The defendant is charged with the crime of violating chapter 360, Public Laws 1935. Section 1 is as follows: “Every person, firm, or corporation engaging in the business of buying or selling scrap tobacco shall apply to the Commissioner of Eevenue of North Carolina for license to engage in such business, and such applicant shall state the counties in which the said person, firm, or corporation proposes to do business, and the place where the principal office of the applicant or warehouse of the applicant is situated, and shall pay to the said Commissioner of Eevenue for the benefit of the State a license tax of one thousand ($1,000.00) dollars for each and every county in which the applicant proposes to do business: Provided, this shall not apply to scrap tobacco sold on floors of warehouses paying a license tax under section one hundred and forty-two of the Eevenue Act of one thousand nine hundred and thirty-five, or to tobacco scrapped by reason of processing by a manufacturer or processor of tobacco: Provided, this shall not apply to any person, firm, or corporation regularly engaged in the business of buying, selling, or processing leaf tobacco and properly licensed therefor: Provided, scrap tobacco bought by such person, firm, or corporation is delivered by the landlord thereof to the place of business of such purchaser.” Section 2 provides that on or before 10th of each month report to be made to Commissioner of Eevenue. Sec. 3 provides for display of license.
The defendant sets forth many contentions why the act should be declared unconstitutional, inoperative, and void, one of which is as follows : “For that the defendant has committed no offense under the pro*120visions of chapter 360, Public Laws of 1935, for the statute fixes no time when the license is required to be paid, nor how long the license shall run, and is, therefore void for uncertainty.”
In “An Act to Raise Revenue,” ch. 371, Public Laws of N. C., 1935, the failure to comply with the provisions of that act is made a misdemeanor, and also in certain cases penalties are imposed. The present act is a separate and distinct act and the noncompliance' is not made unlawful or a crime. Therefore, no crime can be charged against the defendant.
In S. v. Pierce, 123 N. C., 745 (747), it is said: “Indeed, the doctrine is well settled that where the statute either makes an act unlawful or imposes a punishment for its commission, such act becomes a crime without any express declaration that it shall be a crime or of its grade. In the former case it is a misdemeanor, and in the latter a felony or a misdemeanor, according to the nature of the punishment prescribed.”
We think the act is also void for uncertainty and vagueness — it is so loosely and obscurely drawn as to be incapable of enforcement, and therefore void for uncertainty.
Speaking to the question, in Drake v. Drake, 15 N. C., 110, Chief Justice Ruffin, delivering the opinion of the Court, said: “Whether a statute be a public or private one, if the terms in which it is couched be so vague as to convey no definite meaning to those whose duty it is to execute it, either ministerially or judicially, it is necessarily inoperative. The law must remain as it was, unless that which professes to change it be itself intelligible.”
In S. v. Partlow, 91 N. C., 550 (553), we find: “ ‘A statute must be capable of construction and interpretation; otherwise, it will be inoperative and void. The court must use every authorized means to ascertain and give it an intelligent meaning; but if, after such effort, it is found to be impossible to solve the doubt and dispel the obscurity, if no judicial certainty can be settled upon as to the meaning, the court is not at liberty to supply — to make one. The court may not allow “conjectural interpretation to usurp the place of judicial exposition.” There must be a competent and efficient expression of the legislative will.’ ”
Not only is this the law in North Carolina, it is also the law in other jurisdictions, the general rule being stated in Re. Di. Torio, 8 F. (2d), 279, as follows: “An act which is so uncertain that its meaning cannot be determined by any known rules of construction cannot be enforced. If no judicial certainty can be settled upon as to the meaning of a statute, the courts are not at liberty to supply one. It must be capable of construction and an interpretation; otherwise, it will be inoperative and void. An act is void where its language appears on its. face to have a *121meaning, but it is impossible to give it any precise or intelligible application in tbe circumstances under which it is intended to operate.”
The general rule is well stated in 25 R. C. L., 810: “When an act of the Legislature is so vague, indefinite, and uncertain that the courts are unable to determine with any reasonable degree of certainty what the Legislature intended, or is so incomplete, or is so conflicting and inconsistent in its provisions that it cannot be executed, it will be declared inoperative and void.” Stacy, C. J., in Boyd v. Brooks, 197 N. C., 655.
In S. v. Gooding, 194 N. C., 271 (273), it is declared: “Again, in Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U. S., 500, Chief Justice Taft, speaking to the constitutionality of an act of the Philippine Legislature, which undertook to prohibit any person, firm, or corporation, engaged in commerce or other activity for profit in the Philippine Islands, from keeping its account books in any language other than English, Spanish, or some local dialect, said That a statute which requires the doing of an act so indefinitely described that men must guess at its meaning, violates due process of law.’ ”
For the reasons given, we find in the judgment of the court below
No error.