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 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Acts not Criminal per sc." While he does not contend that at common law no kind of cheat ing and defrauding is an indictable offense he does maintain that no mere fraud of this kind in the absence of a statute is indictable unless it affects the public, such as the use of false weights in trade, the selling of unwholesome provisions, or the rendering of false accounts by a public officer. The cases in the United States, however, are in conflict. CRIMINAL LAW (see Conflict of Laws). DOMESTIC RELATIONS. " Difficulties in Marrying in the United States," by R. Vashon Rogers, K. C., Canadian Law Review (V. v, P- 145)DOMESTIC RELATIONS. " Some Defects in the Quebec Civil Code Respecting Inheri tance Rights of Women," by F. P. Walton, Canadian Law Review (V. v, p. 172). EQUITY. " Can a Court of Equity Circum vent the Law? " by J. M. Sullivan, Albany Law Journal (V. Ixviii, p. 37). EQUITY (Injunctions, Boycotts). In the March American Law Review (V. xl, p. 196) James Wallace Bryan publishes a valuable treatise on " Injunctions against Boycotts and Similar Unlawful Acts." He confines his article chiefly to acts unlawful in their essence. "Violent and. coercive measures are, of course, universally condemned. The courts as a rule, however, allow combinations of men to compel a person to grant their legitimate demands, or to respect their proper interests, by simultaneously ceasing to do business with him and by procuring others, through fair and reasonable circulars and other persuasive means or even through notices that their re fusal will lose them the patronage of the com bination, to do likewise." "Coercion and intimidation may never be employed as boycott measures. These terms are not confined to acts such as cause abject fear, but embrace all compulsory and wrongful acts calculated to overcome the will and judg ment of a man of average firmness and make him submit to dictation in his business. "Intimidation means more than threats of violence to person or property. There are

other effective coercive methods which are used in boycotts. One of them is a threat by a union to order strikes among the employees of those who will not shun the boycotted per son. The strike by way of boycott has always incurred the displeasure of the courts." It is as unlawful to drive off prospective and probable customers as those who have already contracted "We have already shown that solicitation to join a union or to strike may generally be addressed to workmen unless they are bound by contracts of service, in which case it may be enjoined as violating the employer's rights. The same is true when persuasion is accom panied by acts illegal by nature. Since, there fore, it is a restraint upon personal liberty to stop men upon the streets and compel them to listen to importunate arguments which they are unwilling to hear, an injunction, at the suit of the employer whose rights as master are infringed, may issue against such acts, even though the laborers so tampered with are not under contract, but work for him only from day to day. For a stronger reason, strikers or union agents may be enjoined from enter ing upon a person's premises in order to induce his workmen to leave him; because this is trespass against his property, causing continu ous and irreparable injury for which damages are no adequate remedy." The courts agree on the law of intimidation, but differ when they apply it to particular cases. "The rule, however, which may be gathered from the authorities seems to lay down that a wholly peaceful picket system, whose aim is only legitimate persuasion and argument ad dressed to willing listeners, or the collection of information regarding the progress and con dition of the strike, which news is not designed for an oppressive use, is harmless; but that a picket system which is employed as a measure of coercion and violence, or which has in reality that effect, is illegal and enjoinable in a proper case. But the federal courts, though affirm ing this rule in theory, announce as a result of their experience, that in practice ' this system, constantly kept up, in its nature leads to dis turbance, and has a tendency to intimidate."" There are also a series of important cases under the Federal Interstate Commerce Act and more important still under the Federal