WASHINGTON.

I. CONSTITUTION.

Corporations may be formed under general laws, but shall not be created by special acts. The liability of stockholders in a corporation is limited to the amount of the unpaid stock.

No corporation organized outside the limits of the State shall be allowed to transact business within the State on more favorable conditions than are prescribed by law to similar corporations organized under the laws of this State. The State shall not in any manner loan its credit, nor subscribe to or be interested in the stock of any company, association or corporation.

No private property shall be taken or damaged for private use without just compensation having been first made, and the exercise of the right of eminent domain can never be so abridged or construed as to prevent the Legislature from taking the property and franchises of incorporated companies and subjecting them to public use the same as the property of all individuals.

Any company or the lessees or managers thereof organized for the purpose, or any individual, shall have the right to construct and maintain lines of telegraph and telephone within the State. Such companies shall receive and transmit each other's messages without delay or discrimination, and all of such companies are declared hereby to be common carriers and subject to legislative control. Railroad corporations shall allow telegraph and telephone companies to construct and maintain lines on and along the right of way of the railroad, and no railroad company shall allow any telegraph company any facilities, privileges or rates for transportation on account of material or for repairs for lines not allowed to all telegraph companies.

The right of eminent domain is extended to all telegraph and telephone companies.

The power to tax corporations and corporate property shall not be surrendered or suspended by any contract or grant to which the State shall be a party. No municipal corporation shall give any money or property or loan its credit or money to or in aid of any

individual, association or company except for the necessary support of the poor and infirm, or become directly or indirectly the owner of any stock in or bonds of any association, company or corporation.

Monopolies and trusts shall never be allowed in this State, and no incorporated company, copartnership or association in this State shall, directly or indirectly, combine or make any contract with any other incorporated company, foreign or domestic, through their stockholders or the trustees or assigns of such stockholders, or with any copartnership or association of, or in any manner whatever, for the purpose of fixing the price or limiting the production or regulating the transportation of any product or commodity.

II. CORPORATIONS.

Any two or more persons may form a corporation and shall subscribe articles of incorporation in triplicate and file one with the Secretary of State and another in the office of the county auditor of the county in which the principal business of the company is intended to be located and retain the third in the possession of the corporation. Such articles shall state its name and object, capital stock and term of existence, not to exceed fifty years, the number of shares and the number of trustees. And its corporate power shall be exercised by a board of not less than two trustees, who must be share holders and at least one of whom shall be a resident of the State. And shall annually file a list of the elected officers with the county auditor.

No corporation shall commence business or institute proceedings to condemn land for corporate purposes until the whole amount of its capital stock has been subscribed. Every corporation, domestic or foreign, shall annually pay to the Secretary of State a license fee of $10.

A corporation, domestic or foreign, may own, hold, sell, assign or transfer the stock of other corporations.

No corporation, a majority of whose capital stock is owned by aliens, other than those who in good faith have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, shall acquire the ownership of lands in the State, other than lands containing

deposits of minerals, except when acquired under mortgage or in good faith in the ordinary course of justice in collection of debts.

Foreign corporations shall file with the Secretary of State articles of incorporation and shall also constitute and appoint an agent a resident of the State where its principal place of business is to be located upon whom service of process may be made.

Every county assessor shall annually ascertain the names of foreign companies doing business by agent or otherwise within his county, the nature of the business and the name of the agent, and shall deliver such list of names to the county auditor, who shall transmit a copy of such list to the Secretary of State.

An agent of a foreign company doing business contrary to the provisions of this article is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not exceeding $200 or imprisonment not exceeding three months, or both, and any assessor or auditor failing to comply with the. conditions of this act shall be also guilty of a misdemeanor, and any foreign corporation failing to comply with the terms of such act shall be subject to a penalty of $250, recoverable in a civil action by the Attorney-General of the State.

III. TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE COMPANIES.

The right of eminent domain is extended to all telegraph or telephone companies organized or doing business in the State, and every railroad operated in the State is and shall be designated post road," and the company owning the same shall allow telegraph and telephone companies to construct and maintain telegraph and telephone lines on and along the right of way of such railroad, and such companies may appropriate so much land as may be actually necessary for its line of telegraph or telephone, with the right to enter upon lands immediately adjacent thereto for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and operating its line and make the necessary repairs, and may also, for the purposes aforesaid, enter upon and appropriate a portion of the right of way of any railroad company; provided such appropriation shall not obstruct such railroad nor the travel thereon nor interfere with the operation thereof.

Telegraph companies and telephone companies shall receive, exchange and transmit each other's messages without delay or

discrimination, and all telephone companies shall receive and transmit messages for any person.

Telegraph companies shall transmit all despatches in the order in which they are received. Penalty of $100 to be recovered in action, with costs, by the person whose despatch is postponed out of its order, provided precedence shall be given to communications to and from public officers and official business.

Contracts made by telegraph shall be deemed contracts in writing, and all communications sent by telegraph and sent by the person or persons sending the same or by his or their authority shall be held and deemed to be communications in writing.

Notice by telegraph shall be deemed actual notice, provided the despatch containing the same be delivered to the person entitled thereto or to his agent, and instruments in writing approved, acknowledged and certified so as to be entitled to record may, with the certificate of proof or acknowledgment, be sent by telegraph, and the telegraphic copy shall prima facie have the same force and effect in all respects and may be admitted to record in the same manner and with like effect as the original.

Checks, due bills, promissory notes, bills of exchange and all orders or agreements for the payment or delivery of money or other thing of value may be made or drawn by telegraph, and shall have the same force and effect to charge the maker, drawer, endorser or acceptor thereof, and shall create the same rights and equities and be entitled to the same days of grace as if made and drawn and delivered in writing, and whenever the genuineness or execution of such instrument shall be denied by or on behalf of the person sought to be charged thereby, it shall be incumbent upon the party claiming under or alleging the same to prove the existence and execution of the original writing from which telegraphie copy was transmitted, and the original message shall in all cases be preserved in the telegraph office from which the same is sent. Telegraphic copies of instruments in writing, together with the certificate and official seal, may be sent by telegraph.

Any telegraph or telephone company, or the lessees thereof, doing business in the State shall have the right to construct and maintain all necessary lines of telegraph or telephone for public traffic along and upon any public road, street or highway and

along or across any railroad right of way, and may erect poles, insulators, wires and fixtures in such manner and at such point as not to incommode the public in the use of such railroad or highway, and where the right of way is within the corporate limits of any city the consent of the city council shall be first obtained.

Any person who injures or destroys any necessary or useful fixtures of a telegraph or telephone company is liable to the company for all damages sustained thereby, and any vessel which, by dragging its anchor or otherwise, breaks, injures or destroys the subaqueous cable of a telegraph or telephone company subjects its owners to the damages herein specified, and any person who wilfully and maliciously does any injury to any telegraph or telephone property herein mentioned is liable to the company for five times the amount of actual damage sustained thereby, to be recovered in an action in a court of competent jurisdiction.

Any telegraph or telephone company refusing to receive, exchange and transmit each other's messages are subject to the penalty of not more than $500 fine for each offense, and if a railroad shall refuse to allow a telegraph or telephone company to mainmain their lines on the railroad right of way, it shall be liable for damages in the sum of not more than $5,000 for each offense and $100 per day during the continuance thereof.

In order that damages may be recovered for the breaking or injury of any subaqueous cable, the company owning the same shall give notice as to its location by a monument erected on either bank of the waters on which the cable is placed, indicating the place where such cable lies, and published for one month in some newspaper most likely to give notice to navigators, the notice giving the description and purpose of the monuments and the general course, landings and termini of such cable.

Any writ or order in a civil action and all papers requiring service may be served or executed by the officer or person to whom it is sent for that purpose and returned by him, if a return be requested, in the same manner and with the same force and effect and in all respects as the original thereof might be if delivered to him. And the original, writ or order, shall also be filed with the court from which it was issued and a certified copy thereof shall be preserved in the telegraph office from which it

was sent.