FACTS OF THE CASE

🞆🞆 The State of Illinois enacted a law in 1871 that regulated public warehouses and the warehousing and
inspection of grain. Further, Article 13 of the Illinois Constitution makes reference to the inspection and storage
of grain in public warehouses.

🞆🞆Munn & Scott were the managers and proprietors of the grain warehouse known as “The Northwestern Elevator” in
Chicago, Illinois, wherein grain of different owners was stored in bulk and mixed together.

🞆🞆 They carried on the business of receiving, storing and delivering grain for hire without having taken a license from the
Circuit Court of Cook County permitting them, as managers, to transact business as public warehousemen, and without
having filed with the clerk of the Circuit Court a bond to the people of the State of Illinois as required by Sections 3 and 4
of the Grain Act ( An Act to Regulate Public Warehouses and the Warehousing and Inspection of Grain, and to Give
Effect to Ill. Const. art. XIII).

🞆🞆The city of Chicago then, and for more than two years before, had more than one hundred thousand inhabitants.
Munn & Scott had stored and mixed grain of different owners together, only by and with the express consent and
permission of such owners or of the consignee of such grain, they having agreed that the compensation should be the
published rates of storage.

🞆🞆They were then charged with operating a public warehouse in which they unlawfully transacted business without
procuring a license under the mentioned Act.