of article 20 of the state constitution, which provides against distinctions in business or vocation on account of sex. (") Laws of identical provisions are in force in many States, however, and the same end seems to have been gained in the enactment of a city ordinance of San Francisco prohibiting the issue of licenses to liquor dealers who employ females as waitresses, this act being held to be constitutional. (') The employment of children is universally recognized as being a proper subject for regulation by the State, though a law of Pennsylvania (Acts of 1905, p. 344) relating to the employment of children in coal mines was held to be unconstitutional in some of the provisions relating to its administration. Thus children who were able to furnish certain documentary proof of age were released from some of the requirements as to school attendance that affected children who were without such documents, putting minors of equal age and, by fair presumption, of equal qualifications otherwise, on a different footing merely because one class had certain proofs available which the other did not have. () The lower court had also condemned the law on the ground that it imposed onerous duties on school officers employed for the performance of other services to the State, and compensated for the latter only. Other cases dealing with laws regulating the employment of females are noted under the heading "Hours of labor," below. PROTECTION OF LOCAL LABOR. Statutes favoring local labor are found in many jurisdictions, such legislation taking a wide variety of forms. These laws may directly prohibit the employment of aliens on works carried on by or for the benefit of the State, or they may seek to gain something of the same end by indirect means. A law of the State of Illinois (act of June 1, 1889) provided that no officer acting for any city and no contractor under a municipality should employ any persons other than citizens or those who have declared their intention to become citizens, if the sums to be paid as wages for labor were to be taken in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, out of any funds raised by taxation. A quite similar law was enacted in 1894 by the legislature of New York (Acts of 1894, ch. 622). These laws were alike held to be unconstitutional, both because they interfered with the rights of the contractor to contract freely and because they violated the equal-protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, whose provisions extend to aliens as well as to citizens. (d) a In re Maguire, 57 Cal. 604, 40 Am. Rep. 125. Foster v. Police Com'rs, 102 Cal. 483, 37 Pac. 763. Collett v. Scott, 30 Superior Ct. 430. d City of Chicago v. Hulbert, 205 Ill. 346, 68 N. E. 786; People v. Warren, 34 N. Y. Supp. 942, 13 Misc. 615. Private employers were affected by a law of Pennsylvania (Aets of 1897, No. 139) which required employers of aliens to pay a tax of 3 cents per day for each alien in their employment of the age of 21 years or above, which tax could be deducted from the wages of the employee. This law was condemned as unconstitutional in cases which came before the supreme court of the State and a federal court, both courts holding that the act violated the equal-protection provisions of the fourteenth amendment referred to in the previous paragraph, since the classification was without reasonable basis.(^) In a few of the Western States legislation addressed specifically to the employment of Chinese was enacted, prohibiting their employment by municipal corporations (Colorado, Acts of 1872, p. 9) or by corporations generally (California, constitution, art. 19, sec. 2; act of Feb. 13, 1880). These laws were declared void as in contravention of the provisions of the fourteenth amendment and also as conflicting with the treaty rights of the Chinese.(") The right of Chinese to work mining claims was denied them under legislation authorized by section 8, article 15, of the constitution of the State of Oregon. In a case coming before a federal court, involving this right, it was held that the Chinese were within their treaty rights in working claims, any law of the State or provision of its constitution to the contrary notwithstanding. (c). Section 2952 of the Political Code of California immediately affected immigration by directing the state commissioner of immigration to require of the master, owner, or consignee of any vessel a bond of indemnity for the benefit of any municipality that might be at costs on account of the infirmities or vices of certain classes of immigrants. This act was deemed in effect if not in form as addressed to immigrants of a particular nationality, and was held to be in conflict with a statute of the United States (act of May 31, 1870), which prohibited the imposition or enforcement by any State of any tax or charge upon persons immigrating thereto from a foreign country which is not equally imposed or enforced upon every person immigrating from any other foreign country. (d) A law was enacted by the legislature of this State in 1891 (ch. 140) attempting the absolute prohibition of Chinese immigration. This act was held to go beyond the power of the State and to conflict with the Constitution of the United States, which gives to Congress the exclusive power of legislation on the subject of immigration. () The Federal Government itself was held to have exceeded its legislative powers a Juniata Limestone Co. v. Fagley, 187 Pa. St. 193, 40 Atl. 977; Fraser v. McConway & Torley Co. 82 Fed. 257. b Baker v. City of Portland, Fed. Cases, No. 777, 5 Sawy. 566; In re Parrott, 1 Fed. 481. Chapman v. Toy Long, Fed. Cases, No. 2610, 4 Sawy. 28. d In re Ah Fong, Fed. Cases, No. 102, 3 Sawy. 144. e Ex parte Ah Cue, 101 Cal. 197, 35 Pac. 556. by an act (sec. 4, eh. 60, act of May 5, 1892), which provided that if Chinese were found to be unlawfully within the boundaries of the United States they should be imprisoned at hard labor for not more than one year and then deported. The Supreme Court held that while immigration might properly be restricted by congressional action, imprisonment at hard labor without trial was in violation of the fifth and sixth amendments of the Constitution, which provide that no one shall be held for capital or otherwise infamous crimes unless on presentment or indictment by a grand jury, and that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. The act in question conferred an excess of authority upon the executive officers of the United States and was therefore void. (a) The difficulties attendant upon legislation of the above nature were foreshadowed in an act of the Louisiana legislature of 1842 (act No. 123), providing that no free negroes should come into the State on any vessel as a member of the crew or as a passenger, and requiring the commitment of anyone so brought, the costs to be paid by the master of the vessel. This statute was declared void as in violation of the provisions of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States as to the rights of citizens of each State being recognized in all the States. (') A law, the intent of which was to protect domestic labor from the competition of outside labor was embodied in the labor law of New York (Acts of 1897, ch. 415, sec. 14), which provided that "all stone of any description, except paving blocks and crushed stone, used in state or municipal works in this State, or which is to be worked, dressed, or carved for such use, shall be so worked, dressed, or carved within the boundaries of the State." A contractor on public works in New York City set a sewer basin of granite, cut, dressed, and carved in New Jersey, and was denied payment, in accordance with the provisions of the above law. The law was declared unconstitutional as conflicting with the property rights of the contractor, invading his powers as a citizen to make contracts, and attempting to make acts and omissions penal which are in themselves innocent and harmless. It was also held to be in conflict with the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution. (c) It may be mentioned in this connection that an ordinance of the city of St. Louis which contained a provision similar to the above was held by the supreme court of Missouri not to be of itself invalid, and, according to the facts developed in the case under consideration, not to have restricted competition nor incrensed the cost of the public works in connection with which the action was a Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U S. 228, 16 Sup C 997 The Cynosure, Fed. Cases, No. 3529, 1 Spr. 88 c People ex rel. Treat v. Coler, 166 N. Y. 144, 59 N. E-776 brought. The ordinance was therefore held not to be unconstitutional. (a) The prevention of competition between free and convict labor is attempted by statutes restricting the sale of convict-made goods, requiring that they be marked, or that dealers therein be required to procure a license, or both. Laws of New York (ch. 698, Acts of 1894, and ch. 931, Acts of 1896) and of Ohio (act of May 19, 1894) of the above intent were declared unconstitutional inasmuch as it was not competent for state legislatures to pass laws discriminating against or excluding by unfriendly legislation articles of manufacture transported from another State, the powers of Congress being complete and exclusive in the regulation of commerce. (1) EMPLOYMENT OFFICES. The conduct of employment offices is regulated by statute in many jurisdictions, the validity of such laws being generally sustained. The California statute, however (Acts of 1903, ch. 11), contained a provision limiting the fee to be charged by the office for its services. in procuring employment, which provision was declared by the court to be an unconstitutional infringement on the right to contract. (c) The provision is found in the laws of several States. It is clearly within the principle of laws regulating rates of interest and discount, and is not, so far as known, regarded as invalid elsewhere. Where the public undertakes the conduct of employment offices, the service rendered must be without discrimination, so that a provision of an act of the legislature of Illinois (Acts of 1899, p. 268), which forbade the furnishing by public employment offices of names of applicants for work to employers whose workmen were on strike, was necessarily unconstitutional. Two discriminations were pointed out by the court, one against employers whose employees were on strike and the other against workmen seeking employment who were willing to accept service where workmen had gone out as strikers, the rights of these two classes being under the constitution coordinate with those of other groups of employers and workmen. (d) A few of the Southern States embody in their taxing laws a heavy tax on emigrant agents, i. e., persons engaged in the hiring of laborers to go outside the State for service. An act of the legislature of North Carolina (Acts of 1891, ch. 75) laid a tax of $1,000 on the conduct of the business of emigrant agent in that State, the law applying to a few designated counties. The court declared that this law, prescribing no a Allen v. Labsap, 188 Mo. 692, 87 S. W. 926. b People v. Hawkins, 85 Hun 43, 32 N. Y. Supp. 524; same case, 157 N. Y. 1, 51 N E. 257; Arnold v. Yanders, 56 Ohio St. 417, 47 N. E. 50; In re Yanders, 1 Ohio N. P. 190, 2 Ohio Dec. 126. regulation as to conduct of the business nor any police supervision, was restrictive and prohibitory, and void as an attempted exercise of police power; or, if to be considered as a taxing law, it was void for want of uniformity.(*) A law of Alabama (Acts of 1881-52, p. 162 that was held to interfere unwarrantably with the rights of both employers and workmen provided that no person should be permitted to employ, engage, contract with, or in any other way induce laborers to leave certain counties, where the intention was to remove such laborers from the State, unless the person so employing, etc., had paid a license tax of $250 for each county. This act was construed by the court as restricting the rights and privileges of laborers to free emigration as citizens of the United States, inasmuch as it was not a tax on the occupation of employment or emigrant agent, but upon the act of hiring even a single employee, and was for this reason held to be unconstitutional.(*) BATES OF WAGES. Numerous statutes have been enacted directed to the subject of wages, regulating the amount, security for payment, medium and time of payment, suits, assignments, etc. A considerable number of laws of this class has been declared unconstitutional by the courts, either because of their infringing on the right to contract or because they were discriminatory in their nature. A law of the State of New York (Acts of 1897, ch. 415), amended by chapters 192 and 567 of the Acts of 1899, required that rates of wages on public work be not less than the prevailing rates in similar employments in the locality in which the work was done. By its terms the law applied to employment directed by the city and to work done by contractors as well, the penalty for violation by a contractor being the withholding of the amount due under his contract. In a case in which a contractor sued to compel payment on a contract for work done by him for the city of New York, in the performance of which he had paid less than the current wages, the act was declared unconstititional as invading the rights of liberty and property, denying to the city and to contractors the right to agree with their employees as to the amount of compensation to be paid. The statute was also condemned as penalizing acts in themselves innocent and harmless. (^) In a subsequent case the attitude indicated above was modified to the extent of holding that the city was governed by this law in so far as it related to direct employment by the municipalities, though it was void as to contractors, who must simply effect specified results, and who are at liberty to make contracts freely with their workmen,(4) a State v. Moore, 113 N. C. 697, 18 S. E. 342. b Joseph v. Randolph, 71 Ala. 499, 46 Am. Rep. 347. c People ex rel. Rodgers v. Coler, 166 N. Y. 1, 59 N. E. 716. |