intendents of such offices, which resulted in the formation of a National association of free employment bureaus of America. The labor commissioner of Missouri was chosen president of the association and its meetings will probably be held at the same time and place with the annual conventions of the National association of labor bureaus. The secretary of the association reports the existence of the following public employment offices:

Labor

Employers liability. The law of negligence, which virtually makes the employee the insurer of his own risks, works many hardships under modern industrial conditions. As if that were not injustice enough, the courts of England and the United States in the first half of the 19th century proceeded to find an exception to the universal and time-honored principle that makes a principal responsible for the acts of his agents. They held that the principal (employer) was not responsible for the acts of his agent when the injured person was an employee and the agent a fellow employee. Much legislation has been enacted with the purpose of abrogating the fellow servant doctrine. In 1901 Colorado ['01 ch. 67] passed a law to make employers liable to pay damages to injured employees for all acts of negligence or carelessness on the part of their servants, agents or employees. South Carolina had already embodied in its constitution (1895) a somewhat similar provision as to railroad employees, which has now been extended by statute to street The Seattle bureau is a municipal institution.

Labor railway employees ['01 ch. 405]. Connecticut embodied in a statute ['01 ch. 155] the principles that are generally recognized as the common law liability of employers, namely, that it is the master's duty to provide for his employees reasonably safe workplaces and appliances and competent colaborers and that he is liable for any default of a vice-principal.

Hours of labor. The shortening of the working day has long been in the very forefront of the labor movement, and one of the means thereto has been legislation, which has proceeded along three lines: regulation of the hours of (1) public employees and employees on public (contract) work; (2) of women and minors, who are treated as wards of the state; (3) of adult males in occupations injurious to health. It is only in the latter case that the courts will permit legislation for adult males in private industries, which are otherwise subject to the constitutional guaranties of freedom of contract.

As long ago as 1868 the national and state governments began to enact a legal day of eight hours for government employees and for private industries in the absence of contract. These laws, however, were construed as simply defining the legal unit of a day's work, for which a full day's pay might be demanded; they did not prohibit overtime work for extra compensation and hence did not effect any noteworthy reduction in the hours of labor. More recently, however, these laws have been amended so as absolutely to prohibit any working overtime, save in extraordinary emergencies, on the part of workmen employed by the In 1901 such laws or government or by public contractors.

amendments to existing laws were enacted in California, Minnesota and Utah. The California law ['01 ch. 172] makes it unlawful for any public official or contractor on the public works of or work done for the state to require or permit employees to work more than eight hours a day and prescribes, as concerns contractors, a forfeit of $10 for each day and each workman. The Legislature also provided for the submission of a constitutional amendment in November 1902, safeguarding the law [Cal. 01 p. 960]. The Minnesota act ['01 ch. 310] is precisely like that of California, save that it applies only to state (not county or town) work; work on roads or highways is also excepted. Utah ['01 ch.41] now prescribes a penalty for the violation of its eight-hour law on the part of a public official or contractor, making such violation a misdemeanor.

With respect to the hours of women and minors in private Labor industries, California ['01 ch.205] has enacted that they shall not be employed in manufacturing and mercantile establishments more than 9 hours a day (formerly 10). This is the shortest compulsory work day thus far enacted in the United States for these classes of employees. Pennsylvania ['01 ch.37] enacts that minors and women are not to be employed in bakeries more than 12 hours a day or 60 hours a week (the limit in factories). Washington ['01 ch.68] has enacted that no woman shall be employed more than 10 hours a day in a mechanical or mercantile establishment, laundry, hotel or restaurant.

The hours of labor of male adults can be restricted, under the decisions of American courts, only in such occupations or for such conditions of work as threaten to injure the public health or welfare. The United States courts have in recent years given a broader interpretation to the police power of Legislatures than have many state courts. Thus Colorado ['01 ch.48] finds it necessary this year to submit a constitutional amendment (to be voted upon in November 1902), which limits to eight hours the work day in underground mines, workings, blast furnaces, smelters and other dangerous places, since such a law had previously been declared unconstitutional by the Colorado courts, although a precisely similar statute enacted by the state of Utah was held valid by the United States Supreme Court in the famous case of Holden · r. Hardy. The Legislature of Missouri ['01 p.211] has this year established a compulsory eight-hour day for the mining industry and this law has already been declared valid under the influence of Holden v. Hardy, by the Missouri Circuit Court (at Joplin, Aug. 7, 1901). Montana ['01 p.62] likewise established the eighthour day in underground mines, smelting and refining works and it would appear as if this kind of protective legislation would be extensively copied now that the great influence and authority of our highest national tribunal can be invoked in its favor.

Similar considerations apply to numerous statutes classed under the head of Sunday observance. Thus the motive back of the New York statute ['01 ch.392] prohibiting public traffic in uncooked meat on Sunday was the desire to shorten the unduly long hours of labor among butchers and meat cutters, who regularly work 13 or 14 hours a day, just as the prohibition of Sunday barbering in 1895 was sustained by the Court of Appeals

inspection;

of labor

Factory in that year on the ground that legislative curtailment of the protection unusually long hours of barbers was necessary to the protection of their health. Oregon ['01 p.17] has this year made it a misdemeanor to do barbering on Sunday. Colorado ['01 ch.89] requires railroad companies to allow 10 hours rest to their employees working 16 consecutive hours.

FACTORY INSPECTION; PROTECTION OF LABOR1 HORACE G. WADLIN, CHIEF MASSACHUSETTS BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF LABOR

The statutes of 1901 which may be classed as protective legislation, intended to safeguard the workman in his employment or to secure to him his wages, are neither very numerous nor very radical. They consist principally of amendments to laws previously enacted, and of minor statutes designed to broaden slightly the application of such laws.

Under the head of factory and workshop inspection, including sanitary provisions, it may be noted that in Michigan the existing code has been revised, the law of 1897 being repealed and a new statute enacted, covering tenement, hotel, store, factory and workshop inspection, fixing the conditions of employment of minors, and providing regulations as to fire escapes and dangerous machinery, and against the so called sweating system [Mich. '01 ch.113]. In New York the factory inspection law has been strengthened by a provision requiring the statute relating to employment in factories and tenementmade articles to be posted in every workroom, by more effectively limiting industrial cperations in tenements, especially with respect to sleeping or living rooms, and by placing public laundries under inspection [N. Y '01 ch.475, 477].

The law relating to the manufacture of clothing and cigars in tenements and dwellings, enacted in Wisconsin in 1899, has been superseded by a statute along the same line but much more definite in its provisions, providing that a license must be obtained for conducting such industries from the commissioner of labor [Wis. '01 ch.239]. No other state has enacted antisweating legislation during the year, the states which now have such laws, intended to abridge or to regulate 'See also Comparative Summary and Index, 1901, no. 1046-83.

inspection;

to a greater or less extent the tenement house industries, being Factory Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michi- protection gan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and of labor Wisconsin. The factory inspection departments have been enlarged or strengthened, either by providing additional officers, larger appropriations, or both, in Indiana, Missouri, Rhode Island and Wisconsin1. In Tennessee, under a previous law the inspector of factories received a fee of $5 for each inspection, to be made semiannually, said fee to be paid by the fac tory proprietors. This has now been repealed, and an annual salary of $1200 substituted [Tenn. '01 ch.67]. The procedure under the sanitary factory act in Pennsylvania has been affected by an amendment to the existing statute, which provides that hearings on complaints under this act, or with respect to the requirements of the inspector, may be held before the alderman or justice where information is lodged, whose decision shall be final unless an appeal is taken within 20 days [Pa. '01 ch.145].

The requirement that seats shall be furnished for female employees, existing in many states which have factory codes, has, by the legislation of the year, been embodied in the stat utes of Illinois and West Virginia so far as relates to factories [III. '01 p.231; W. V. '01 ch.18]; to females employed in mercantile establishments in Kansas ['01 ch.187]; to those in factories and mercantile establishments also in Wyoming ['01 ch.33], and to females employees generally in Washington ['01 ch.68].

The factory law in New York has been amended by a provision requiring sanitary closets in factories, if ordered by the labor commissioner [N. Y. '01 ch.306]. In California ['01 ch.176] a previous statute containing general provisions as to the ventilation of factories and workshops is amended so as to provide specifically for fans or blowers for removing dust, filaments or gases; and, by an amendment to the statute which defines the general powers and duties of the labor commissioner, he is given authority, upon complaint, to examine and condemn unsafe scaffolding [Cal. '01 ch.23]. In West Virginia, which has had no factory code but simply a provision for examination and report by the commissioner of labor, it now pro

1 Ind. '01 ch.28; Mo. '01 p. 197; R. I. '01 ch.809; Wis. '01 ch. 409.