Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/509

 THE GREEN BAG nor any county, city, etc., shall have power to pay or grant any extra compensation to any public officer, employee, agent, or servant, or increase the compensation of any such person to take effect during the continuance in office of any person whose salary might be increased thereby. The question was whether under this amendment a statute which increased the salaries of the justices of the Supreme Court of Errors and the Superior Court, to takeeffect from the passage of the act, was valid. The statute was upheld on the ground that the constitutional amendment did not prohibit an increase in the compensation of officers by leg islation, but only by grant other than legislation. In reaching this conclusion the conditions which jjave rise to the constitutional amendment are adverted to and it is shown that the evil which that amendment sought to remedy was the making of grants, or in effect the giving of gratuities to public officers in addition to their salaries. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Physicians — Reg ulation.) Ark. — In Thompson v. Van Lear, 92 S.W. 773, the Supreme Court of Arkansas holds that a statute forbidding physicians and surgeons to solicit patients through paid agents is a valid police regulation. It is pointed out that the busi ness of a physician directly affects public health, and that it does not follow that because the mer chant, the manufacturer, and others may solicit trade through hired agents that a physician may do the same thing. Attention is called to the fact that many persons who do not need a physician's services are nevertheless prone to solicit medical advice, and that, while a conscientious physician would doubtless advise such a patient that no treatment was needed, a physician who had secured a patient by means of a hired agent and paid out a certain sum to obtain the patient would be under a strong temptation to put him through a course of treatment whether he needed it or not, in order to get his money back and make a profit on his investment. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Regulation of Plumbing.) Wash. — The Supreme Court of Washington, in State v. Smith, takes issue with the Supreme Court of New York, which in People v. Warden, 144 N. Y. 529, 39 N. E. 686, upheld the validity of a statute providing for the licensing of plumbers. The statutes are almost identical, and provide for the creation of a board of plumb ing examiners, who are empowered to examine all persons desiring to carry on the business of plumb ing, and issue licenses to such as they may deem qualified. The statute made it a crime to carry on the business of plumbing without obtaining a

license, but stated none of the details of the examination to be required, and provided that two master plumbers and one journeyman plumber should constitute the board of examiners. A number of cases, including Singer v. State, 19 All. 1044, State v. Gardner, 51 N. E. 136, State v. Benzenberg, 76 N. W. 124, are referred to as xipholding the New York decision, but based very largely upon the views of Mr. Justice Peckham who dissented in the New York case and wrote the opinion in Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 25 Sup. Ct. 539. The court concludes that the act in question is not a health or police regulation, but is invalid, as affecting the privileges and immunities of citizens. A comparatively recent holding that courts will not pretend to be more ignorant than the ordinary citizen seems to be embodied in the concluding paragraph where the court says, " We are not permitted to inquire into the motive of the legislature, and yet why should a court blindly declare that the public health is involved, when all the rest of mankind know full well that the control of the plumbing business by the board and its licensees is the sole end in view." CONTEMPT. (Criminal Liability — Truth as Defense.) Colo. — A case of paramount interest in Colorado, and which is of no little importance elsewhere, is that of People v. News-Times Publish ing Company, 84 Pac. 912. The proceeding was one to punish respondents for criminal construc tive contempt in publishing, pending the rehear ing of a cause, charges that the Supreme Court was influenced by corrupt motives in making its decision. It is first declared that while causes are before the Supreme Court on petitions for rehearing. they are so far as the law of contempt is concerned, pending causes. Two related holdings which are apparently correct, immediately follow the propo sition just announced, and are to the effect that a publication charging the Supreme Court and certain of its judges with having been influenced by corrupt motives in their rulings in causes still pending for rehearing and that they would be so influenced in their final disposition of them and of a cause not yet heard, constitutes criminal constructive contempt, and that the intent of the publisher of such charge is no defense to a pro ceeding against him for contempt. The most important and far-reaching point decided in the case is that the truth of the charges is no defense to the contempt proceedings. Mr. Justice Stcele dissents in a very able opinion in which he lays special stress upon the unsoundness of the last point mentioned as being made by the majority, closing as follows: