discharged agent or employe, to give a specific statement, in writing, setting forth the reason or reasons which have prompted, caused or induced, such discharge or removal and if such discharge or removal has been prompted, caused or induced in whole or in part, by any complaint or communication made to such company, it shall be the duty of the company to inform the discharged agent or employe of the substance and nature of such communication or complaint, and when and by whom such complaint or communication was made.

SEC. 2. The written request provided for in the preceding section of this act, to be effective, must be signed by the discharged agent or employe, and be delivered, by an officer authorized to serve the process of citation of a court within this State, either to the president, secretary or treasurer of such company, or to the local agent representing such company in any county within this State, or by leaving the same at the principal office of such company during office hours.

SEC. 3. Any company to whom has been delivered a written request, as provided for in the preceding section of this act, shall have twenty days from the date of the delivery thereof within which to give the information requested. The statement required by such company to be given to a discharged agent or employe may be delivered to such agent or employe by an officer authorized to serve the process of citation or by leaving the same, addressed to such discharged agent or employe, with the county clerk of the county in which the written request was preferred. If such company shall fail or refuse to give the information as herein before provided for, or shall give a false statement thereof, it shall be liable to such discharged agent or employe for damages in the sum of five thousand dollars.

One Wallace brought suit under this statute against the Georgia, Carolina and Northern Railway Company, to recover the sum of $5,000, alleging that after the company, by contract made July 9, 1892, had employed him as its chief car inspector, and while he was performing his duties as such on August 12, 1892, the company discharged him. On August 18, 1892, he made a written request of the company to give him a specific statement in writing of the reasons which had caused his discharge, and, if the same had been induced in whole or in part by any communication made to the company, to inform him of the nature and substance of such communication or complaint, and when and by whom it was made. This written request was signed by him, and on the same day was served on the company by being delivered to the local agent of the company at its office in Fulton county by the sheriff of that county. Afterwards the plaintiff waited for more than twenty days, within which time the defendant should have delivered the written statement, as requested, to the plaintiff, or left it, addressed to him, with the county clerk; but the defendant failed and refused to give the information as requested, and as required by law, whereby it became liable to the plaintiff in the sum of $5,000, etc.

The suit was dismissed by the city court of Atlanta, and the judgment of that court was affirmed by the supreme court of the State, June 18, 1894. Said decision, which declares the act in question to be unconstitutional, is published on page 579 of volume 22 of the Southeastern Reporter, and the syllabus of the same, prepared by the court is as follows:

The public, whether as many or one, whether as a multitude or a sovereignty, has no interest to be protected or promoted by a correspondence between discharged agents or employes and their late employers, designed not for public but for private information, as to the reasons for discharges and as to the import and authorship of all complaints or communications which produced or suggested them. A statute which undertakes to make it the duty of incorporated railroad, express, and telegraph companies to engage in correspondence of this sort with their discharged agents and employes, and which subjects them in each case to a heavy forfeiture under the name of damages for failing or refusing to do so, is violative of the general private right of silence enjoyed in this State by all persons, natural or artificial, from time immemorial, and is utterly void and of no effect. Liberty of speech and of writing is secured by the constitution, and incident thereto is the correlative liberty of silence, not less important nor less sacred. Statements or communications, oral or written, wanted for private information can not

be coerced by mere legislative mandate at the will of one of the parties and against the will of the other. Compulsory private discovery, even from corporations, enforced not by suit or action but by statutory terror, is not allowable where rights are under the guardianship of due process of law.

It follows from the foregoing that the act of October 21, 1891, entitled "An act to require certain corporations to give their discharged employes or agents the causes of their removal or discharge when discharged or removed," is unconstitutional, and that an action founded thereon for the recovery of $5,000 as penalty or arbritrary damages, fixed by the statute for non-compliance with its mandates, can not be supported.

By act approved June 17, 1893, the legislature of Illinois undertook "to regulate the manufacture of clothing, wearing apparel, and other articles in this State, and to provide for the appointment of State inspectors to enforce the same, and to make an appropriation therefor."

Upon the complaint of the factory inspector appointed under this law, a warrant was issued by a justice of the peace of Cook county against William E. Ritchie for violating section 5 of the statute in question by employing a certain adult female, more than 18 years of age, at work in a factory more than eight hours on a certain day in February, 1894. The case was tried in the criminal court of Cook county, on appeal from the judgment of the justice of the peace, and the defendant was convicted and fined, whereupon the case was brought, on writ of error, before the supreme court of Illinois, which tribunal, on March 14, 1895, reversed the judgment of the criminal court and decided that section 5 of the act which declares that "no female shall be emplyed in any factory or workshop more than eight hours in any one day or forty-eight hours in any one week" is unconstitutional; the court also decided the first clause of section 10, which appropriated $20,000 for the salaries of the factory inspectors, to be unconstitutional.

The decision of this case, which is published in full in volume 40 of the Northeastern Reporter, page 454, is followed in the case of Tilt v. People, and in several other cases, all of which are named on page 462 of the volume referred to.

The substance of the decision in the Ritchie case, delivered by Judge Magruder, is as follows:

While some of the language of this act is broad enough to embrace within its terms the manufacture of all kinds of goods or products, other provisions of the act are limited to the manufacture of "coats, vests, trousers, knee pants, overalls, cloaks, skirts, ladies' waists, purses, feathers, artificial flowers, or cigars, or any wearing apparel of any kind whatsoever." The act is entitled "An act to regulate the manufacture of clothing, wearing apparel, and other articles," etc. If it be construed as applying only to manufacturers of clothing, wearing apparel, and articles of a similar nature, there appears to be no reasonable ground for prohibiting such manufacturers and their employes from contracting for more than eight hours in one day, while other manufacturers are not forbidden to so contract. If the act be construed as applying to manufacturers of all kinds of products there is no good reason why the prohibition should be directed against manufacturers and their employes, and not against merchants or builders, or contractors, or carriers, or farmers, or persons engaged in other branches of industry and their employes. Women employed by manufacturers are forbidden by section 5 of the act in question to make contracts to labor longer than eight hours per day, while women employed as saleswomen in stores, or as domestic servants, bookkeepers, stenographers, typewriters, or in laundries, or other occupations not embraced under the head of manufacturing, are at liberty to contract for as many hours of labor per day as they choose. The manner in which this section discriminates against one class of employers and employes, and in favor of all others, renders it invalid.

But aside from its partial and discriminating character this enactment is a purely arbritrary restriction upon the fundamental right of the citizen to control his or her

own time and faculties. It substitutes the judgment of the legislature for the judgment of the employer and employe in a matter about which they are competent to agree with each other. It assumes to dictate to what extent the capacity to labor may be exercised by the employe, and takes away the right of private judgment as to the amount and duration of the labor to be put forth in a specified period. Section 2 of article 2 of the constitution of Illinois provides that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." The privilege of contracting is both a liberty and property right-the right to use, buy, and sell property and to contract in respect thereto is protected by the constitution. Labor is property, and the laborer has the same right to sell his labor and to contract with reference thereto as has any other property owner. The legislature has no power to prevent persons who are sui juris from making their own contracts, nor can it interfere with the freedom of contract between the workman and the employer. The right to labor or employ labor, and make contracts in respect thereto upon such terms as may be agreed upon between the parties, is included in the constitutional guaranty above quoted. "Liberty" includes the right to make contracts as well with reference to the amount and duration of labor to be performed as concerning any other lawful matter. Hence, the right to make contracts is an inalienable one, and any attempt to unreasonably abridge it is opposed to the constitution.

The protection of property is one of the objects for which free governments are instituted among men. The right to acquire, possess and protect property includes the right to make reasonable contracts; and when an owner is deprived of one of the attributes of property, like the right to make contracts, he is deprived of his property within the meaning of the constitution.

The right to contract is the only way by which a person can rightfully acquire pro perty by his own labor. This right to contract, which is thus included in the fundamental rights of liberty and property, can not be taken away without "due process of law." The words "due process of law" have been held to be synonymous with the words "law of the land." The "law of the land" is general public law, binding upon all members of the community, under all circumstances, and not partial or private laws, affecting the rights of private individuals or classes of individuals. The legislature has no right to deprive one class of persons of privileges allowed to other persons under like conditions. If one man is denied the right to contract as he has hitherto done under the law, and as others are still allowed to do by the law, he is deprived of both liberty and property to the extent to which he is thus deprived of the right. Applying these principles to the consideration of section 5 we are led irresistibly to the conclusion that it is an unconstitutional and void enactment.

It is claimed that this section can be sustained as an exercise of the police power of the State. The police power of the State is that power which enables it to promote the health, comfort, safety, and welfare of society. It is very broad and far reaching, but is not without its limitations Legislative acts passed in pursuance of it must not be in conflict with the constitution, and must have some relation to the ends sought to be accomplished; that is to say to the comfort, welfare, or safety of society. When the ostensible object of an enactment is to secure the public comfort, welfare, or safety it must appear to be adapted to that end. There is nothing in the title of the act of 1893 to indicate that it is a sanitary measure. There is nothing in the nature of the employment contemplated by the act which is in itself unhealthy or unlawful or injurious to the public morals or welfare. It is not the nature of things done, but the sex of the persons doing them, which is made the basis of the claim that the act is a measure for the promotion of the public health. It is sought to sustain the act as an exercise of the police power upon the alleged ground that it is designed to protect woman on account of her sex and physique. But inasmuch as sex is no bar under the constitution and law to the endowment of woman with the fundamental and inalienable rights of liberty and property, which includes the right to make her own contracts, the mere fact of sex will not justify the legislature in putting forth the police power of the State for the purpose of limiting her exercise of those rights, unless the courts are able to see that there is some fair, just, and reasonable connection between such limitation and the public health, safety, or welfare proposed to be secured by it.

We can not more appropriately close the discussion of this branch of the case than by quoting and adopting as our own the following words of the New York court of appeals in re Jacobs (93 N. Y., 98): "When a health law is challenged in the courts as unconstitutional, on the ground that it arbitrarily interferes with personal liberty and private property, without due process of law, the courts must be able to see that it has at least in fact some relation to the public health, that the public health is the end actually aimed at, and that it is appropriate and adapted to that end. This we have

not been able to see in this law, and we must, therefore, pronounce it unconstitutional and void."

The first clause of section 10 of said act, which appropriates $20,000 for the salaries of the inspectors, is unconstitutional for the reason that it is not germane to the subject expressed in the title, and also for the reason that it is in violation of section 16 of article 4 of the constitution, which provides that no bill making appropriations for the salaries of government officials shall contain a provision on any other subject.

The legislature of the State of Missouri, by act approved March 6, 1893, made it unlawful for an employer to prohibit an employe from joining any labor or trade union, or other lawful organization or society, or to require an employe to withdraw therefrom.

Under this act George Julow, who had discharged an employe, not hired for a definite term, because he would not withdraw from a lawful organization, was convicted in the St. Louis court of criminal correction and fined $50. He appealed to the supreme court of the State, which reversed the judgment of the lower tribunal, by decision of June 18, 1895, and declared the law under which he was convicted to be unconstitutional. The substance of the decision of the supreme court, delivered by Judge Sherwood, which is published in full in the thirty-first volume of the Southwestern Reporter, page 781, is as follows:

The act of March 6, 1893, in making it unlawful for an employer to prohibit an employe from joining or to require an employe to withdraw from a trade or labor union or other lawful organization, violates the fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and article 2, section 30, of the constitution of the State, which provide that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. These terms, "life," "liberty," and "property," are representative terms, and cover every right to which a member of the body politic is entitled under the law, and all our liberties, personal, civil and political-in short, all that makes life worth living-and of none of these rights or liberties can anyone be deprived except by due process of law. Each of the rights heretofore mentioned carries with it, as its natural and necessary coincident, all that effectuates and renders complete the full, unrestrained enjoyment of that right.

Take, for instance, that of property. Necessarily blended with that right are those of acquiring property by labor, by contract, and also of terminating that contract at pleasure. In the case at bar the contract was not made for any definite period. From these premises it follows that depriving an owner of property of one of its essential attributes is depriving him of his property within the constitutional provision. Here the law under review declares that to be a crime which consists alone in the exercise of a constitutional right, to wit, that of terminating a contract, one of the essential attributes of property, indeed property itself. If an owner, etc., obeys the law on which this prosecution rests, he is thereby deprived of a right and a liberty to contract or terminate a contract, as all others may; if he disobeys it, then he is punished for the performance of an act wholly innocent, unless, indeed, the doing of such act, guaranteed by the organic law, the exercise of a right of which the legislature is forbidden to deprive him, can by that body be conclusively pronounced criminal.

We deny the power of the legislature to do this, and consequently we hold that the statute which professes to exert such a power is nothing more or less than a "legislative judgment," and an attempt to deprive all who are included within its terms of a constitutional right without due process of law. But the statute is also obnoxious to criticism on other grounds. It does not relate to persons or things as a class-to all workmen, etc.-but only to those who belong to some "lawful organization or society," referring to a trade union, labor union, etc. Where a statute does this it is a special, as contradistinguished from a general law. Here a non trades-union or a non laborunion man could be discharged without ceremony, without let or hindrance, whenever the employer so desired, with or without reason therefor, while in the case of a tradesunion or labor-union man he could not be discharged if such discharge rested on the ground of his being a member of such an organization. In other words, the legislature

have undertaken to limit the power of the owner or employer as to his right of contract with particular persons of a class; the statute which does this is a special, not a general law, and therefore is in violation of the State constitution.

The statute is also in conflict with section 1, article 14, of the Constitution of the United States, forbidding that "any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

Nor can the statute escape censure by assuming the label of a "police regulation." It has none of the elements or attributes which pertain to such a regulation, for it does not, in terms or by implication, promote or tend to promote the public health, welfare, comfort, or safety; and if it did, the State would not be allowed, under the guise and pretense of a police regulation, to encroach or trample upon any of the just rights of the citizen, which the Constitution intended to secure against diminution or abridgment.

In an action by Thomas Durkin against the Kingston Coal Company and William Jones, damages were recovered in the court of common pleas, Luzerne County, Pa., by the plaintiff for injuries received while he was an employe in the coal mine of which the defendant company was owner and defendant Jones was certified foreman, through the negligence of the foreman. The defendants appealed, and the supreme court of Pennsylvania, on October 7, 1895, reversed the judgment as to the coal company, holding that the act of 1891, of Pennsylvania, relating to anthracite coal mines (P. L., p. 176) is unconstitutional and void in so far as it makes the owner of such mine liable for injuries to other employes occasioned by the negligence of a mine foreman, licensed, certified, and employed under the requirements of the statute. The judgment was, however, affirmed as to Jones, the mine foreman, who was held to be liable, independently of, as well as under, the statute, for injury to an employe due to his want of attention to his proper duties.

The decision in this case, delivered by Judge Williams, is published in volume 33 of the Atlantic Reporter, page 237, and so much thereof as bears on the constitutionality of the law in question, and on the responsibility of the mine foreman, is given here:

The first article of the constitution of this State, known as the "bill of rights," declares that all men are possessed of certain inherent and inalienable rights. One of these is the right to acquire, possess, and protect property. The preservation of this right requires, both that every man should be answerable for his own acts and engagements, and that no man should be required to answer for the acts and engagements of strangers over whom he has no control. A statute that should impose such a liability, or that should take the property of one person and give it to another or to the public without making just compensation therefor, would violate the bill of rights, and would be, for that reason, unconstitutional and void.

It is in furtherance of the right to acquire, possess, and protect property that section 17 of the bill of rights prohibits the enactment of laws that shall interfere with or impair the obligation of contracts. The tendency toward class legislation for the protection of particular sorts of labor has been so strong, however, that several statutes have recently been passed that could not be sustained under the provisions of the bill of rights. Such was the case in Godcharles v. Wigeman (113 Pa. St., 431; 6 Atl., 354); such was the case with some recent provisions relating to mechanics' liens, and such is alleged by the appellants to be the case with some or the provisions of the act of 1891, under which this action was brought. The title of the act of 1891 is "An act to provide for the health and safety of persons employed in and about the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania and for the protection and preservation of property connected therewith." It divides the anthracite region into eight districts, and provides for the appointment by the governor of a competent mine inspector in each district, who shall have a general oversight of mining operations within his district. It creates an examining board for each district, with power to examine candidates, and recommend such as they shall deem qualified for the position of mine foreman to the secretary of internal affairs. It is made the duty of this officer to issue certificates to those who apply therefor and have been recommended by the board of examiners.