any legitimate mode and employ any means which are usually deemed effectual and proper to protect the road against obstructions. As we have shown that railroad corporations have the implied power to offer a general reward for the detection, apprehension and bringing to justice of persons obstructing the road, such authority is incident to the business and duties of the superintendent and to the purposes of his department; consequently within the scope of his agency. Railway Co. v. Rodrigues, 47 Ill. 188."

all that makes the invention valuable. The case was heard before Judge Mitchell and Judge Hare. It seems to me that the arguments urged in Tetlow v. Savournin against the right of the defendant to oblige the witness to make disclosure are sound, and are applicable to the present case."

ADDRESS OF GEORGE G. WRIGHT, PRESI-
DENT OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIA-
TION, SARATOGA SPRINGS, AUG. 15, 1888.

I.

GENTLEMEN OF THE ASSOCIATION: In the discharge imposed upon me by the constitution I may, happily for you as well as for myself, as I hope, be somewhat brief. My immediate predecessor was required to communicate changes in Congressional legislation and that of thirty-two States, whereas I am to note such in national legislation and but fifteen States, to-wit: Ohio, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Kentucky, Iowa, Virginia, Texas and Florida. The laws of the State last named, though enacted before our last meeting, the president did not have, hence I refer to them, as he did to those of Tennessee (1886), which were not printed in time for his predecessor.

Because these statutes were received at a very late day-some so late as to permit only the most hurried examination-and as Congress is still in session, having at the last hour, by the kindness of a friend, the acts thus far passed by that body-for these and other reasons I am compelled to report each State sepa

other? The constitution in requiring these notes of changes has in view practical results and benefits. And I do not know why these may not come quite as well by separate examination and comment as any other. Subject only to the supreme law (Federal Constitution), each State is sovereign, and it should be a matter of no small interest from year to year to note the intelligence, the tendency of public thought, the progress and advancement, or reverse, of each, as disclosed or reflected in the legislation of each, and this by and for itself. Comparisons we can all make for ourselves if indeed they may not be suggested and referred to somewhat as we proceed with the work of the hour. However this may be, I turn to the task before me.

In Moxie Nerve Food Co. v. Beach, 35 Fed. Rep. 465, U. S. Circuit Court, Mass., July 2, 1888, it was held that where a witness for plaintiff testifies, on direct examination, only as to the uses and effects of "Moxie" or "Moxie Nerve Food," he may not on cross-examination be required to disclose the particular ingredients of that preparation, that being a trade secret, the disclosure of which would injure plaintiff's business. The court said: "Under the rule which prevails in the United States courts limiting the right of cross-examination of a witness to the matters stated in his direct examination (Railroad Co. v. Stimpson, 14 Pet. 448, 461; Houghton v. Jones, 1 Wall. 702, 706), I do not think the proposed questions to Dr. Thompson are admissible. The witness was asked in his direct examination as to the uses and effects of Moxie, or Moxie Nerve Food, for the terms are used interchangea-rately. And why not this method as well as any bly, but he was not asked as to the particular ingredient of Moxie, what it was, or the place or source from which it came. In spite of the contention of defendants' counsel to the contrary, it seems to me that this may fairly be considered the limit of the inquiry by the counsel for complainant. But aside from this, I have grave doubt whether the witness can be obliged, under the circumstances existing in this case, to disclose what is evidently a trade secret, the result of which might be to ruin his business. I have examined with care the briefs of counsel, and it must be admitted that the question is not free from difficulty. I am strongly impressed however that it would be inequitable to force the witness to make the disclosures called for, and therefore, unless bound by authority, I must deny the motion. The defendants have failed to produce any authorities in their favor upon the exact point in issue. The complainant supports its position by reference to the case of Tetlow v. Šavournin, 15 Phila. 170; 11 Wkly. Notes Cas. 191, where a rule for attachment against the plaintiff for his refusal to answer what ingredients his goods were composed of was dismissed. The counsel for the plaintiff in that case urged that the whole commercial value of such proprietary manufacturers depends upon secrecy as to their composition, and protested against depriving a man of his property by such a proceeding as this. If these questions must be answered, every manufacturer will be at the mercy of any one who desires to extort from him an account of his process, for an attempt to restrain an infringer would result in the disclosure of

CONGRESS.

Of Congressional legislation there is little to be said. Chapter 8 provides for the punishment of horsestealing, robbery and burglary in the Indian Territory, but is not applicable where the offense is committed by one Indian upon the person or property of another.

By another (chapter 12) it is declared that section 4883, in relation to patents, shall be so amended as that they may be issued as well by one of the assistant secretaries of the interior as by the secretary himself. It seems that many patents had been signed by such assistants, which had been validated by special legislation, and hence this general statute.

To aid in the protection of submarine cables it is provided (in chapter 14) that if any one shall willfully and wrongfully break or injure, or attempt to break or injure, or in any manner aid, abet or be accessory to the breaking or injuring of any submarine cable, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, etc. Or if any one shall by willful negligence so break or injure such cable, he is alike guilty and shall be punished, etc. The penalties provided are not to bar any action for damages resulting from such breaking or injury.

In this volume, containing one hundred and sixty-six acts and joint resolutions, we have the first legislative action of the State under the Constitution of 1885. As usual we find few-say one in thirteen-of any general importance, either in or out of the State. Some there are however, and to these I turn.

All laws and parts thereof, imposing a license tax on commercial agents, commonly known as "drummers," are repealed (5). Whether this was because of the inter-State commerce clause of the Federal Constitution and the decisions thereunder by the Supreme Courts does not appear, nor is it material to inquire.

This State too has the subject of prohibition before it; for as required by the Constitution, we find an act providing for the submission of the question to a vote of the people upon petition of one-fourth of the registered voters (20).

The elective franchise extends to aliens who have declared their intention to become citizens in conformity with the laws of the United States, and among others not entitled to vote are those indirectly interested in any bet or wager the result of which shall depend upon any election (24). Why an indirect interest should qualify more than a direct, it was to me a little difficult to understand, but I find it all explained and corrected by an act (25) which immediately follows.

A very nice enactment, I submit, is that which seems to require, at least defines, the method of giving notice before applying for special or local legislation (28).

For the protection of the revenue of the counties, and to save very much valuable time in not a few criminal prosecutions, a method is provided (attempted at least) to prevent unnecessary witnesses being summoned by defendants (39).

The individual liability of stockholders in any company organized under the general incorporation law is so much as remains unpaid on their subscriptions, and no more (69). While as to railroads there are several acts to which I briefly refer.

1. Prohibiting by suitable penalties any officer or agent, etc., of any road from giving transportation to any member or delegate to a political convention for a less rate than is charged to the general public for the same class of transportation (59).

2. Also prohibiting free passes or discounting rates to any member of the Legislature or the salaried officers thereof. Both giver and recipient are to be punished (61).

3. A hopeful statute for these carriers is that which provides that as to live stock heretofore killed, etc., and where action has been or shall be brought within three years after such killing, etc., the fact of such killing, etc., when satisfactorily shown shall be prima facie evidence of negligence on the part of the company (60).

prevent and punish extortion and unjust discrimination in the rates charged for the transportation of passengers and freights; and to furnish a mode of procedure and rules of evidence in relation thereto." It contains thirty-three sections, and its length forbids that I do more than state generally its provisions.

The act applies to all railroad corporations and sleeping-car, freight or freight line companies, and to all common carriers engaged in the transportation of passengers or property by rail. It undertakes to define and prohibit unjust discriminations; to declare unlawful all preference or advantage to one person over another; that said carriers shall afford equal facilities for interchange of traffic between lines; shall make no greater charge for a short than a long haul; no discrimination against shipping points; prohibits freight pooling; requires schedules of rates to be provided and kept for public inspection; to give notice of any advance in schedules; that charges shall conform to such schedules; that a copy thereof shall be filed with the railroad commissioners; prohibits combinations against continuous traffic; gives power to railroad commissioners to inquire into the business of such carriers; to receive and investigate complaints; methods for enforcing orders if not complied with; the right of appeal from such orders to the Supreme Court; gives the commissioners the right, and it is their duty, to make for each road a schedule of reasonable maximum rates for the transportation of freight and cars (which has been done); to revise and

4. Others require companies when receiving firstclass fares to furnish first-class cars to persons of color (63); prohibit the consolidation of parallel or competing lines (65); provide for the regulation of freight and passenger tariffs; prevent unjust discrimination, etc. (not unlike that found in Iowa and perhaps other States, to which I shall refer more at length hereafter) (66); while the last to be here mentioned, I should think of easy application by the average jury, in that in relation to actions for injuries to persons or prop-change the same from time to time; investigate violaerty, it is provided that no one shall recover who consents to or by his own negligence causes the injury, but that if plaintiff and company are both at fault there may be a recovery of damages, to be diminished however in proportion to the fault attributable to the party injured. An employee can recover for the act of a coemployee, and a contract restricting such liability is void (64).

An act, perhaps as protective of the interests of mechanics, laborers, etc., as to liens and collections of moneys due, as in any State, will be found in chapter 67. How far it goes without stopping to mention other parts, is especially seen when it is known that it gives a lien upon farm, orchard, garden, grove, park or other grounds, * crops planted, cultivated or harvested therefrom, to any person who may per form labor upon or in such farm, garden, etc, whether in fencing or in cultivating the same. The remedies for the enforcement of these and all liens therein provided for are summary and indeed extraordinary.

* *

Thus we have all the legal literature coming within our purpose, of this far southern State, and I turn to its twin sister (both admitted March 3, 1845).

IOWA.

The General Assembly of this State met on January 9 last, and was in session just ninety days. It passed two hundred and six acts and joint resolutions, nearly one-half being for appropriation and legalizing purposes. Some of the others are of general importance.

In view of the growing dangers of reckless expenditures by cities and towns, an act in the interest of the people is one requiring that all appropriations therein shall be made by the council for each fiscal year at or before the beginning thereof; prohibits the issue of warrants or making of contracts in excess of such appropriations, or any beyond the amount of the legally authorized levy (chapter 4).

A very detailed-and by the people of the State of all classes regarded as very important-act is by its title found to be: "An act to regulate railroad corporations and other common carriers; to restrict the powers and further define the duties of the board of railroad commissioners in relation to the same; to

tions of these schedules, and in a summary manner, so as to conduce to dispatch and the needs of justice; provides also that the said commissioners shall in the performance of their duties have the right of transportation over all the roads, and the same for any experts or agents whose services they may require. In addition there are numberless provisions for the enforcement of the law in all its parts, and especially for charging unjust and unreasonable rates, without defining however what they are; full power is given to grant injunctions, and the heaviest penalties against all carriers, their agents and servants, for their omissions and violations. I only add that questions as to the validity of the statute and the action of the commissioners thereunder are already before the courts, both State and national (decisions thus far adverse to the law). What is to be the final result time alone can disclose.

The significance and tendency of this legislation is shown by the very next act, which requires the commissioners to be chosen by the electors instead of appointed, as heretofore, but no one in the employ of any common carrier, or owning bonds or stock or property in any railroad company shall be eligible to the office, and if any one after his election shall enter into such employ, or become interested in the stock thereof, he shall be disqualified from acting as such commissioner.

There are also other statutes requiring railroad companies to fence their tracks; to change the name of any station so as to have it conform to that of the town within which it is situated, and the failure of the company to comply with the order of the commissioners in this respect is a misdemeanor. And finally one giving power to certain city councils to require railroad companies to build viaducts over their tracks.

As to courts, provision is made in counties containing a named population for the appointment of a clerk not of their number to the grand jury, and on the trial of a criminal case the State and defendant are each entitled to the same number of peremptory challengesten in the higher felonies and three in misdemeanors. There are some radical changes in the law touching

the registration of voters in cities, and also an apt statute in relation to contesting elections of presidential electors.

So too we find several statutes in relation to coal, coal mining, etc.; to provide a method of weighing coal at mines; one for the appointment of State mine inspector; another for greater safety in mining, and to protect workmen in their wages (scrip, checks, drafts payable or redeemable otherwise than in their face value in money are prohibited); and still another for the protection of discharged employees and to prevent blacklisting, which extends to all corporations and persons, whether in connection with mines or any thing else.

By chapter 78, if susceptible to any meaning, which I must doubt, severe penalties are levelled against any one who shall sell seeds at fictitious prices; or to use the very language of the act, "at a price equal to or more than four times the market price of such grain, seed or cereal." This was evidently intended to strike at what is sometimes spoken of as the "Bohemian oats swindle," or imposition upon the unsuspecting but occasionally grasping producer, whether of bulbs or cereals.

Pools are to be punished, for it is declared (chapter 84) that if any corporation of this State, or of any other State, and conducting business in this, or any partnership or individual shall create, enter into, become a part of, or a party to any pool, trust, agreement, combination or confederation to reg* * *

* * *

ulate or fix the price of oil, lumber, coal, grain
or any other commodity; or shall create, euter into or
become a party to any pool, etc., to fix or limit the
amount or quantity of any commodity to be manu-
factured, mined, etc., or sold, he shall be deemed guilty
of a conspiracy, and punished, etc. In a prosecution
under this statute against a corporation or partner-
ship, all its officers and agents are competent witnesses
for the State, and they can be compelled to testify and
produce all books pertinent to the issue, and shall not
be excused from answering any question, producing
any books, etc., because the same might tend to crimi-
nate such witness, but the testimony so produced shall
not be used against the witness in any suit, civil or
criminal, to which he may be a party.

There is also an act restricting non-resident aliens in their right to acquire and hold real estate, and a very far-reaching little section which declares that if paper (negotiable) shall have been procured by fraud upon the maker thereof, no holder of the same shall recover thereon a greater sum than he paid therefor, with interest and costs.

There are some other acts to which I perhaps ought to refer, and though I have taken up quite too much time with this State, I must say a word to those relating to the sale of intoxicating liquors.

It is known that for years there has been in force in this State what is known as a prohibitory statute. The legislation of last session was intended to make it certain, if possible, that "prohibition" should "prohibit," and hence we have in these recent acts the most stringent provisions as to applications for permits (all applications to be made to the District Court); in relation to sales and purposes thereof (very few indeed); notice of such applications; as to the persons to whom persons selling or purchasing; heavy bonds; permits only to be granted; the good character of the persons selling or purchasing upon petition accompanying application; for resistance to such application; the heaviest penalties for violating their provisions; and in a word they are so framed, as believed by those supporting them (and as to this there is perhaps not much, if any, doubt), as to insure wherever enforced the destruction or every thing like a saloon, and the maintenance only of places where in

toxicants will be sold for the purposes provided therein. This legislation will well repay examination.

I only add that these statutes as well as others in this State contain the very great vice of amending prior sections by inserting words or lines, or striking out or changing without re-enacting in terms the prior act or section as thus amended, while the method adopted in South Carolina and other States, to repeat and re-enact the whole statute or section as amended, is far preferable and very much to be commended.

GEORGIA.

Aided by the suggestions of the very active member of the Council for this Empire State of the south, I select the following as entitled to consideration:

An act providing by constitutional amendment for Increasing the number of Supreme Court judges from three to five; for the levy and collection of a tax of $10,000 upon dealers in domestic wines in certain localities and under prescribed restrictions; making an attorney competent and compellable to testify for or against his client as to any matter, knowledge of which he acquired other than by virtue of his relations as such, or by reason of anticipated employment; providing a mode of obtaining rights of way by those engaged in the business of mining; declaring that promissory notes and evidences of debt, warehouse and elevator receipts, bills of lading and other commercial paper symbolic of property may be delivered as a pledge within the meaning of the delivery of property essential to such bailment; for the commutation of time (very liberal, it will appear) for good and upright conduct to penitentiary convicts, and making the records upon which such commutation is based evidence for or against convicts in all courts of the State-in substance requiring the Supreme Court to decide all questions made in certain cases of reversal; forbidding the sale of liquor within two miles of any voting precinct on days of any State, county, municipal or primary elections; an act giving the right of action to the surviving child, etc., against railroads negligently killing, etc., and which authorizes a recovery for the full value of the life, is declared to mean the full value without deduction for necessary or other personal expenses of the decedent had he lived; to authorize the judges to hold special terms for the purpose of granting charters to corporations; to define and punish the offense of blackmail with the singular proviso "that no court in this State shall have jurisdiction to inquire into any presentment or indictment found by a grand jury of the county in which the offense has been committed;" providing for a uniform mode of procedure in civil actions, whether legal or equitable, to be commenced by petition regardless of form, practically abolishing all distinctions of method between law and equity procedure; permitting manufacturing and mining companies to organize savings banks; forbidding the borrowing of money of banks or other corporations by the officers or agents thereof without permission of the board of directors; to prevent the sale of opium or its preparations to those habitually addicted to its use; making it a misdemeanor to prevent or attempt to prevent any person from engaging, remaining in or performing the business, labor and duties of any useful employment or occupation; prohibiting discrimination by telegraph companies in matters of sending messages, etc.; and finally, in the interest of gormands, to regulate the capture of terrapius from March 1 to July 25 of any year, and forbidding the capture of female terrapins at any time of less than a prescribed size or length, and if such are caught by the unwitting trapper he shall at once restore them to their native element for the benefit of future epi

cures.