, nor without having in force and effect, a license for carrying on such business in the said city of Detroit, in which said business is to be transacted and without having made application to the proper authority of the city of Detroit for a license for carrying on the business of making loans under the terms of Act No. 105 of the Public Acts of the State of Michigan for the year 1911, and without having paid to the treasurer of the city of Detroit the license fee required by the terms of said act to be paid, and which said license fee has been fixed by the common council of the city of Detroit by Ordinance No. 341, approved August 7th, 1911, to be the sum of two hundred dollars, and without having given to the city of Detroit a bond approved by the common council of the said city of Detroit in the penal sum of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), as provided by the terms of said Act No. 105, contrary to the form of the statute," etc.

On the trial, testimony was introduced by the prosecution tending to show that, on the date alleged, one Philip Hibbert, an employé of the Packard Automobile Company, who testified that he could figure interest, read and write English, and was receiving wages of 30 cents an hour, borrowed of respondent $25, for which he was to pay $7.50 per month for five consecutive months; that he paid one installment of $7.50, and subsequently, learning he was paying too much, went to a Mr. Cone, of the Provident Loan, who took it off his hands, and settled the debt for $25 and 7 per cent. interest. The prosecution also proved by city officials that neither respondent nor the American Loan Company had obtained a license or filed a bond, as the statute requires of those loaning money in the city at a rate of interest in excess of 7 per cent. No

proof was made or offered of City Ordinance No. 341, by which it is alleged in the complaint that a license fee had been fixed, and no copy of any ordinance appears in the printed record.

When the prosecution concluded its testimony and rested, respondent's counsel moved the court to direct a verdict for the defense, for the reason that no case had been made out against him, saying, amongst other things:

"There is nothing in the case to show that Gordon W. Quider charged, and, when I say 'charged, 'you understand I mean, not in this case, there was no assent on the part of the defendant (borrower) to pay. A man can make a request, but, if it is not assented to, it is not within the meaning of the statute. That is in addition to the other reasons stated in the motion to quash. There has no case been made out here to go to the jury, and I ask your honor to direct a verdict in favor of the defendant."

Which motion was overruled and exception taken. The sufficiency of the people's testimony to establish a prima facie case as charged, the sufficiency of the charge as set out in the complaint, and the validity of the law under which the prosecution is brought are the questions saved at the trial, and now urged against the judgment brought here for review.

It is urged against the complaint and warrant that they are fatally defective upon their face because "not sufficiently specific as to facts, and do not legally apprise the defendant of the charge which was attempted to be made against him." Briefly stated, the alleged defects are: that there is no averment Quider or the American Loan Company was engaged in the business of loaning money; it is not clearly charged that in making said loan Quider was acting either for himself or as agent of the American Loan Company; that no negative averment shows he was not acting for some person who had a license, and the averment that he "did then and there unlawfully charge interest and other compensation therefor in excess of 7 per cent. per annum is a conclusion," defendant being en