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 404 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

the dangers of their employment. The manifest legislative purpose was to protect the servant by positive law, because he had not previously shown himself capable of protecting himself by contract ; and it would entirely defeat this purpose thus to permit the servant to contract the master out of the statute.

In the other case, Gillen vs. P. & S. R. Co. (44 Atl. 361), the supreme court of Maine held that the continuing servant assumed the risk of injury from the railway's refusal to obey the law requiring blocked frogs and guard-rails. In the Narramore case the New York case of Knisley vs. Pratt was urged by the railway company as an authority for reversing the plaintiff's recovery. The court discusses the case and the authorities upon which the decision was rested, disapproves its conclusions, and refuses to follow it. The New York rule seems to be followed in Ohio (see L. E. & W. R. Co. vs. Craig, 40 N. E. Reporter, 886-73, Fed. 610) and in Minnesota (Fleming vs. R. R. Co., 27 Minn, in). The English rule is laid down in a recent appellate court decision in Indiana (Boyd vs. Brazil Block Coal Co., 50 N. E. Reporter, 368, 1898); also in Missouri (Durant vs. Mining Co., 97 Mo. 62).

In Mississippi the state constitution provides (Art. VII, sec. 193 :

Knowledge by any employe" injured of the defective or unsafe character of any machinery, ways, or appliances shall be no defense to an action for injuries caused thereby, except as to conductors or engineers in charge of dangerous or unsafe cars or engines voluntarily operated by them. 1

A similar statutory provision appears in the Revised Statutes of Ontario, chap. 160, sec. 6:

.... Provided, however, that such workman shall not by reason only of his continuing in the employment of the employer with knowledge of the defect negligence act or omission which caused his injury be deemed to have voluntarily incurred the risk of the injury.

This discussion has taken greater length than was originally intended. The subject is a comparatively new one, and of obvious and increasing importance. If the writer may venture

i The exception is interesting and suggestive. The railroad lobby, in all states the most bitter opponent of any extension of employers' liability, however reasonable or just, was apparently strong in Mississippi. Any other reason for such an excep- tion it would be difficult to find.