sylvania, bills introduced, 1,065; passed, 221. In Kentucky, bills introduced, 2,390; passed, 1,400. In Tennessee, bills introduced, 1,183; passed, 158. In Nebraska, bills introduced, 631; passed, 126. In New York, bills introduced, 2,093; of which only 681 became laws. Total of bills introduced in the above States, 12,449; of bills passed, 3,793. The disproportion between local or private and general statutes is greatest in those States which have not by constitutional provisions required corporations to be formed under general laws. Thus in Virginia the statutes creating or regulating corporations, or amending their charters, form a great part of the entire legislation of the last session. In Mississippi the member of the General Council, after reporting a few instances of important legislation, says: "The remainder of the volume of the Session Laws is devoted to local and special acts. Railroads and cities are incorporated, and schools, colleges and building associations. The local and special legislation," he continues, "is a vice, and can only be prevented by a constitutional inhibition." Even where constitutional restraints exist, this vice of special and local legislation is still a crying evil. It is safe to say, that after excluding the bills making provision for the expense of carrying on the government, those which are intended to cure the mistakes of former Legislatures, and those which promote private or corporate interests, the residuum of measures passed by any State, as well as by Congress, really public in their character, is very insignificant, not to say ludicrous, in the comparison. The expense involved in reaching these results varies in different State. In South Carolina, where the session is limited by a constitutional provision to thirty days, the cost is reported by the secretary of State to be only $52,000. In Pensylvania, with 158 days of session, the amount of expenditure is returned as $686,500. In Illinois the last session of 171 days cost committee, prepared, as I learn, by Mr. McCready, brought to the attention of the Legislature the existence of the evil common to all the States. It appeared that the bulk of the legislation of South Carolina during the past four years has related to private or local interests, and but a fragment of it (256 measures out of an aggregate of nearly 900) to matters of general public concern. Acts of incorporation, grants of inheritance, changes of names and releases from indebtedness had consumed a large proportion of the time of the Legislature at a great public expense and to the seríous detriment of the State. Many of these private acts are never availed of, and the report states that there are on the statute books of the State more than a hundred railrod charters under which no railroads have ever been built. The consequence of thus overloading the legislative dockets with private bills, or bills for corporate franchises, is to crowd into the coucluding days of each legislative session a volume of business which cannot be properly attended to, and the report declares, in terms which would apply to almost all, if not quite all, of the States, that the Legislature "cannot go on longer in the reckless scramble which has characterized the last days of our session." A bill was passed, not as far-reaching as that reported by the committee, but containing serviceable provisions against hasty and ill-advised legislative action. If the example thus set by South Carolina were followed by other States a greatly needed reform would be set in motion. A few intelligent, unselfish and fearless men of our profession in each State Legislature, could by promoting judicious enactments which would commend themselves to all good citizens, very soon so reduce the volume of legislation as to relieve the statute books from a mass of unnecessary laws, and the people from the burdens they impose. Coming now to the details of the legislation of the $361,000. In Connecticut the last session of ninety year, instead of taking up the list of the States in their days cost $98,100, while a session of corresponding order, I propose to group the most noteworthy statlength in Colorado cost $180,000; and the general exutes according to their subject-matter, beginning with penses of the legislation of California are $130,000 for a those which relate to the oversight and protection of session of sixty days.. The cost of printing, travelling children; passing next to laws affecting women and and other incidental expenses must be added in order the domestic relations; then to those which provide to form any accurate estimate of the burden imposed for the public health, safety and morals; to the staton the tax payers of the States to carry on this badly-utes relating to labor, trade and corporate organizamanaged business of law making, which varies from a daily average cost of about $1,000 per diem for every legislative session to over $4,000 per diem, making an aggregate in the total number of States and in Congress which it is impossible to ascertain with exactness, but which cannot, I think, be less than $10,000,000-not as an exceptional outlay, but as the price paid for current legislation. With a single exception, nothing seems to have been attempted in any State to cure or check this universally admitted mischief. To the inquiry put by me to the secretaries of State, "Is there any provision for supervision or revision of bills except by committees of the Legislature?" the invariable answer has been "No." I have not referred to, nor have I been able to dis cover any statute passed during the year looking to reform in legislative methods, save the one already referred to as exceptional, that of South Carolina, which I take pleasure in reporting, because its passage was largely promoted by one of our number, Mr. McCready, the member of the General Council from that State. tions; thus reaching the legislation which concerns legal rights and procedure, and finally that which relates to general political regulation and the wider functions of government. CARE AND PROTECTION OF CHILDREN. The care, protection and training of children are noticeable features of the legislation of several of the States. Connecticut has prohibited the employment of children under thirteen years of age in factories; has provided for discrimination in the disposition to be made by committing magistrates of dependent or neglected children, so as not to subject innocent children to commitment to places of confinement for offenders against the law or for the vagrant and vicious classes; and by special statutes prohibits the playing of games in pool or billiard rooms by minors under sixteen years of age, or their loitering in or about such rooms. Georgia authorizes the boards of education or other school authorities to maintain as an annex a department of industrial education for teaching the use of tools for working in wood and metal; a serviceable The Legislature of South Carolina at its last session supplement to the ordinary courses of instruction, as confided to a joint committee of both its houses the city of New York during the last spring, in which the was well shown by the industrial exhibition held in the consideration of the possible reduction and limitation results of the mechanical work of children in the pubditing the legislative business. The able report of this served popular interest and approbatiou. of the number of subjects of legislation and of expe-lic schools of the city and its vicinity called forth de Both Massachusetts and New Hampshire prohibit by fine-in the former State of $50 and in the latter State of $20-the selling of cigarettes or of tobacco in any form to minors under sixteen years of age, and in Massachusetts the gift by any person, except the parents or guardian of such minor, of the prohibited articles, subjects the donor to the same penalty as in case of sale. New Hampshire, after thus guarding against mischief to the physical organs of her citizens of tender age, shows even more solicitude for their external well-being by prohibiting under fine of $25 the putting up or maintaining on any land adjacent to school lots of any barbed wire fences, a humane provision which the youth of New Hampshire would probably be willing to have extended to all the orchards and melonpatches in the State. A further statute of New Hampshire prohibits, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, the hiring, using or permitting any minor to sell or give away books, magazines or newspapers devoted to the publication or illustration of stories of bloodshed, lust or crime, or principally made up of police or criminal news, a regulation, which if put in force in the city of New York, would soon relegate the newsboy to the lost tribes. New Jersey, by heavy penalties, prohibits the apprenticing, employing, letting out or disposing of children under twelve years of age for singing, playing on musical instruments or any other like calling to be followed in the streets and highways. Maryland has also enacted a "cigarette" statute similar to that of Massachusetts. Ohio has enacted a stringent law for the prevention of cruelty to childrenjunder'sixteen years of age, or their neglect or abuse by parents or guardians. Another statute of the same State, entitled "An act to provide against the adulteration of candy," and levelled with special severity against terra alba and other deleterious substances, while not in terms intended for the protection of children, may properly be classed among the most benign instances of preventive legislation in their behalf, while Maryland extends the prohibition as to adulteration to cakes as well as candy. South Carolina and Maryland, by acts to suppress the publication and circulation of obscene books, papers and pictures, and the posting of indecent show bills, provide special legislation to prevent their corrupting influence on children and young persons. Michigan, by an act regulating the employment of children, young persons and women, forbids factory employment as to children under ten years of age, and extends the prohibition to children under fourteen years of age unless they have attended school for at least four of the twelve months preceding the month of employment. It also requires the provision of seats for female employees in factories, work-shops, warehouses, stores and hotels when not necessarily engaged in active duties. By another act reformatory schools are established for juvenile disorderly persons, among whom are classed habitual truants from any school in which they are enrolled as pupils; children, who while attending any public school, are habitually and incorrigibly disobedient, and vicious and vagrant children. The act provides for due notice to parents or guardians before the enforcement of the law. In New York the " Child-labor bill," so called, contains kindred provisions to protect children from being over-worked. WOMEN AND THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS. Noteworthy legislation concerning women and the domestic relations is comprised in a few enact ments. Massachusetts, by an amendment of the law relating to divorce suits, prohibits the filing of a libel for divorce where the libellant has removed into the Commonwealth for the purpose of obtaining a decree of divorce, within five years prior to the filing of the libel. New Jersey extends the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery to cases of absolute divorce where the cause of action arose out of the State, provided the complainant or defendant was or shall have been a resident of the State for three years next preceding the time of filing the bill. Maryland requires a residence in the State by the applicant for two years precedingjan application for di vorce. By chapter 150 of the Laws of Massachusetts of 1886 women are declared eligible to serve as overseers of the poor. New York permits women to vote at school meetings. Connecticut provides that no person shall be married until one of the parties shall under oath inform the registrar of the town of the name, age, color, occupation, birthplace, residence and condition, as to being single, widowed or divorced, of each contracting party. Maryland requires parties contracting marriage to procure a license, or the publication of bans, as a prerequisite of the validity of the marriage. South Carolina has adopted the rule prevailing in other States, that on the death of a married woman intestate her husband shall be entitled to the same share of her estate as is given by law to the widow out of the estate of her husband. A statute of Mississippi adds to the catalogue of punishable crimes and misdemeanors the teaching of polygamy, the inducing of any person to embrace it, and the emigrating to other States or Territories for the purpose of embracing it. By another statute of Mississippi husband and wife are made competent witnesses against each other in all controversies between them. This law would possibly be more satisfactory to the gentler sex if it contained a provision securing to the wife on the witness stand the last word; but it is in the line of the legislative policy of Mississippi, a State which, as our esteemed member of its General Council remarks, has made a complete removal of the common-law disabilities of married women, the Code of 1880 providing that as "to contracts and property she shall be as if she was not married;" the marriage contract itself, we must suppose, is excepted by implication. PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY. In legislation intended to protect the public health and safety, numerous laws appear on the State statute books of this year, establishing rules which are becoming quite common as subjects of statutory police regulation. In Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio and Virginia the sale of morphine or any of its salts is prohibited, unless in scarlet wrapping with prescribed label; while in New Jersey a general law regulating the practice of pharmacy includes similar and more comprehensive regulations. Pharmacy and the practice of medicine are also made the subject of special statutes in Virginia and Michigan; while in Georgia, the regulations of a like statute are extended to practitioners of dentistry. In Iowa, careful provisions for the inspection of mines by qualified officials, to insure proper ventilation and safeguards against accident by explosion, are embodied in a statute intended for the safety and protection of persons employed in the hazardous labor of mining. Ohio, by an amendatory act, makes most minute and stringent regulations for safety apparatus and other precautions in the conduct of mining operations. In New Jersey, statutes have been passed to regulate the manufacture and sale of dynamite and other explosives. The distance of 1,000 feet from any public road is prescribed as the limit within which it is forbidden for the future to store or keep such explosives, except in fire-proof magazines, and in quantity not exceeding 2,000 pounds; and the carriage of giant powder, dynamite and nitro-glycerine on any railroad train carrying passengers is absolutely prohibited as a misdemeanor. A statute of Michigan makes the keeping of the same explosives for unlawful purposes a felony. New Hampshire has passed a similar act. That portion of the travelling public in the State of Mississippi who are not smokers is protected by a statute providing that the payment of first-class fares shall be furnished with first-class passage, which is defined to be in "any suitable car in which smoking is not allowed." Automatic car coupling is made obligatory by a statute of Michigan, which requires that provision shall be made by all railroad corporations to couple and uncouple all cars without the necessity of the brakeman or any other person passing between the cars. A like particular instance of statutory care for railroad employees, is the act of Massachusetts requiring every railroad company, before January 1, 1887, to adjust, fill or block the frogs, switches and guard-rails on its track, with the exception of guard-rails on bridges, so as to prevent the feet of its employees being caught therein. A statute of the same State requires that in every manufacturing establishment, where steam machinery is used, means of communication by speaking tubes, electric bells or other means of communication between each room where the machinery is placed and the room where the engineer is stationed shall be provided; and by another act, all accidents in such establishments causing death or bodily injury to an employee while at work must be reported within four days to the police authorities. Railroad companies are required by a Georgia statute to post on bulletins, at every station, the time that passenger trains are delayed beyond half an hour, and the wrecking of railroad trains is made a felony. In Michigan, an act to protect all citizens in their civil rights requires full and equal accommodations, facilities and privileges for all citizens alike, of every race and color, in public conveyances, inns, restaurants, barber shops and places of accommodation or amusement. PUBLIC MORALS. Under this head the legislation of the several States exhibits a growing disposition to adopt regulations for the correction of prevalent social evils. Some of these have already been mentioned as relating specially to the oversight of children. Laws against the circulation of obscene literature have been enacted in Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Statutes against gaming, gaming-houses and instruments form a part of the enactments of Connecticut, Georgia and Kentucky. In the last named State the setting up of any keno or faro bank, or conducting, for hire or compensation, any game of cards, for money, is made punishable by fine or imprisonment, and the offender is to be deemed infamous, after conviction, and be disqualified from exercising the right of suffrage or holding office. Several of the States in which legislative sessions have been held this year have dealt with the subject of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. All of them con- In the legislation on this subject, which finds a place in the statute books, some of the acts indicate a settled policy of prohibition, while others are merely tentative. In Iowa, the existing prohibitory law, one of the most sweeping in its provisions of any which has been enacted, is strengthened and made more stringent by an amendatory statute specially intended to make the law more certain of enforcement in the prevention of the illegal shipment or carriage of intoxicating liquors, and in the detection and punishment of contrivances for evading its provisions. In Georgia and Mississippi the prohibition sentiment manifests itself in the enactment of "local question of prohibition by the popular suffrage. In option" laws authorizing the determination of the the latter State the submission of the question to the people is to be on the petition of one-tenth of the qualified voters, at an election not to be held within sixty days of any general election, and if a majority of the votes cast shall be against the sale, it shall be unlawful "to sell, barter or give away, or to induce trade at any place of business, or furnish at any public place any intoxicating liquors;" if the vote shall be in favor of a sale, a license to retail may be granted by the proper authorities under prescribed conditions. The manufacture and sale of domestic wines and cider are permitted; also the sale of alcohol for medicinal or scientific purposes, and physicians may dispense intoxicants for the use of their patients. Mr. Reynolds, the member of our General Council in Mississippi, reports that in the counties in the State which have voted under the law, those where the whites are in the majority vote for prohibition. This, he remarks, is a "noteworthy change," not in the ple, which it is a pleasure to "note." He adds, "be"statute law," but in the tone and morals of the peosides this general local option law, as if the legislator was unwilling to trust his constituency on the question, there are a number of acts prohibiting the sale in certain localities and under severe pains and penalties; all contain the saving clause, that physicians may dispense the article for the use of their patients. How many patients have been benefited we are not able to note, but venture the opinion that the article is freely dispensed and the patients numerous.' In Maryland, local option is provided for in respect to several counties and local municipalities, and in other places regulated by special act. A statute on this subject, relating to Anne Arundel county, recites in its preamble that doubt and uncertainty exist in the minds of a large portion of the voter whether local option, as existing in that county, produces dered. beneficial results, and a new election is therefore or Nowhere is the struggle between experimental legislation against the evils of intemperance and the irrepressible vigor of those who promote the traffic in intoxicating liquors more active than in the State of Ohio. The Constitution of 1851 prohibited the granting of any license to traffic in intoxicating liquors, but authorized the Legislature to provide against evils re sulting from the traffic. This was prohibitory against licensing the trade, but permissive as to its existence, and the Legislature and the courts of Ohio have ever since been wrestling with the problem how to regulate the traffic without, by implication, licensing it. Conflicting opinions of judges and contradictory decisions of the courts have led to varying legislative enactments, resulting at the last session, in the passage of a law levying a direct tax on the proceeds of sales of liquor, to defeat which, as a last resort, its opponents in the Senate absented themselves from the halls of legislation and left the body of which they were members without a quorum. The act was however passed and approved and has been upheld by a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Rhode Island, by an act for the suppression of intemperance, which took effect on the 1st day of July, 1886, prohibits, in the most sweeping terms, the manufacture or sale, except for artistic, mechanical or medicinal purposes, and then under stringent regulations, of all intoxicating liquors, including malt liquors. Kindred in their nature to the laws aimed at the vice of intemperance, and very significant as indicating an enlightened public sentiment as to the best methods of its gradual repression, are the provisions in the statutes of Connecticut and Iowa, requiring that instruction in physiology and hygiene, relating specially to the effects on the human system of alcoholic liquors, shall be taught as branches of study in the public schools, whose teachers must be examined as to their qualifications to give such instruction. Congress has also provided, by a similar act, that the same special instruction shall be included in the branches of study in the common and public schools in the Territories and in the District of Columbia aud in the military and naval schools, and taught by the use of text-books as thoroughly and in the same manner as other like required branches are taught in such schools. After January 1, 1888, no certificate to teach in the public schools shall be granted to any person who has not passed a satisfactory examination in physiology and hygiene with special reference to the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics upon the human system. LABOR. Labor legislation has received a new impulse from the disturbances in railroad and other industries, set on foot and maintained during the past months by organizations ostensibly in the interest of the working people, but in their practical effects at war with the good order of society. The lawlessness and violence which were the sequel if not the fruit of the labor agitation and of the strikes, found their limit when they sought to assert a tyranny, foreign to our soil and our ideas, and when they came into conflict with the penal law and the supremacy of justice. But public opinion, which is sufficiently self-asserting and sufficiently discriminating when a great wrong, a great peril, or a great crime are suddenly in sight, while swift to stamp out the first venomous uprising of anarchy, was also not slow to discern whatever of justice and reason there might be in some of the demands of labor, however badly championed. Hence arose a body of statute law which, like Jonah's gourd, grew up in a night. Statutes of Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, New York and of Congress provide for tribunals of arbitration to settle disputes between the employer and employed, jurisdiction depending of course upon the voluntary action of both parties, a method unknown and alien to the common law, and little noteworthy except as a new illustration at once of the Anglo-Saxon passion for remedial legislation as a panacea for evils which can best work their own extinction, and of the truth conveyed in Goldsmith's philosophic couplet"How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure." Legislation on labor of a more practical character is found in a statute of Massachusetts, providing for the weekly payment of wages by corporations; another of Rhode Island, requiring a like notice of intention ou the part of an employer to discharge an employee, as the employer requires of the employee in respect to an intention to quit work, as a condition in either case of forfeiture of wages. The intermeddling by strikers with other laborers is prohibited in New Hampshire by a very stringent law, and to the catalogue of offenses is added the speaking of offensive or derisive words addressed to any person passing along any street to, from or about his lawful business or occupation, or "the making any noise or exclamation in the presence or hearing of such person, so passing, with intent to deride, offend or annoy such person, or to prevent him from pursuing and engaging in his lawful busi In the subjects with which legislation in respect to trade has occupied itself, oleomargarine outranks the rest. It has given a new word to our vocabulary, a new term to the nomenclature of science, and a new problem of constitutional law to the courts, while to the legislators of our agricultural States it has, in the sphere of statutory regulation, opened "fresh fields and pastures new." It is certainly a pleasing indication of our national prosperity, that while in so many old-world communities the scanty supply of bread is not infrequently a source of distress and disturbance, the only question concerning the staff of life which disquiets the American citizen is how to prevent his bread and butter from becoming surreptitiously converted into bread and oleomargarine. And it is especially gratifying in this period of crimination and recrimination as to the sincerity of our political parties and partisans in the matter of reform in government and its administration, and in the midst of constantly recurring instances of malfeasance and corruption in public officials, to note the spontaneous zeal of our political leaders and legislators, without distinction of party, in the interest of pure butter! New York, after passing, in 1884, an act which the Court of Appeals condemned as unconstitutional, because so sweeping in its provisions as to be in restraint of lawful trade and industry by prohibiting the sale of any article, even by its true name, which might be used as a substitute for butter, corrected its error at the last session and enacted a statute which prohibits, under heavy penalties, the sale, under the name of butter and cheese, of any substance or article not the product of unadulterated milk or cream. Ohio, by an act of seventeen sections, to prevent adulteration and deception in the sale of dairy products, amendatory of and supplementary to former legislation on the same subject, seems to have surrounded her dairies with a cordon of regulations intended not only to protect the most innocent of her citizens against spurious butter and cheese, but even the worst criminal in the State, as section 14 provides that no butter or cheese not made wholly from pure milk or cream and harmless coloring matter shall be used in any of the charitable or penal institutions of the State. Cows are put on a higher plane of protection and security than many boarding-house lodgers by a section making it an offense punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, "to feed cows on unhealthy food." A further provision requires every person dealing in any substance resembling butter or cheese, and not made of the permitted ingredients, to keep in a conspicuous place a card, not less than eight by ten inches in size, on which shall be printed in plain, bold black letters, not less in size than eight-line pica, the true name of such substance, and also the words "im itation butter," or "imitation cheese, sold here," and and when butter or cheese is asked for the placarded substance shall not be sold or furnished. Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Iowa have passed acts in the same direction dissimilar in their terms from each other and from the New York and Ohio statutes. In fact this recent oleomargarine legislation, called for by an exigency arising in part from the inventive fertility of our scientific age and in part from the ineradicable passion of our fallen human nature to palm off as a genuine article its cunningly devised counterfeit, presents a striking illustration of the diversified methods of our State legislatures, which while aiming at a single, well-ascertained and conspicuous mischief, which could easily have been dealt with in every State by statutes almost identical in their terms and provisions, instead of seeking for similar forms of enactment, struck out at it wildly, and in some instances blindly, but with a kind of consentaneous vigor quite remarkable in deliberative bodies. In Congress, the House of Representatives passed an act imposing special license taxes on manufacturers of oleomargarine and levying a direct tax of five cents per pound upon the article; the amount of tax was reduced by the Senate to two cents a pound, and the bill thus amended and providing that all packages containing the article shall be stamped and branded, received the approval of the executive, after some hesitation, accompanied by suggestions of doubt as to the constitutionality ef certain provisions of the act. State legislation stopped at the point of protecting the public against being imposed upon by sham butter and cheese. Oleomargarine and its compounds were left to stand or fall on their own demerits when dealt in under their own names. Congress, under its delegated power, levies a direct tax on the traffic in the articles themselves, and thus the offending substance comes, in any event, under the pains and penalties of the law. As an imitation it is prohibited, and as a genuine article it is taxed, a case in which the double dealing is almost as conspicuous in the remedy as in the mischief. Other noteworthy instances of legislation affecting trade and commerce, are statutes of New Hampshire regulating the sale of veal; of Iowa, prohibiting traffic in diseased hogs; of Ohio, to prevent deception in dealings in grain; of Michigan, to guard against the adulteration of honey,and of the same State requiring the inspection of fertilizers and regulating their sale, and like statutes of Maryland and Kentucky. The last-named State imposes a heavy license fee on venders of lightning-rods, and the inhabitants of the rural districts of Kentucky will have the satisfaction of knowing that their premises cannot be lawfully invaded by the lightning-rod man until a payment of $250 into the State treasury has first been made. A statute of Maryland, beneficent in its intention as to the public but somewhat invidious in its application, is entitled "An act to prevent incompetent perBons from conducting the busines of plumbing in the city of Baltimore," and confines the practice of that useful industry to skilled persons to be licensed after examination by a "State board of commissioners of practical plumbing." Kansas punishes as a misdemeanor, and by fine and treble damages, any person who shall misrepresent, deceive or defraud any other person in the sale of any fruit, shade or ornamental tree, vine, shrub, plant, bulb or root, by substituting inferior or different varieties, or who shall falsely represent the name, age or class of any such natural object. Our esteemed member of the General Council in Kansas suggests to me in reporting this statute that it is the work of some injured statesman who has fallen a victim to the arts of an enterprising tree agent. But if this be so, he found a sympathizer in the Legisla ture of New Jersey, which has just passed a similar statute to protect persons in buying fruit trees and fruit briers, by which any misrepresentation of the name or nature of fruit trees or briers is made a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine not exceeding $100 and imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding three months, or both, at the discretion of the court. Statutes of this kind will find advocates for their enactment in many States of the Union, especially among suburban proprietors who on their change from city pavements to green fields too often fall an easy prey to the wiles of the horticultural agent, who possesses the immense advantage of trading in an unknown tongue, and can dignify the sale of a few shoots of that vulgar creeper and the Dutchman's pipe into a transaction in Sipho Aristolochia. CORPORATIONS. Under this head a noteworthy statute of New Hampshire prohibits all corporations not created by the laws of the State from entering into any compact for regulating rates of insurance, and provides that in all cases of total loss by fire, the amount of damage recoverable by the insured shall be the amount expressed in the policy. This statute is described by the member of our General Council for New Hampshire as the "famous act," on account of which the foreign insurance companies left the State. It proved as effectual an act of expulsion for all the leading foreign companies as that by which the Orleans Princes were driven out of France. Fifty-eight of these corporations, representing an aggregate capital of $120,000,000, withdrew from the State, leaving the insurable property within its boundaries with no means of protection against fire except the policies of home companies, having altogether a capital of only $2,000,000, and those of a class of foreign companies designated by the insurance commissioner of New Hampshire in terms doubtless sufficiently intelligible in the vernacular of insurance as "irresponsible buzzards and wild cats ranging through the State on a hunt for premiums." Other acts impose stringent regulations on foreign surety companies and agents and officers of local companies. It has been a bad year for corporations in New Hampshire. Foreign insurance companies are also placed under special disabilities by a statute of Iowa. Michigan, by an act passed over the governor's veto, provides for minority representation in boards of directors of corporations by cumulative voting, each stockholder being authorized to vote for as many directors as he holds shares of stock, multiplied by the number of directors, and to distribute his votes on the same principle among as many candidates as he shall see fit. This mode of securing minority repre sentation the Legislature of New York made applicable to municipal elections in the city of New York by a bill, which after passing both houses, failed to receive the executive approval. Telegraph companies are made liable by a statute of Mississippi to fine in addition to damages recoverable by law, for failing to transmit and deliver messages within a reasonable time and without reasonable ex cuse. By a statute of Massachusetts, corporations employing labor are authorized to issue special stock, to be held only by their employees, at the par value of $10 per share, to be paid for in monthly installments of $1 on each share and to be entitled to dividends, when declared, in the proportion which the par value of such special shares bears to the par value of the general |