Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/232

 0 OCTOBBE Tk' 1907. county, to inanir into the cause of hla detention and to obtain Circuit Judge discharged the appellee from imprisonrnt, and directed that & copy of the order of the diharge should be ocrtitled to the police justice's court of the city of Ashevllle and to the sheriff of Buncombe county, in whe custody the peti- tioner then was. Ex parte Wood, 155 Fed. Pep. 190. It appeared that prior to 'the passage, in 1907, of the acts of 'he North Carolina legislature in relation to pmenger and frCght rates on railroads within the State, the 8outhem Rail- way Company were charging the rates then allowed by law. After the pamgc of the acts above mntioned, which greatly riuced the rate of compensation /or the transportation of both paengere and freight, the Southern Railway Company commered a suit in equity in the Ctreuit Court of the United 8tates for the Westsin District of North Carolina lint the corporation commion and the attorney general and as/stant attorney general of the State, to enjoin the taking of any pro- ceedin$s or the commencement of any suits or actions to enforce the acts in question or to recover penalties for the disobedience of such acts by the company. The bill alleged that the acts were unconstitutional, and that if the rates were enforced the result would he to prevent the company earning anything upon its' investment, and deprive it of its property without due process of law, and deny it .Jhe equal protection of the laws contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The bill also avirred th&t a duly rested upon the corporation commias/on .and the attorney general and as- �;stant attorney general to tke such proceedings as they might deem expedient for the enforcement of the acis, and that the corporation coremism/on would, for the purpose of putting the acts into effect, do those things which it wa provided should be done, and in case of continuou refusal on the paxt of the company to charge only the rate specified the attorney genera] and his aistant would proceed to enforce the same as pre- scribed in the acts.

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