Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/438

 419. OC'X'OBER TERM, 1007. Opinlon of the Court. 0O U.& and sale of goods in Virni, by a citizen of New York whilst in Virginia, would constitute a portion of such commerce." In Hooper v. Ca/)ovaa, 155 ?. 8. 648, it wsa id: "If the power to regulate interstate commerce applied to all the incidents to which said commerce might give rise and to all contracts which raight be made in the course of its transaction, that power would embrace the entire sphere of mercantile activity in any way connected with trade between the States; and would exclude State control over many con- tracts purely domestic in their nature. The bnsinem of in- surance is not commerce. The contract of insurance is not an instrumentality of commerce. The making of such a contract is a mere incident of commercial intercourse, and in this re- spect there is no difference whatever between insurance against fire and insurance against 'the perils of the sea.'" These cases are not in conflict with these in which it is held that the negotiation of sales of goeds in a State by a person employed to solicit for them in another State, the goods to be shipped from the one State to the other, is interstate com- rnerec. /o v. $ Cou/ /'ag/, 120 U.S. 489; similar cases are/,c/ v. Plm*;, 203 U.S. 507, and C/wcU v. o Col, 187 U. S. 622. In these cases goods in a foreign State are sold upon orders for the purpose of bringing them to the State 'which undertakes to tax them, and the transactions are held to he interstate commerce, be- cause the subject-matter of the dealin is goods to be shipped in interstate commerce; to be carried between States and de- livered from vendor to purchaser b) means of interstate car- riago. But how stands the present ce upon the facts stipulated? The appellants are brokers who take orders and transmit them to other States for the purchase and sale of grain or cotton upon speculation. They are, in no just sense, common carriers of messages, as are the t'lcraph companies. For that part of the transactions, merely slculative and followed by no actual delivery, it cannot. be fairly contended that such contracts are

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