"discharging passengers along," the words "or at the termini of," and by imposing upon the county solicitor the duty of enforcement, compliance with which was required by defendant, is as follows: "Sec. 1. Every person, firm or corporation operating any motor vehicle other than a street car upon any public street or way in the business of transporting passengers for hire, and receiving and discharging passengers along a regular route over which the vehicle is operated, is hereby declared to be a common carrier and as such shall be subject to the provisions of this act so far as applicable thereto. "Sec. 2. No such person, firm or corporation shall conduct the business defined in § 1 of this act along any portion of a public highway unless upon petition and public hearing thereon the public service commission shall determine that the public good requires that such person, firm or corporation should engage in such business and shall have granted permission therefor. The public service commission, by general or special orders, may establish reasonable rules and regulations relating to the speed and operation of such vehicles and the number of passengers to be carried therein, and otherwise safeguarding the public interest; and every such person, firm or corporation shall comply with such rules and regulations. Any order of the commission granting permission under the provisions of this section shall be conditioned upon the petitioner filing, within thirty days after the date of such order or within such longer time as may be specified in said order, and thereafter keeping in full force and effect a good and sufficient bond in such form and with such sureties as may be approved by the commission, providing for the payment of damages caused to any person or property through any default or negligence in the operation of any such motor vehicle, said bond to be in a penal sum equivalent to five hundred dol lars for each motor vehicle to be erated and the additional amo of one hundred dollars for each 1 senger permitted to be cari therein; and no such motor veh shall be operated unless such b shall have been filed and kept in force and effect. The bond requi by this section shall be deemed include any policy of insurance indemnity by which the insur company shall assume the liabil defined by this section; provi that such company is authorized do business in this state. "Sec. 3. Every city or to within or through which any mo vehicle described in § 1 shall be erated shall have power to make laws relating to the licensing such motor vehicles therein and ing reasonable license fees theref such by-laws to have the same fo and effect as by-laws of cities a towns as provided in chapters and 50 of the Public Statutes. "Sec. 4. Any person, firm corporation violating any of provisions of this act shall up conviction thereof be fined not ceeding one hundred dollars." Messrs. Ivory C. Eaton and J. Jos Hennessy for defendant. Mr. George I. Haselton, in prop persona. Snow, J., delivered the opinion the court: The defendant sets up the constitutionality of the amend statute under the commerce cla of the federal Constitution, art. § 8, and also denies its applicabil to the situation here. Each of the issues involves the construction the statute. 1. It may be conceded that terms of the act are sufficien broad to include an order to for the defendant's interstate ope tions except upon compliance w its requirements, and that, if so c strued and applied, the defenda would be within the protection the commerce clause of the Fede Constitution. It does not, howev necessarily follow therefrom t (N. H. —, 133 Atl. 451.) an intention to exercise such power Statutes-construction-to tutionality. Evidence-presumption as to intent of legislature. limits of both the Federal and the state Constitutions, and to restrict the operation of its enactments to cases where they will have effect consistently therewith. State v. Lapointe, 81 N. H. 227, 228, 31 A.L.R. 1212, 123 Atl. 692; Boston Ice Co. v. Boston & M. R. Co. 77 N. H. 6, 12, 13, 45 L.R.A. (N.S.) 835, 86 Atl. 356, Ann. Cas. 1914A, 1090; Kennett's Petition, 24 N. H. 139, 141; Opinion of Justices, 41 N. H. 553, 555; Leavitt v. Lovering, 64 N. H. 607, 608, 1 L.R.A. 58, 15 Atl. 414; Bliss's Petition, 63 N. H. 135; Cheshire County Teleph. Co. v. State, 63 N. H. 167, 169; Re Fryeburg Water Co. 79 N. H. 123, 124, 18 A.L.R. 1373, P.U.R.1919C, 361, 106 Atl. 225; Grenada County V. Brogden (Grenada County v. Brown) 112 U. S. 261, 28 L. ed. 704, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 125; Knights Templars' & M. Life Indemnity Co. V. Jarman, 187 U. S. 197, 205, 47 L. ed. 139, 145, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 108. This principle of construction has been recently applied to state statutes governing the operation of motor vehicles whose terms were sufficiently general to include interstate as well as intrastate carriers. Com. v. O'Neil, 233 Mass. 535, 124 N.E.482. In the interpretation of a statute, the circumstances under which which the Statutes-construction-what considered. language is used, the evil to be remedied, and the ob ject sought to be accomplished are material evidence. Opinion of Justices, 66 N. H. 629, 658, 33 Atl. 1076; Mulhall v. Nashua Mfg. Co. 80 N. H. 194, 196, 115 Atl. 449, and cases cited. What did the words mean to those who used them? State v. Nadeau, 81 N. H. 183, 185, 123 Atl. 236. The advent of motor vehicles brought new problems in the regulation of the use of our highways. These problems and their solution have become progressively important, as the number of such conveyances and the variety of the uses to which they are put have multiplied, and as their weight and power have increased. Our first attempt at regulation of motor vehicles (Laws 1905, chap. 86) provided for registration, the licensing of operators, and the observance of certain safety regulations, including a limita tion of speed. By the same legislative act nonresident cars and operators, registered and licensed in other states, were permitted the use of our highways, subject to our speed regulations. In the several amendments and revisions of this law, made during the interim between its enactment and the adoption of the statute now under consideration, no attempt was made to regulate the use of our highways by foreign owned vehicles, except to fix a time limit during which they might be operated under foreign registration, and to provide for local registration where the time limit was exceeded. This was the state of the statute law at the date of the legislation in question. We may fairly take judicial notice that the situation Evidence-judicial notice-purpose of passage of statute. which called for and resulted in the enactment of Laws 1919, chap. 86, was the advent of the jitney whose operations were principally confined to transportation of passengers upon the streets of our cities and larger towns. The evident design of the statute was to mitigate the evil resulting from the operation of these conveyances in large numbers by irresponsible proprietors in competition with our street railways and to the danger of both passengers and travelers. Confirmatory evidence of the popular understanding of its purpose is found in the use of the word "jitney" in the headnotes, annotations, and indices of the official publication of the laws of that session. The character and the intended scope of the act is disclosed by an examination of the journal of the proceedings of the legislature (see State v. Nadeau, supra, and cases cited), from which it appears that the first section of the bill as originally proposed read: “Every "Every person, firm or corporation operating any motor vehicle along and upon any public street or highway for the carriage of passengers for hire and affording a means of local, means of local, street or highway transportation similar to that afforded by street railways, by indiscriminately accepting and discharging such persons as may offer themselves for transportation along the course on which such vehicle is operated or may be running is hereby declared to be a common carrier. The redraft of the act by the judiciary committee in the form finally adopted was an apparent attempt to condense the thought expressed in the original draft without material change in meaning. The history of the act in its making thus emphasizes the local character of the traffic with which the legislature undertook to deal. It confirms the conclusions drawn from the language of the statute by this court, within the year following its enactment, in State v. Downes, 79 N. H. 505, 506, 112 Atl. 246, namely, that the business sought to be regulated was that usually conducted by street railways, which was distinguished by the frequent stopping of its cars upon the streets and highways to receive and discharge passengers. In that case the respondent operated an automobile in the city of Portsmouth in the business of transporting passengers for hire along a fixed route, but made no stops to take on or discharge passengers, except at its termini. It was held that, as he did not receive and discharge passengers "along" his route, he did not come within the terms of the act. At its next session the legislature amended the Act of 1919 by inserting, after the words "discharging passengers along," the words "or at the termini of." Laws 1921, chap. 59. Following so closely upon the announcement of the decision in State v. Downes (1920) supra, it is a fair inference that the statutory change was prompted thereby, and was intended solely to bring cases of a like character within the purview of the act. There is nothing in the amendment, read in the light of this his- amendmenttory, indicating a purpose to extend the scope of the statute to interstate traffic. On the other hand, the only other provision of the amendment, namely, that imposing the duty of the enforcement of the act upon the county solicitor, tends rather to confirm its local application. Statutes effect. struction. Applying the foregoing principles of construction to the evidence bearing upon the legislative intent, we have to conclude that it was not the intention of the legislature by the amended act to prohibit the use of our highways to -regulating carriers engaged carriers-conexclusively in interstate carriage without permission of our public service commission and the license of the cities and towns through which their vehicles pass, nor to regulate such use by imposing thereon any restrictions which would be in conflict with the Federal Constitution. Whether the statutes here in question could be construed as intended to include a power to provide for such reasonable regulations of the defendant's purely interstate operations as would not be unduly burdensome thereto (Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U. S. 610, 622, 623, 59 L. ed. 385, 390, 391, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 140; (— N. H. —, 133 Atl. 451.) Opinion of Justices, 81 N. H. 566, 571, 39 A.L.R. 1023, 129 Atl. 117), is not here presented, and has not been considered. The order undertakes to deal only with the defendant's right to conduct the business of an intrastate carrier. It does not purport to interfere with the defendant's interstate functions, which it has continued to perform without interruption. 2. It is true that companies operating high-powered and capacious busses catering to long distance transportation had not entered this field in 1921, and could not have been specifically in the legislative mind. It by no means follows, however, that the act does not include their regulation. It is a rule of statutory construction, recognized in this state, that legislative enactments in general and compre hensive terms, pro-prospective spective in opera construction. tion, apply alike to persons, subjects, and business within their general purview and scope, existent at the time of the enactments, and to those coming into existence subsequent to their passage. 25 R. C. L. 778; Rockingham County v. Chase, 75 N. H. 127– 129, 71 Atl. 634; McMillan v. Noyes, 75 N. H. 258, 264, 72 Atl. 759; Bly V. Nashua Street R. Co. 67 N. H. 474, 475, 30 L.R.A. 303, 68 Am. St. Rep. 681, 32 Atl. 764; State v. Dunklee, 76 N. H. 439, 441, 84 Atl. 40, Ann. Cas. 1913B, 754. It seems clear that the language of the statute is sufficiently general to include the intrastate business conducted by the defendant between Nashua and Manchester, which the order of court enjoins. Motor busses— statute-construction. The defendant, however, contends that the statute, being penal in character, must be strictly construed, and that, so construed, the language "receiving and discharging passengers along or at the termini of a regular route" does not aptly describe the acts complained of so as to bring the defendant within the definition in § 1, because both the termini of its regular route are not within the state, and there is no allegation that it receives and discharges passengers along a regular route between Manchester and Nashua. The fallacy of this position is in the assumed construction of the word "termini" as used in the statute. The intention of the legislature was to limit the operation of the provisions of the statute to the confines of the state. We are, therefore, concerned only with the termini for its domestic business. As an intrastate carrier, the defendant's termini were Manchester and Nashua. This is but a practical application of the legislative intent to termini within the facts of record. state. It follows that any receiving and There is no merit in the defendant's contention that the statute deals wholly with Highways use. the physical opera- interference transporting passengers where the The defendant concedes that it is or `not included within the statutes to which the defendant has yielded ready compliance. Besides giving to cities and towns, within through which the carrier's vehicles operate, power by law to license such vehicles and impose fees therefor, and besides authorizing the commission to establish by general or special orders reasonable rules governing the speed, operation, and burden of such vehicles, Laws 1919, chap. 86, permits the commission to grant its permission only after a finding that the public good requires that the carrier should engage in the business, and directs that such authority shall be conditioned upon the carrier's filing and keeping in force an adequate indemnity bond proportioned to the capacity of its vehicles. No claim is made that these requirements are applied to carriers who are engaged beyond the power of the state when solely in intrastate carriage. 3. The substance of the defendant's principal contention is that since the operation of its motor vehicles is a movement in interstate commerce between fixed termini in two different states, therefore, the statute cannot be constitutionally operations. applied to its incidental intrastate In other words, it seems to be the defendant's position engaged in interstate carriage, it that, by reason of the fact that it is along the line of its interstate route may conduct intrastate business with the same degree of immunity from state regulation that is guaranteed to it by the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution in its interstate business. The defendant cites as authority Buck v. Kuykendall, 267 U. S. 307, 69 L. ed. 623, 38 A.L.R. 286, 45 Sup. Ct. Rep. 324; Michigan Pub. Utilities Commised. 445, 36 A.L.R. 1105, 45 Sup. Ct. sion v. Duke, 266 U. S. 570, 69 L. Rep. 191, and Com. v. O'Neil, 233 Mass. 535, 124 N. E. 482. The cases do not support the defendant's contention. These were all inconstitutional rights had been viostances in which the carriers, whose lated (or it was so claimed), were engaged exclusively in interstate commerce. In the first named case, the plaintiff Buck applied for authority to operate an auto stage line between Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, as a carrier for hire to conduct an exclusively interstate passenger and express business. He was denied a certificate on the ground that the territory to |