Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/161

 RECENT CASES. 143

RECENT CASES.

Common Carriers of Passengers — Duty to Provide Seats — Right op Passenger to Refuse to Pay Fare. — A person who has entered a train with the intention of paying his fare has a risht to reruse payment unless a seat be provided him. Not being a trespasser he can be put off only at some regular station. He could» however, become a trespasser " by refusing to leave the train on a reasonable oppor- tunity being afforded." Hardetibergh v. St. Foul M, ^ M, Ky, Co., 38 N. W. Rep. 625 (Minn.).

Constitutional Law — Class Legislation. — Pub. Acts Mich. 1885, p. 356, authorizing an attorney's fee of I25 to be taxed against a railroad company in case of judgment against it in an action for injuries to stock, on account of its failure to fence Its track as required by the act, is unconstitutional and void, as being an attempt to create special advantages to one class at the expense and to the detriment of another. Lafferty v. Ckkaro &* fV. M, Ry. Co., 38 N. W. Rep. 660 (Mich.). See also Wilder v. Railway Co., 38 N. W. Rep. 289.

Constitutional Law — Criminal Trial — Eleven Jurors. — A defendant in a criminal action may, when permitted by the court, the State not objecting, consent to try his case before eleven jurors, and such trial is not unconstitutional. StaU v. Sackett et al., 38 N. W. Rep. 773 (Minn.).

The court put the case upon the same ground as the waiver of the right to be tried by unprejudiced jurors, both being '*in some degree ** questions of juris- diction.

Constitutional Law — Due Process of Law — Taking Property with- out Compensation — Oleomargarine Act. — An act providing that no person shall manufacture or sell any substance designed to take the place of butter or cheese made from pure milk or cream, declaring void all contracts made in violation of it, subjecting the offender to a penalty and to a criminal prosecution, is held to be a valid exercise of the police power of the State for the protection of the public health, not depriving any one of the rights of liberty or property without due process of law, nor of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment of the Federal Constitution, nor in conflict with the four- teenth amendment on the ground that it deprives the citizen, without compensation, of his property acquired prior to its passage. Powell v. Com. of Pennsylvania^ 8 Sup. Ct Rep. 992.

Constitutional Law— Interstate Commerce— Tax on Telegraph Com- panies — Partial Validity.— A single tax, assessed under the laws of a State upon the receipts of a telegraph company which were derived partlv from interstate commerce ana partly from commerce within the State, but which were returned and assessed in gross, without apportionment, is invalid only as to that portion assessed on receipts from interstate commerce, being to this extent an unconsti- tutional regulation of such commerce. Ralterman v. West. Union Tel. Co., 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1 127.

Compare the following apparently conflicting case: Where a large part of the business of a telegraph companv consists in transmitting messages between differ- ent States, no State within which it establishes an ofiice can impose upon it a license tax based upon its gross receipts, such tax affecting the entire busi- ness of the company, interstate as well as domestic, and beinp; an unconstitutional regulation of interstate commerce. LeUmp v. Port of Mobile, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1380.

Constitutional Law — Statute Prohibiting Gifts with Sales of Food. — By a statute in New York it is made a misdemeanor for anv person who sells food to give awa^ therewith, as part of the transaction of safe, any other thing as a premium, gift, prize, or reward. Held, to be unconstitutional, because an undue restraint of a person's liberty to follow a lawful industrial pursuit not in- jurious to the conmiunity. The statute is not a valid exercise of the police power, oecause it has no reference to the comfort, the safety, or the welfare of society ; nor is it, for the same reason, a proper exercise of the power to declare what shall be a crime. The case differs from that of Powell v. Com., 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 992, in which a Pennsylvania statute prohibiting the manufacture and s^e of oleomar-