employer of labor should make weekly payments for the full amount due for such labor and authorized the chief factory inspector or any person interested to bring suit in the name of the State against any employer who failed to comply with the law within ten days after the wages were due, was declared not to be within the police power of the State. It was said to fix an absolute rule to govern the employer and the employee, regardless of their wishes, from which they could not depart without incurring a penalty. It was therefore condemned as depriving of their property the persons affected without due process of law. (a) A law of Pennsylvania (act of May 20, 1891), which required all employers engaged in mining and manufacturing to pay their workmen semimonthly, under penalty of fine for failure to do so, was held to impair the obligation of contracts, to interfere with the right to acquire and possess property, and to violate the provision of the state constitution, which prohibits local or special laws regulating trade, mining, or manufacturing. () The weeklypayment law of Illinois (act of July 23, 1891), provided for the payment of all wages earned up to within six days of pay day. This law was declared void for the same reason given above in the case of the Indiana statute. (c) So also of a law of Ohio (Annotated Statutes, sec. 4364-63, 88 O. L. 553), which contained the added fault of an application only to certain classes of employers. (4) The law of Indiana (Annotated Statutes of 1901, secs. 7056, 7057), proposing a monthly pay day for the manual laborers employed by companies, corporations, and associations, was declared invalid as imposing on the designated classes of employers burdens not imposed on individual employers, and also as discriminating between manual laborers and other employees. () The legislature of California in two distinct acts attempted to confer upon wage-workers certain privileges and securities that were held by the courts to contravene the provisions of the constitution. Thus an act (ch. 146, Acts of 1891) which gave a preferred lien in case of the failure to pay weekly or monthly the wages earned by and due to mechanics and laborers, was construed by the supreme court as giving rise to a lien in favor of those mechanics who are employed by the week or month and not furnishing the same protection for those otherwise employed, thus attempting an arbitrary classification. (1) A somewhat later law (ch. 170, Acts of 1897), required every corporation doing business in the State to pay wages to its employees at least monthly, failing which the employee had a preferred lien, and, on securing judgment was entitled

a Republic Iron & Steel Co. v. State, 160 Ind. 379, 66 N. E. 1005.
bCom. v. Isenberg, 8 Kulp 116, 4 Pa. Dist. R. 579.

c Braceville Coal Co. v. People, 147 Ill. 66, 35 N. E. 62.

d State v. Lake Erie Iron Co., 33 O. L. B. 6, 1 O. S. U. 254.
Toledo, etc., R. Co. v. Long, 169 Ind. 316, 82 N. E. 757.

/ Slocum v. Bear Valley Irrigation Co., 122 Cal. 555, 55 Pac. 403.
64181°-No. 91-11-6

to a reasonable attorney's fee. Delinquent corporations were also subject to a fine of not less than $50 nor more than $100 for each violation. This act was held unconstitutional as discriminating against corporations as compared with other employers, as giving a special lien upon all the property of a corporation without requiring description or notice, as giving a laborer the right to an attachment, without making the affidavit and filing the undertaking required of other suitors, as giving to a single class of claimants the right to recover attorneys' fees under a special statute, as restricting the right of competent parties to make their own contracts as to terms and times of payment, and as punishing by fine arbitrarily fixed any variation from the prescribed rule. (")

Laws fixing the time of payment of wages, but adopting a different determination of the time for such payments than those noted above, are those that direct the wages due employees at the time of their discharge to be paid to them at that time without reference to the usual day of payment of wages, under penalty of an added percentage to the demand, or the continuation of wages at the same rate for a limited period, where the law is not complied with. An act of the legislature of Arkansas (act of Mar. 25, 1899), containing the latter provision, was held by the supreme court of that State to be an invasion of the constitutional rights of natural persons, but was construed as a valid exercise of the power of the State with reference to corporations. () A Texas statute (Acts of 1887, ch. 91) applicable only to discharged railroad employees was declared invalid by the courts as not protecting equally the interests of the employer and employee.(*)

PAYMENT OF WAGES IN SCRIP.

Laws restricting the use of scrip or tokens as a medium of payment have been sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States, but the form in which such laws have been enacted has occasioned their condemnation in several instances, while in some States the right to enact a law of this class is held to be outside the power of the legislature. Certain acts of the legislature of Arkansas (No. 161, Acts of 1901, and No. 143, Acts of 1905) were declared improperly discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional because they exempted from their application mines employing fewer than 20 men. () A Missouri statute (Rev. Stat. of 1889, secs. 7058, 7060) was declared unconstitutional as class legislation, since it applied only to employers engaged in manufacturing or mining; (e) while another statute of

a Johnson v. Goodyear Mining Co., 127 Cal. 4, 59 Pac. 304.

b Leep v. St. Louis, etc., R. Co., 58 Ark. 407, 25 S. W. 75.

c San Antonio & A. P. R. Co. v. Wilson, 19 S. W. 910 (Texas).

d Union Sawmill Co. v. Felsenthal, 84 Ark. 494, 108 S. W. 217.

e State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307, 22 S. W. 350.

the same State (secs. 8142, 8143), which prohibited the issue of any order, note, check, memorandum, token, evidence of indebtedness, or other obligation, unless the same was negotiable and redeemable at its face value in money of the United States, was held to be unconstitutional on the broad ground that it interfered with the freedom of contract. (a) The same view was taken of the law of Pennsylvania (act of June 29, 1881), which provided that wages should be paid only in lawful money and at regular intervals; () so of the law of Texas (Acts of 1905, ch. 152), which prohibited the payment of wages in store orders or merchandise. (c) The supreme court of Tennessee held that a law of that State (ch. 209, Acts of 1887) which provided that persons refusing to redeem in lawful currency any checks or scrip issued in payment of wages should be guilty of a misdemeanor and liable to fine, violated the spirit if not the letter of the provisions of the constitution which prohibit laws authorizing imprisonment for debt. (d) The court of last resort of West Virginia declared the scrip law of that State (Acts of 1887, ch. 63) unconstitutional as special legislation, because it applied only to persons engaged in mining and manufacturing. () The same defect was found by the courts to exist in an Illinois statute (Acts of 1891, p. 212) which provided that no deductions from wages should be made by any employer of labor except for lawful money, or checks, or drafts actually advanced without discount, and except agreed sums for hospital fees, but exempting farmers and farm laborers from its provisions; (f) this act was said also to interfere in an unauthorized manner with the privilege of contracting.

COMPANY STORES.

Of similar intent with the above laws are laws that restrict or prohibit the operation of so-called company stores and the issuing of orders in payment of wages. Indeed, these two provisions are frequently combined in the same law, as was the case with the Illinois statute referred to above, reproduced as sections 442 to 448 of chapter 38 of the Annotated Statutes of 1896. The provision forbidding persons, companies, corporations, or associations engaged in mining or manufacturing to be interested directly or indirectly in truck or supply stores, or in any scheme to supply tools, clothing, provisions, etc., to employees, but not including other classes of employers under like restriction, was declared unconstitutional on account of such discrima Leach v. Missouri Tie & Timber Co., 111 Mo. App. 650, 86 S. W. 579; State v. Same, 181 Mo. 536, 80 S. W. 933.

b Godcharles v. Wigeman, 113 Pa. St. 431, 6 Atl. 354.

c Jordan v. State, 51 Texas Cr. App. 531, 103 S. W. 633.

d State v. Paint Rock Coal & Coke Co., 92 Tenn. 81, 20 S. W. 499.

e State v. Goodwill, 33 W. Va. 179, 10 S. E. 285.

f Kellyville Coal Co. v. Harrier, 207 Ill. 624, 69 N. E. 927.

ination. (") The Maryland statute (ch. 493, Acts of 1898), which prohibited railroad and mining corporations in Allegany County, their officers and agents, from selling or bartering goods, wares, or merchandise to their employees was declared void because of its violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment.(") A bill before the Colorado legislature in 1897 proposed to prohibit employers who paid the wages of their employees in goods or supplies of any kind, directly or through the intervention of scrip or orders, from charging higher prices than the reasonable or current market value in cash of such goods or supplies. This bill was laid before the supreme court of the State, which held that this provision unwarrantably undertook to regulate prices, and would not be valid as legislation.()

An act of the Ohio legislature (act of Feb. 8, 1887) prohibited the issue of checks, scrip, tokens, etc., purporting to be redeemable otherwise than in money, but permitted orders to be issued on stores in which the employer had no interest. This law, too, was declared unconstitutional because discriminatory. (d) The West Virginia statute mentioned above (Acts of 1887, ch. 63) contained a provision prohibiting persons and corporations engaged in mining and manufacturing and interested in the selling of merchandise and supplies from selling goods to their employees at a greater per cent of profit than that at which they sell to persons not employees. This statute was held to interfere unjustly with private contracts and business, since a seller might consider various facts in determining the prices to be charged for his goods and should be free to do so. () Chapter 145, Acts of 1897, of the Kansas legislature, forbade employers to issue in payment for work done any check, order, or token, other than a check or draft on a bank in which money was on deposit to cash the same. It also made it an offense to compel or attempt to compel the employees of a corporation or trust to purchase goods or supplies at any particular store or place; and finally restricted the application of the law to corporations or trusts employing 10 or more persons. It was held that the discriminations between corporations on the one hand and other classes of employers on the other, and secondly, between corporations and trusts employing 10 or more men and those employing a smaller number, were arbitrary and unequal. It was also said that the interference with the right of persons competent to contract in their own behalf was an unwarranted violation of their constitutional rights. () A statute of more general application was

a Frorer v. People, 141 Ill. 171, 31 N. E. 395.

Luman v. Hitchens Bros. Co., 90 Md. 14, 44 Atl. 1051.
In re House Bill No. 147, 23 Colo. 504, 48 Pac. 512.

d Marsh v. Poston & Co., 35 O. L. B. 327.

e State v. Fire Creek Coal and Coke Co., 33 W. Va. 188, 10 S. E. 288.

1 State v. Haun, 61 Kans. 146, 59 Pac. 340.

enacted by the Indiana legislature in 1901 (Acts of 1901, p. 548), providing that whenever any merchant or dealer in goods or merchandise, or any other person (the words "any other person" not being contained in the title), should take from any employee or laborer for wages who labors in or about any coal mine an assignment of such employee's wages, and give in return therefor any order or check other than a check on a solvent bank, or any token or device redeemable in merchandise or anything else than lawful money of the United States, such checks or tokens should at once become due and payable in cash to the full amount of their face. This law was declared void as special legislation, the title restricting its application to merchants on the one hand and employees in or about coal mines on the other, disqualifying these classes to deal as other citizens may.(")

Before passing from this group of laws, reference may be made to decisions supporting statutes embodying the main principles involved.()

HOURS OF LABOR.

Statutes regulating the hours of labor have been enacted in a number of States, some affecting public employment only, others relating to designated classes of employment, and still others embracing within their scope labor generally. Laws of the first and second classes usually attempt the restriction of the period of labor to that named in the law, while in the third class the effect of the law is generally simply to declare what shall constitute a day's work in the absence of contract, but not preventing contracts for a different working day. It is probably a matter of general acceptance at the present time that it is competent for the legislature to fix the hours of labor that shall constitute a day's work in public service of whatever class, (c) though the courts of last resort of a few States have denied this power. Thus the laws of New York (sec. 3, ch. 415, Acts of 1897), and of Ohio (Annotated Statutes, secs. 4364-62a to 62d), limiting to 8 per day the number of hours to be required of laborers on public works, whether employed by a contractor or otherwise, were declared void in their relation to contractors as not being within the police power of the State, since they interfered with the right of municipal corporations to contract in matters concerning their own interests, over which the State was not entitled to exercise supervision, and also

a Dixon v. Poe, 159 Ind. 492, 65 N. E. 518.

Cumberland Glass Mfg. Co. v. State, 58 N. J. L. 224, 33 Atl. 210; Knoxville Iron Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S. 13, 22 Sup. Ct. 1; Johnson, Lytle & Co. v. Spartan Mills, 68 S. C. 339, 47 S. E. 695; Union Sawmill Co. v. Felsenthal, 84 Ark. 494, 108 S. W. 217; Shortall v. Bridge, etc., Co., 45 Wash. 290, 88 Pac. 212; Peel Splint Coal Co. v. State, 36 W. Va. 802, 15 S. E. 1000.

c Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 218, 24 Sup. Ct. 124; People ex rel. Williams E. & C., Co. v. Metz, 193 N. Y. 148, 85 N. E. 1070; Keefe v. People, 37 Colo. 317, 87 Pac. 791.