the following purposes: (1) to create or carry out restrictions in trade or commerce, or in the full and free pursuit of any business; (2) to increase or reduce the price of merchandise or the rates of insurance; (3) to prevent competition in the manufacture, transportation, sale or purchase of merchandise, or to prevent competition in aids to commerce; (4) to fix any price or limit of output; (5) to carry out any contract, etc., to sell or not to sell, to transport or not to transport, any article below or above a certain price or charge, or to pool or unite interests in any way. All such combinations are declared unlawful and void; and persons or officers of corporations taking part in them subject to fine and imprisonment; while any person injured by such trust may recover his actual damages. As to damages, other States go further than this. In South Carolina (Laws 1897, 265) and Georgia (Laws 1897, p. 68) persons purchasing any commodity influenced in price by a trust may recover the whole amount paid from any member of the trust; and the penalty to the offenders is made as high as ten years imprisonment in the State prison. Missouri ((Laws 1897, p. 208), Indiana (Laws 1897, Ch. 104) and Illinois (1897, p. 298) have also new trust acts to much the same effect, only that in Indiana the act does not apply to any trust or "combine" affecting agricultural products or live stock in the possession of the producer; and in Illinois trusts are specifically authorized by the statute in the mining, manufacturing or production of articles the cost of which is mainly made up of wages, "provided the object or effect of the trust is to maintain or increase wages." Independent of the difficulty of determining that any trust does not increase wages in the articles affected, it would seem that such provisions were a pretty clear case of class legislation-a matter upon which the western courts are somewhat scrupulous.

Kansas (Laws 1897, Ch. 240) has gone a step further than any State has hitherto done in regulating private business, by arbitrarily limiting the charges of stockyards; without regard to the question whether the stockyard is managed by a corporation or owned by an individual; and notwithstanding the fact that it is a private business requiring no public privileges,

in which anybody may engage. Nevertheless, the lower federal court has just sustained the constitutionality of the statute; and if affirmed upon appeal to the Supreme Court, it would seem that we were well on our way to the regulation of all prices which prevailed in the Middle Ages. The constitutionality of acts regulating the charges of railroads is now well recognized; and Washington has accordingly passed a new and elaborate statute providing that the rates of all freights and fares shall not exceed ninety per cent. of those rates which prevailed on the Northern Pacific Railway-then in the hands of a receiver on the 2d of January, 1897. This statute is most noteworthy, for a new and ingenious clause providing that no decision of any court declaring any section of the act invalid shall have the effect of invalidating it entirely; "it being the purpose and intent expressed that no provision is vital to the purposes of this act; but that it shall be administered at all times and by all courts as far as it can and ought according to the true intent and meaning of each and all its parts." This is evidently the attempt of some smart lawyer to "get even" with the courts by preventing them from declaring the act unconstitutional unless they can do so as to every paragraph and sentence of it. The general constitutional law has been that an act of which so substantial a part is unconstitutional as to interfere with the general scheme and working of the whole, may be set aside entirely; and it will be interesting to see how the courts treat this attempt to prescribe for them what their judgment shall be as to what is essential and what is not.

Of miscellaneous legislation there is much of interest, but our space permits hardly more than a reference in each case. The populistic State of Washington has provided that every contract, loan, bond or mortgage may be paid and fully satisfied by and with any kind of lawful money or currency of the United States, and that any provision requiring payment in any particular kind of money shall be void—a clear negation of the right of free contract. The same State has further provided that in all future proceedings for the foreclosure of mortgages, the lender shall be limited to his remedy as against the property and may not pursue the borrower on his note, thus

making it impossible for a borrower to give a valid personal obligation in any case where the slightest collateral is pledged with the loan; also a violation of the principle of freedom of contract, and one which will make it advisable for no person to make any loans in that commonwealth until the law is repealed. Washington has also a valued policy clause in its new general insurance law; and a statute that all the proceeds of life insurance policies shall be exempt from all liability for any debt, even though in fraud of creditors; a law providing for bicycle roads to be built at the county expense; and a proposed amendment to the State constitution in favor of woman suffrage.

Kansas (Laws 1897, Ch. 160) provides that all assignments of real estate mortgages must be recorded within ninety days or be void; and another statute (Laws 1897, Ch. 243) subjects all judgments entered in the courts of Kansas, whether collected or not, to full taxation by the State or county at their face value. Doubtless many of these judgments are on these same mortgages; but "for the purpose of avoiding the tax herein imposed the judgment creditor may release the amount of judgment of record in the court, and thus avoid the operation of this act."

Maine has adopted a statute forbidding the exhibition of photographic or other representations of prize fights.

California (Laws 1897, Ch. 107) provides that in future the franchises of telegraph or telephone companies, street railways, gas, water, electric power or light companies, etc., must be sold at auction for a stated per cent. of the gross annual receipts, not less than three per cent. No percentage need be paid for the first five years; but the period of the franchise appears to be left to the local authorities to determine. California also provides that any board, person or officer charged with the purchase of supplies for the use of the State or any county or State institution shall have a preference to such as have been manufactured, grown, or produced in the State, a provision which, while not probably unconstitutional, in effect makes a discrimination in inter-state commerce. South Carolina, on the other hand, is so well pleased with the Inter-state Commerce Act that it supplies additional penalties of its own upon

the officers or employees of any railroad corporation violating them, thus re-enforcing the national legislation on the subject and enabling the State courts to prosecute the offender. The same State also makes it a condition that no corporations elsewhere shall do business in the State unless they agree to try all cases in the State courts, and that all contracts they may make shall be considered as subject to the jurisdiction of South Carolina, without regard to the place of performance. South Carolina also provides (Laws 1897, Ch. 325) that no receiver of the property of any corporation shall be appointed by the State without four days' notice and bond in double the value of the property of which he is to take charge; and, finally, that moral commonwealth declares (Laws 1897, Ch. 340) that all alcoholic liquors found in the State that have not been made by the State distilleries are "of a detrimental character" -presumably to the stomachs of the South Carolina citizensand may be seized without a warrant wherever found. We believe that this statute will not be sustained in the federal courts.

It is refreshing to turn from such legislation to the statute of Indiana (Laws 1897, Ch. 158) which makes it a criminal offence to sell, or offer to sell, a vote, or to refrain from voting at any election either for money or any promise of favor; and makes conviction for such offence a disqualification for holding office for any determinate period. Indiana has also proposed a constitutional amendment providing that the legislature shall prescribe what qualifications shall be necessary for admission to practice law in that State.

The sex reformers have been active. Washington, California, Iowa and Alabama have raised the age of consent to eighteen, sixteen, fifteen and fourteen years respectively. At the same time, Alabama releases all boys under sixteen from liability for the crime of rape. In marriage and divorce we find a complete new statute in Oklahoma (Laws 1897, 13) which seems to require a license, or a ceremony before a magistrate or minister with two witnesses, thus doing away with the common law marriage. Marriages between first cousins and between whites and blacks are prohibited; but previously

existing Indian marriages de facto are declared legal and the children legitimate. Any Indian who is living at the date of the passage of the act with more than one wife must, before July 1, 1897, decide which one of them he will live with. Thereafter, if he live with the others, he is guilty of bigamy.

In Washington (Laws 1897, Ch. 8) it is made a misdemeanor to advertise, print or publish circulars, etc., offering to obtain divorces, or to act as counsel therefor; quite an oasis of common sense in the extraordinary statute book of that State. It may be remarked that race prejudices show no signs of dissolution; even the new Territory of Oklahoma has already adopted a statute providing separate schools for negro children and prohibits miscegenation.

Upon the question of uniformity of law, we find that Arizona has joined the States in establishing a commission, while Connecticut and New York, in full, and the other States partially, have adopted the code on bills and notes recommended by the Conference of Commissioners.

Several of the States have adopted new military codes; none are so interesting as the statute of Ohio, passed last year, which for the first time prescribed the liability of the county in cases of personal injury by mob violence; but Illinois in its militia. law (Laws 1897, p. 252) makes it a felony to interfere with the militia in the performance of their duty, or for rioters to fail to disperse after command so to do; and authorizes commanding officers to repel by force an attack made upon them, and provides for their defence if sued in the courts, whether on the civil or criminal side, by the State attorney general at the State expense. The militia laws of Montana (Laws 1897, p. 149) and Iowa (Laws 1897, Ch. 102) provide for the calling out of the militia not only by the Governor but by any United States army officer, sheriff of a county or mayor of a town. The example of Governor Altgeld has, apparently, influenced the State of Illinois to follow the example of others in instituting a board of pardons and taking away this power from the Governor, though from the context of the statute it would appear that their action is advisory merely.