Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/552

 CHANGES IN THE STATUTE LAW reducing, refining, or smelting minerals or ores, etc., for a period of time longer than eight hours in a day of twenty-four hours. Montana has passed a similar act. "Texas provides that it shall be unlawful for any corporation to issue any tickets, check, or writing, obligatory to any servant. or employee for labor performed redeem able in gold or merchandise. "Kansas provides that no corporation shall require or permit any conductor or engineer, or other employee, who has been at work for sixteen consecutive hours to continue on duty, or to perform any work for such railroad until he has had at least eight hours' rest. "The same state provides that wages earned out of the state and payable out of the state shall be exempt from garnishment or attachment, or where the cause of action arose out of the state, unless the defendant to the suit is personally served with process. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE "A law which will be criticized as one of doubtful propriety was passed by Pennsyl vania last winter, permitting a divorce from husband or wife who is a hopeless lunatic. The act seeks to guard its questionable pro vision by providing that the hopeless lun acy, must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, except that ten years in an asylum shall be regarded as conclusive proof of hopeless insanity. The taking in Pennsyl vania hereafter of husband and wife, for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, must be modified to the extent that if the sickness shall partake of the nature of lun acy in a chronic state there may be a dis solution of the bond. May not the man in Pennsylvania, now married to one who is a hopeless invalid from bodily disease, or perhaps maimed and disfigured for life by some unavoidable accident, see in this act ground for an appeal to the legislature to be released from his bonds also? Hopeless mental infirmity is in many respects no worse than hopeless physical infirmity; .the

exemption of the one must lead to the other. "This act finds its parallel in a law passed last winter by the legislature of Hawaii allowing a divorce to a man or woman whose wife or husband is afflicted with leprosy. "An act of Pennsylvania authorizes the governor to communicate with the gover nors of the several states, requesting them to cooperate in the assembling of a con gress of delegates from the states, with the object of securing as nearly as possible a uniform statute on the matter of divorce throughout the United States. "This has been done by several of the other states. PRIVATE CORPORATIONS "Wisconsin, responding quickly to popu lar demand, has passed a law providing for the distribution of the surplus of mutual life insurance companies among the policy hold ers at least once every five years. "New Jersey provides for the appointment by the governor, of a committee of three persons to revise and codify the laws relat ing to corporations, who shall report to the legislature on or before the first day of its next session, bills for carrying out this purpose. "Minnesota prohibits corporations from contributing for political purposes, and by a singular obtuseness a penalty is imposed, not upon the corporation, but upon any officer or stockholder who takes part in or consents to the makingof such contributions. TRADE AND COMMERCE "In Kansas, any corporation, foreign or domestic, engaged in the manufacture or distribution of any commodity of general use that shall intentionally, for the purpose of destroying competition, discriminate be tween different sections or communities by selling such product to one section or com munity at a lower rate than to another, after equalizing the distance from such point of manufacture and freight rates therefrom, shall be deemed guilty of an unfair discrim