Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/462

444 for any person, engaged in the business of baking, to engage or permit others in his employ to engage, in the labor of baking for the purpose of sale, between the hours of 6 on Saturday and 6  on Sunday, except," etc. The question of the constitutionality of this statute was raised in Ex parte Westerfield, 55 Cal., 550. Judge Myrick gave the decision in the following terms:

"This is special legislation. A certain class is selected. As well might it have said, if master carpenters or blacksmiths, or if attorneys having clerks, shall labor or permit employés to labor, they shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished; carpenters or blacksmiths, not master-workmen or attorneys without clerks, may labor at their will. The baking of bread is in itself lawful and necessary. Even if there be authority to restrain the labor on some one day, it must be if at all under a general law restraining labor on that day." Again it is held that if some may not work according to their own will, the rule must be uniform, and all who are engaged in pursuits of like kind must be subjected to the same rule.

Analogous to the use of time is the method of payment. When the State of Pennsylvania attempted to regulate the method of payment which should be adopted under compulsion by the employers who were engaged in mining or manufacturing, and when the State also provided that no employer should sell supplies to the employés at any greater profit than that received from other employés, the Supreme Court declared the statute void.

In Illinois the Legislature attempted to provide for the weighing of coal at the mines under different conditions from the conditions of weighing or delivery which might apply in other places. The court held the act unconstitutional, as being class legislation.

The State of New York passed an act against excluding persons from equal enjoyment of places of amusement on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and this act was sustained.

There could be no clearer statement of the right of every man to make contracts and to enjoy the free use of time for such number of hours as may be agreed upon by his employer, than that given by Judge Andrews in this case. The learned judge declares not only that life, liberty, and property must be protected, but that every person must be protected in every essential incident in the enjoyment of his rights. Can there be a more