Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/34

 The Follies of Legislation. with the one introduced in 1896, in the same State, prohibiting the pickingof huckleberries with the feet. At Albany one of the Tammany legisla tors who did not know a bill from a high wayman's billy, was told he ought to have a law named after himself; so he introduced a measure and secured its passage through the Assembly which made it a penal offense to put less than thirteen oysters in an oyster stew. This would be hard on church fairs. Another august legislator — I presume he was from the " rural districts " this time — introduced a bill making it a felony to en tice away bees, particularly when they are swarming, and this was only killed by a city member moving to amend that every bee should have its owner's name and address stamped on its business end for identifica tion. But this is not worse than the ordinance introduced into the common council of New York City, which its mover explained as fol lows : " One of the greatest perils of this big city," he said, " is the danger of being run down by street cars. Every person hit by a street car is struck by the front plat form. Am I right? Of course I am. You never heard of a man being knocked down by the rear platform or by the side of the car. Now the remedy is simple. My re solution abolishes front platforms." Another kind of law, passed in Nebraska in early days, has an equally funny mistake in it. A part of it reads : " For the violation of the third section of an act to license and regulate the sale of malt, spirituous and vinous liquors, twenty-five dollars, and on proof of the violation of said section or any part thereof, the justice shall render judg ment for the whole amount of costs and be committed to the common jail until the sum is paid." If this law was enforced many a justice in Nebraska would languish in the common jail. Similar to this is bill No. 251 of the Ken tucky legislature which reads : " It shall be

unlawful for any person to fire or discharge at random any deadly weapon whether said weapon be loaded or unloaded." Really that legislature must have had in view the damage done by weapons thought to be un loaded. Michigan has on its statute books the Waite Anti-treating law, passed in 1895, which prohibits the purchase of liquor to be given to another as a treat; and in South Carolina private dispensaries became so obnoxious that a bill was introduced making it unlawful for a citizen of that State to wear hip-pockets in his trousers, the minimum penalty being $i 5Oand six months' imprison ment. Ye gods and little fishes! What would the governor of South Carolina do when he was visited by his brother of North Carolina? Despite the fact that the "Outlook" is the authority for the statement, I think we may well believe that the governor of South Caro lina vetoed it when it came into his august presence. But I would call his Honor's at tention to the action of the Ohio law-makers in 1898 as worthy of imitation even if he had to issue a special message recommending it. They defeated the Adams bill legalizing the weakening of whisky wjth water. The Kansas lower house of 1898, while one of their members with an unpronounce able Russian name was absent, rushed through a bill changing his name to Pat Murphy. I cannot remember the name, but if I could write down such an unheard-of jumble of consonants and vowels, you would also judge that this was an unusual inspi ration of common sense. An illustration of one of the tragedies of our law-making is the effort of the Pennsyl vania miners, extending over years, to get a law prohibiting the payment of wages in store orders. They got such a law through a year or so ago. But in some committee, or in engrossing, the words "on demand" were inserted, so that the law reads: "All wages shall be paid in cash on demand." If a miner demands his wages in cash, he is