repair, maintenance, cleaning or operation of trains, cars or engines, shall be regarded as different departments of labor within the meaning of this section. Knowledge, by any such railroad employee injured, of the defective or unsafe character or condition of any machinery, ways, appliances or structures, shall be no defence to an action for injury caused thereby. When death, whether instantaneous or not, results to such an employee from any injury for which he could have recovered, under the above provisions, had death not occurred, then his legal or personal representative, surviving consort, and relatives (and any trustee, curator, committee or guardian of such consort or relatives) shall, respectively, have the same rights and remedies with respect thereto as if his death had been caused by the negligence of a co-employee while in the performance, as vice-principal, of a non-assignable duty of the master. Every contract or agreement, express or implied, made by an employee, to waive the benefit of this section, shall be null and void. This section shall not be construed to deprive any employee, or his legal or personal representative, surviving consort or relatives (or any trustee, curator, committee or guardian of such consort or relatives), of any rights or remedies that he or they may have by the law of the land, at the time this Constitution goes into effect. Nothing contained in this section shall restrict the power of the General Assembly to further enlarge, for the above-named class of employees, the rights and remedies herein before provided for, or to extend such rights and remedies to, or otherwise enlarge the present rights and remedies of, any other class of employees of railroads or of employees of any person, firm or corporation.

Sec. 163. No foreign corporation shall be authorized to carry on, in this State, the business, or to exercise any of the powers or functions, of a public service corporation, or be permitted to do anything which domestic corporations are prohibited from doing, or be relieved from compliance with any of the requirements made of similar domestic corporations by the Constitution and laws of this State, where the same can be made applicable to such foreign corporation without discriminating against it. But this section shall not affect any public service corporation whose line or route extends across the boundary of this Commonwealth, nor prevent any foreign corporation from continuing in such lawful business as it may be actually engaged in within this State, when this Constitution goes into effect; but any such foreign public service corporation, so engaged, shall not, without first becoming incorporated under the laws of this State, be authorized to acquire, lease, use or operate, within this State, any public or municipal franchise or fran

chises in addition to such as it may own, lease, use or operate when this Constitution goes into effect. The property, within this State, of foreign corporations shall always be subject to attachment, the same as that of non-resident individuals; and nothing in this section shall restrict the power of the General Assembly to discriminate against foreign corporations whenever, and in whatsoever respect, it may deem wise or expedient.

Sec. 164. The right of the Commonwealth, through such instrumentalities as it may select, to prescribe and define the public duties of all common carriers and public service corporations, to regulate and control them in the performance of their public duties, and to fix and limit their charges therefor, shall never be surrendered nor abridged.

Sec. 165. The General Assembly shall enact laws preventing all trusts, combinations and monopolies, inimical to the public welfare.

Sec. 166. The exclusive right to build or operate railroads parallel to its own, or any other, line of railroad, shall not be granted to any company; but every railroad company shall have the right, subject to such reasonable regulations as may be prescribed by law, to parallel, intersect, connect with or cross, with its roadway, any other railroad or railroads; but no railroad company shall build or operate any line of railroad not specified in its charter, or in some amendment thereof. All railroad companies, whose lines of railroad connect, shall receive and transport each other's passengers, freight, and loaded or empty cars, without delay or discrimination. Nothing in this section shall deprive the General Assembly of the right to prevent by statute, repealable at pleasure, any railroad from being built parallel to the present line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac railroad.

Sec. 167. The General Assembly shall enact general laws regulating and controlling all issues of stock and bonds by corporations. Whenever stock or bonds are to be issued by a corporation, it shall, before issuing the same, file with the State Corporation Commission a statement (verified by the oath of the president or secretary of the corporation, and in such form as may be prescribed or permitted by the commission) setting forth fully and accurately the basis, or financial plan, upon which such stock or bonds are to be issued; and where such basis or plan includes services or property (other than money), received or to be received by the company, such statement shall accurately specify and describe, in the manner prescribed, or permitted, by the commission, the services and property, together with the valuation at which the same are received or to be received; and such corporation shall comply with any other requirements or restrictions which may be imposed by law. The

General Assembly shall provide adequate penalties for the violation of this section, or of any laws passed in pursuance thereof; and it shall be the duty of the commission to adjudge, and enforce (in the manner herein before provided), against any corporation refusing or failing to comply with the provisions of this section, or of any laws passed in pursuance thereof, such fines and penalties as are authorized by this Constitution, or may be prescribed by law.

ARTICLE XIII.

TAXATION AND FINANCE.

Sec. 168. All property, except as hereinafter provided, shall be taxed; all taxes, whether state, local, or municipal, shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax, and shall be levied and collected under general laws.

Sec. 169. Except as hereinafter provided, all assessments of real estate and tangible personal property shall be at their fair market value, to be ascertained as prescribed by law. The General Assembly may allow a lower rate of taxation to be imposed for a period of years by a city or town upon land added to its corporate limits, than is imposed on similar property within its limits at the time such land is added. Nothing in this Constitution shall prevent the General Assembly, after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirteen, from segregating for the purposes of taxation, the several kinds or classes of property, so as to specify and determine upon what subjects, state taxes, and upon what subjects, local taxes may be levied.

Sec. 170. The General Assembly may levy a tax on incomes in excess of six hundred dollars per annum; may levy a license tax upon any business which cannot be reached by the ad valorem system; and may impose state franchise taxes, and in imposing a franchise tax, may, in its discretion, make the same in lieu of taxes upon other property, in whole or in part, of a transportation, industrial, or commercial corporation. Whenever a franchise tax shall be imposed upon a corporation doing business in this State, or whenever all the capital, however invested, of a corporation chartered under the laws of this State, shall be taxed, the shares of stock issued by any such corporation, shall not be further taxed. No city or town shall impose any tax or assessment upon abutting land owners for street or other public local improvements, except for making and improving the walkways upon then existing streets, and improving

and paving then existing alleys, and for either the construction, or for the use of sewers; and the same when imposed, shall not be in excess of the peculiar benefits resulting therefrom to such abutting land owners. Except in cities and towns, no such taxes or assessments, for local public improvements shall be imposed on abutting land owners.

Sec. 171. The General Assembly shall provide for a re-assessment of real estate, in the year nineteen hundred and five, and every fifth year thereafter, except that of railway and canal corporations, which, after January the first, nineteen hundred and thirteen, may be assessed as the General Assembly may provide.

Sec. 172. The General Assembly shall provide for the special and separate assessment of all coal and other mineral land; but until such special assessment is made, such land shall be assessed under existing laws.

Sec. 173. The General Assembly shall levy a state capitation tax of, and not exceeding, one dollar and fifty cents per annum on every male resident of the State not less than twenty-one years of age, except those pensioned by this State for military services; one dollar of which shall be applied exclusively in aid of the public free schools, in proportion to the school population, and the residue shall be returned and paid by the State into the treasury of the county or city in which it was collected, to be appropriated by the proper county or city authorities to such county or city purposes as they shall respectively determine; but said state capitation tax shall not be a lien upon, nor collected by legal process from, the personal property which may be exempt from levy or distress under the poor debtor's law. The General Assembly may authorize the board of supervisors of any county, or the council of any city or town, to levy an additional capitation tax not exceeding one dollar per annum on every such resident within its limits, which shall be applied in aid of the public schools of such county, city or town, or for such other county, city or town purposes as they shall determine.

Sec. 174. After this Constitution shall be in force, no statute of limitation shall run against any claim of the State for taxes upon any property; nor shall the failure to assess property for taxation defeat a subsequent assessment for and collection of taxes for any preceding year or years, unless such property shall have passed to a bona fide purchaser for value, without notice; in which latter case the property shall be assessed for taxation against such purchaser from the date of his purchase.

Sec. 175. The natural oyster beds, rocks, and shoals, in the waters of this State, shall not be leased, rented or sold, but shall be held in trust

for the benefit of the people of this State, subject to such regulations and restrictions as the General Assembly may prescribe, but the General Assembly may, from time to time, define and determine such natural beds, rocks or shoals, by surveys or otherwise.

Sec. 176. The State Corporation Commission shall annually ascertain and assess, at the time hereinafter mentioned, and in the manner required of the Board of Public Works, by the law in force on January the first, nineteen hundred and two, the value of the roadbed, and other real estate, rolling stock, and all other personal property whatsoever (except its franchise and the non-taxable shares of stock issued by other corporations) in this State, of each railway corporation, whatever its motive power, now or hereafter liable for taxation upon such property; the canal bed and other real estate, the boats and all other personal property whatsoever (except its franchise and the non-taxable shares of stock issued by other corporations) in this State, of each canal corporation, empowered to conduct transportation; and such property shall be taxed for state, county, city, town, and district purposes in the same manner as authorized by said law, at such rates of taxation as may be imposed by them, respectively, from time to time, upon the real estate and personal property of natural persons: provided, that no tax shall be laid upon the net income of such corporations.

Sec. 177. Each such railway or canal corporation, including also any such as is exempt from taxation as to its works, visible property, or profits, shall also pay an annual state franchise tax equal to one per centum upon the gross receipts hereinafter specified in section One Hundred and Seventy-eight, for the privilege of exercising its franchises in this State, which, with the taxes provided for in section One Hundred and Seventy-six, shall be in lieu of all other taxes or license charges whatsoever upon the franchises of such corporation, the shares of stock issued by it, and upon its property assessed under section One Hundred and Seventy-six: provided, that nothing herein contained shall exempt such corporation from the annual fee required by section One Hundred and Fifty-seven of this Constitution, or from assessments for street and other public local improvements authorized by section One Hundred and Seventy; and provided, further, that nothing herein contained shall annul or interfere with, or prevent any contract or agreement by ordinance between street railway corporations and municipalities, as to compensation for the use of the streets or alleys of such municipalities by such railway corporations.

Sec. 178. The amount of such franchise tax shall be equal to one per centum of the gross transportation receipts of such corporations for the