ADDRESS

OF

BENJAMIN H. BRISTOW,

PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION.

GENTLEMEN OF THE ASSOCIATION:-The Constitution of our Association requires your president to prepare and submit to this body, a report setting forth the "most noteworthy changes in the statute law on points of general interest, made in the several states and by Congress during the preceding year." This task, though not an inconsiderable one, is less onerous I this year than it would have been if so many states had not established biennial sessions of their legislatures. Biennial sessions now prevail in twenty-five states; and if the people of Connecticut had approved the proposed amendment of their constitution last October, the number would now be twenty-six. But frequent legislative sessions are apparently looked upon more favorably in Connecticut than is the fashion just now to regard them elsewhere, and the proposed constitutional amendment failed to receive a majority of the popular vote. Perhaps it was repugnant to the feelings of a state which once boasted two capitols and two state houses, to be reduced to a legislative body meeting only once in two years. It is the especial good fortune of your president for this year that his term of office falls upon the "off" year of the greater part of these biennial legislatures, upon the year when the halls of a number of state houses are deserted, and twenty states make no changes noteworthy, or otherwise, in their statute laws. The bulk of session

laws to be examined is thus considerably reduced, and my labors have been further lightened by the kind co-operation of the members of the General Council, who, when called upon for assistance, have, with few exceptions, responded promptly and reported fully.

An old Scotch judge in the course of one of his decisions says: "I am against all innovations. Specious reasons may be assigned for them, but no one can foresee their consequences." Such is not the motto of the modern legislator. Unhesitatingly and confidently he applies his statutory panacea to every evil of society real or imaginary. And as for the consequences, although the legislator may think the Scotch judge right as to innovations generally, he is unwilling to consider the proposition applicable to his own pet measure.

Accordingly, in looking through the session laws, we find a vast amount of legislation,—some that is useful and in harmony with the spirit of progress; some that is amusing, not to say, absurd; much that right minded people, and especially lawyers, must condemn; many curious and original statutes; some whose policy will give the political economist and the moralist food for discussion; and some whose constitutional validity will certainly be denied by the courts. It is curious to notice how quickly the average American legislator turns his attention to the solution of new questions as they arise. For almost every kind of grievance, public or private, lately come into notice, some supposed remedy may be found in the new volumes of statute law. The Chinese are attacked vigorously in California; alleged unjust discriminations and extortionate charges, on the part of railroads, are the subject of legislation by California, Georgia, New Hampshire, and New Jersey; five more states have enacted laws of Draconian severity against the tramp, thereby reducing to still narrower limits than those of a year ago the field within which these sturdy beggars remain free to wander; and the state of Maine, moved thereto, I presume, by the disastrous railroad strikes and riots of the summer of 1877, and particularly by the engineer's strike of that year upon the Boston and

Maine railroad, has passed a statute inflicting severe penalties upon railroad employees who conspire to abandon their occupations and destroy that ready communication between different parts of the country which is now of such vital consequence to every active and enlightened people.

With regard to other new questions of less consequence, legislators have also been active. The recent discussions concerning color blindness have resulted in Connecticut in a law which requires the eyes of railroad employees to be examined by competent persons, and which forbids railroads to employ persons who do not produce certificates from these examiners that their eyes are not subject to this defect of vision. The grave robbers of Iowa and Ohio, owing to the prompt action of the legislatures of those states, now find their lot much harder and their avocation more dangerous than would have been the case, if they had not so excited public indignation by the daring and brutal manner in which their operations were carried on in certain parts of the country. Maine has enacted statutes which will make it dangerous to attempt to meddle with the great seal, or tamper with the state papers, or to assume wrongfully to act as state officials; and the evil doings of Eugene Fairfax Williamson, who caused Dr. Dix so much annoyance and distress last year, moved the New York Legislature to pass a statute to the effect that every person who shall send a letter with intent to cause annoyance to any other person, shall be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by fine or imprisonment or both. This last enactment, if applied strictly to everybody who dispatches letters with intent to cause annoyance to others, might cover a good many cases which were probably not in the contemplation of the legislature.

Several other matters of minor importance catch one's eye while running over the statute books, and deserve a cursory notice. California brings to an end her war against greenbacks and admits them to equality with gold. California and Georgia provide for the appointment of a judge pro tempore for the trial of a cause where the parties so agree, who shall exercise

all the functions of a judge in that particular case. Since the decision of the United States Supreme Court declaring the Act of Congress concerning trade-marks unconstitutional, Connecticut has provided for the protection of the rights of her own citizens, in respect of trade-marks, by an act authorizing their registration. Hereafter, it appears, warrants of arrest in California may be dispatched to peace officers by telegraph; and again, in the same state, any person who discloses the contents of a telegraphic message without the consent of the person to whom it is addressed, unless in obedience to a lawful order of court, may be punished by fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both fine and imprisonment. Connecticut exempts from taxation the estate, to the amount of one thousand dollars, of all pensioned soldiers and sailors who have served in the army or navy of the United States; and Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina undertake to provide artificial limbs for their citizens who lost their legs. or arms in the military service of the confederacy. In Louisiana a beneficiary under the act, if he does not believe that the style of limb contracted for by the state will be of use to him, may have the contract price in money, instead of the artificial limb. Connecticut allows its savings banks to employ half their deposits. in making loans on personal security. The Maine Sunday law is so amended as to prevent a party to a contract made on Sunday from avoiding it, if he has received any valuable thing as. part of the consideration and refuses to restore it. In Massachusetts the law of inheritance has been amended, so that hereafter the husband. or wife of a person dying intestate and without issue, will inherit in fee the real estate of the deceased to the value of five thousand dollars in addition to his or her estate of curtesy or dower in the remainder of the property. A New Hampshire law declares that wilful abandonment of a wife shall bar the husband's right of succession to her estate. Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Wisconsin have passed acts for the prevention of cruelty to children, which forbid their employment in dangerous, immoral,