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Interest in public education continues unabated and the scope of the state's activities is being continually enlarged. Liberal appropriations are made for all the public institutions of learning. Tennessee has devoted 25 per cent of its state revenue to school purposes. California provides for the separate education of children of Indian and Mongolian descent. The course of instruction in the common schools is extended and in many places includes manual training and domestic economy. Technical schools, farmers' institutes and agricultural experiment stations are established. Biological and bacteriological research is carried on by public authority. Public libraries are encouraged in cities and towns and state commissions maintain and conduct circulating libraries in the rural districts. Pennsylvania authorized the maintenance out of public funds of law libraries in the several counties. However lawyers may differ as to other pursuits, they are quite agreed that their own calling is affected with a public interest.

Western states restrict the hours of daily labor to eight in mines, establishments for the reduction of ore and plaster and cement works. New York restricts the number of hours per day and the number of consecutive hours of service, as well as the length of intermission between, in work where caissons or other apparatus requiring the use of compressed air are necessary. Texas denies the right of a man to serve more than sixteen hours consecutively out of twenty-four in the operation of trains. A number of states limit the hours of woman's labor in factories, laundries and other places to fifty-four in any one week. These enactments will many of them be contested as invasions of the constitutional right of men and women to work at whatever they please and as long as they please; not, however, by those whose rights are thus invaded.

Child labor is governed as to age, number of hours and the nature of the occupation in which children may be engaged. The Pennsylvania statute requires that the minor shall be able to read and write English intelligently. The different laws are designed to secure to the children the opportunities of at least a primary education and to prevent their employment altogether under

unsafe or unsanitary conditions. Various regulations look to the reasonable comfort and security of men in different pursuits. The Boston and Maine Company is by the statute of Massachusetts authorized to pension employes. Texas, Michigan and Iowa adopt the rule of comparative negligence in railroad service, and in some states the defense of contributory negligence is excluded where statutory requirements as to machinery have not been complied with.

Minnesota is considering an entire change of base in the matter of employer's liability, from that of regligence or fault of the employer to that of risk of the industry or industrial insurance. It is especially noteworthy that the change is not to be rashly undertaken, but upon the recommendation of the governor, the Legislature has created a commission to investigate the operation of "laws passed by other states and foreign countries" and to report to the next session the results of their investigation, with a draft of bills" providing a plan for speedy remedy for employes for injuries received in the course of their employment which will be fair to the employe and the employers and just to the State."

The public health and safety receive attention in numerous enactments enlarging the powers of boards of health and greatly extending the activities of the state in the field of preventive medicine, and especially as to tuberculosis. Rigorous measures for the inspection of public places and for their enforced sanitation recur again and again. The innkeeper, almost the first object of public attention, but for a long time neglected, is coming again into his ancient inheritance of supervision by public authority. He must provide means of escape in case of fire, and must keep his inn in clean and sanitary condition. Some of the regulations descend to minute particulars. The syndicated towel is taken from its roller and each guest is to be provided with his own. Kansas requires for each bed "clean sheets of sufficient width and length to reach the entire width and length of the bed, and with the upper sheet to be of sufficient length to fold back over the bedding at the upper end or head of the bed," but makes no requirement as to tucking in at the foot. Other states, patterning after Procrustes, who adapted his guests to his bed, fix an in

variable standard of size, whatever the stature of the man who is to repose between the sheets. But the standard is not everywhere the same. The State of Washington prescribes but ninety inches, Missouri makes it ninety and nine, while Oregon adds nine to this ninety and nine and requires full nine feet for the draperies of her tavern couches. These details seem petty and they are due to the fact that we allow little discretion to our administrative officials.

Precautions are taken against the spread of disease among domestic animals. The busy bee is protected against infection. Forests are guarded against fire, water, depredation and other ills to which they are heir. There is no reluctance to exert the power of the state either by way of prevention or promotion in matters affecting the general welfare, where individual effort would be inadequate to the purpose.

The cigarette has been placed under the ban in varying degrees from the forbidding of sales to minors to the inhibition of possession by anybody. State-wide prohibition of the liquor traffic is accomplished in Tennessee by preventing the sale within four miles of a school house. Local option, the exclusion of manufacturers and wholesale dealers from an interest in saloons, the limitation of saloons in proportion to population, provisions against treating and against drinking upon trains and the banishment of the free lunch are features of the legislation in other states. Michigan, however, makes an exception in the matter of the lunch, preserving in express terms the time-honored association of beer and pretzels. Wisconsin, loyal to the beverage which made her chief city famous, prescribes a standard of purity for beer.

More and more the public interest in the various callings of life is being recognized, and laws of the present year bring the plumber, the barber, the embalmer, the professional nurse and the optometrist under public regulation.

Interest in the uniformity of legislation is growing. Eight more states have enacted into law the warehouse receipts bill recommended by the association and six states have provided by

law for the appointment of commissioners on the uniformity of legislation.

Nebraska, Texas and Kansas have provided for the guaranty of bank deposits. Nebraska and Texas make it compulsory upon all state institutions, while the system in Kansas is a voluntary one. Banks are free to enter or not, as they see proper, and, having entered, they may withdraw at their pleasure.

Kansas has adopted an entire new code of practice designed to expedite and to simplify legal procedure. It is subject to the criticism that it has fixed much by legislation which would be better left to rules of court. It has undertaken, however, to subordinate form to substance and has followed the recommendation of this association by providing that on appeal no case shall be reversed unless the errors complained of appear affirmatively to have prejudiced the rights of the appellant. Wisconsin has adopted a like provision.

Michigan provided in her old Constitution that "the Supreme Court shall by general rules establish, modify and amend the practice in such court," and in its new Constitution, which went into effect on the first of January, it extended this provision to "all other courts of record.”

Changes in the criminal law manifest a humane spirit. The reformatory purpose is recognized in juvenile courts, the parole system and the indeterminate sentence. Colorado has here again struck out upon a new path in an act for the "redemption of offenders." This provides a probation division of the chancery court and empowers the district attorney to file a petition instead of a criminal information, with the right reserved to the defendant to have the petition dismissed and the case heard on an information in the criminal division of the court. If the case is heard on the petition, the defendant is subject to examination and may be required to testify against himself, but if found guilty he may not be committed to prison, but will be required to give bond or personal pledge for his good conduct in the future and to submit to such terms of probation as the court may impose. The terms which the court is authorized to impose relate all to personal con

duct, and with which the defendant can comply if he will. The period of probation may not extend beyond two years. The act applies without reference to age, but only to "persons whose acts or offenses in a criminal proceeding would constitute a misdemeanor."

At the last regular session of Congress a new and complete penal code was adopted. In the case of nearly every offense, a maximum of punishment was prescribed, but no minimum, thus leaving to the judge the utmost latitude on the side of mercy in the imposition of the sentence. Many of the offenses under federal law do not necessarily involve a grave degree of moral turpitude and the minimum punishment fixed was felt often to be out of proportion to the wrong which had been done. Resort was had in such cases to the arbitrary method of suspending sentence indefinitely. Now the judge may prescribe such punishment, light or heavy, within the maximum, as the particular circumstances of the case may require.

Of a different tendency are two acts, one by the State of California and one by the State of Connecticut, providing for the asexualization of inmates of insane asylums and state prisons in the discretion of certain medical officers of the state. The legislation is offensive because of its barbarism, and objectionable also because of the want of safeguards for the victim, there being no provision for anything in the way of a hearing and no notice required to his relatives or friends.

Revision of the statutes is going on in a number of states. New York has been engaged upon it for a number of years and has just brought it to completion. The work is pronounced by competent critics to be the best that has been done for many years and the credit of it is largely due to the labors and the zeal of the Treasurer of our Association.

There are new statutes, and amendments to old ones, against trusts and monopolies," but we are left much in doubt as to their practical scope. They clearly proscribe any mere agreement, arrangement or combination between individuals, partnerships or corporations, to limit production or to fix prices. This is the least hurtful because the least efficient of the various attempts at

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