Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/660

 648 FEDERAL REPORTER. �■would adhere to the schedule of freights and farea which it had adopted as aforesaid, but that he had been injured, and charged that it intended to abandon said schedule and adopt the one promulgated by said railroad commission, which it admitted would not enable it to earn a sufficient income to pay its expenses, the interest on its bonded debt, but that on the contrary its receipts -would not enable it to pay the interest on its bonds by at least $40,000 per annum, and that such deficit would continue from year to year, and the stockholders of said Company would receive no dividend whatever, but that the value of the stock of said company would be gradually destroyed by said annual deficit. �The bill averred that said act of October 14, 1879, under authority of which said railroad commissioners assumed to act, was in violation of the several provisions of the constitution of Georgia above quoted, and that it excluded the defendant railroad company from its right of trial by jury, guarantied by the constitution of the state ; that it violated that clause of the constitution of the state, paragraph 9, § 1, art. 1, which ordains that excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel nor unusual punishments inflicted ; that said act violated that part of the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States which declares that "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor denyto any person within its limits the equal protection of the laws;" and section 10, art. 1, which forbids a state to pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. �The bill prayed that the Savannah, Florida & Western Eailroad Company might be enjoined from doing any act which would be an acceptanoe of the said statutes of October 14, 1879, as an amendment to its charter, or from carrying out the provisions of said act, or from operating its road for such rates of fare and freight as should be inadequate to yield a revenue safficient to pay the expenses of operating said rail- road, and maintaining its track and equipment, and paying interest on its bonded debt and reasonable dividends to its stof^kholders, and provide a reasonable sinking fund for the payniQnt of the principal of its bonded debt, and that said ����