palities are but mere political subdivisions of the State government, its auxiliary organizations, or agencies, for the purpose of local government, the State, as the principal, may impose upon these agencies precisely the same conditions with respect to the doing of their public work that it can prescribe for itself. We agree with counsel that this statute, if valid, is so upon the ground that the State, in its proprietary capacity, may properly prescribe for itself and its auxiliary arms of government the terms and conditions on which work of a public nature may be done. It can not be upheld as an exercise of the sovereign police power, as has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States and every State court of last resort that has had occasion to consider the question. The latest decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on that question is Lochner v. N. Y., 198 U. S. 45, 25 Sup. Ct. 539, 49 L. Ed. 937 [Bulletin No. 59, p. 340], in which many of the cases are reviewed, and the distinction between a case like this and the one under consideration was pointed out. Whether the statute can be upheld on the ground relied upon by the attorneygeneral, the authorities are not in accord. Probably the leading case against such legislation is Cleveland v. Clements Construction Co. (Ohio), 65 N. E. 885, 59 L. R. A. 775, 93 Am. St. Rep. 670.

Other cases were cited, after which Judge Gabbert said:

These authorities are based upon the proposition that with respect to the carrying on of works of improvement by municipal corporations, they are as free from legislative restraint by statutes of this character as are private corporations in carrying out the objects of their incorporation; and, since private corporations may not thus be controlled, it follows that municipal corporations can not be; that a municipal corporation, in exercising that branch of its powers which may properly be designated as "private," concerning its purely private rights, are, like private corporations, free from such control of the legislative department of government. On the other side, the leading case, and the one on which the attorney-general mainly relies, is Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 218, 24 Sup. Ct. 124 [Bulletin No. 50, p. 177]. The case is one of first impression in this State. Defendants are mistaken in their supposition that In re Morgan, supra, is conclusive in their favor. The principle underlying the statute there construed is entirely different from that upon which the act under consideration rests. In the conflict of authority on the subject, the Supreme Court of the United States having decided the precise question in upholding the Kansas law in the Atkin Case, supra, we shall conform to our usual custom by following the lead of that august tribunal in determining the case at bar. Mr. Justice Harlan, in the course of his opinion in that case so concisely and lucidly states the principle upon which legislation of this character is upheld, that, without further comment,we cite the following excerpts, as constituting the reasons for sustaining our act: "These questions-indeed, the entire argument of defendant's counselseem to attach too little consequence to the relation existing between a State and its municipal corporations. Such corporations are the creatures, mere political subdivisions, of the State for the purpose of exercising a part of its powers. They may exert only such powers as are expressly granted to them, or such as may be necessarily implied from those granted. What they lawfully do of a public character is done under the sanction of the State. They are, in every essential

sense, only auxiliaries of the State for the purposes of local government." * * * *But defendants say, if such be the rule that is applicable to municipalities in this State organized under our general laws, it is not pertinent to the city and county of Denver, which was created by article 20 of the constitution. The present city and county of Denver was created by this constitutional amendment as the result of the direct vote of the people of the entire State.

But the municipality of Denver, though created by a constitutional amendment by a direct vote of the people, and having the power to frame its own charter, is just as much an agency of the State for the purpose of government as if it was organized under a general law passed by the general assembly. The mode of its creation does not change the nature of its relation to the State. Like cities and towns organized under the General Statutes, it is still a part of the State government. It is as much amenable to State control in all matters of a public, as distinguished from matters of a local, character, as are other municipalities. The State still has the supreme power to enact general laws, declaring what shall be its public policy, and it can make them applicable to the city of Denver, as well as to all other cities of the State. This act in effect declares that it is the public policy of the State not to permit any officer or agent of the State, or its municipalities, or any contractor thereof, to employ any working man in the prosecution of public work for more than eight hours a day; and, for a violation of the statute, a penalty is provided. What the public policy of the State is rests with its legislative department. The work of building a sanitary sewer by a city, in a sense, is local in that it affects, primarily, its own citizens; but it is directly connected with the public health, and is a matter of concern and great importance to the people of the entire State. The State has never relinquished to the new city and county of Denver, and never can surrender to it, the power to enact laws to punish crimes and misdemeanors, and the operation of such laws embraces all of the people of the State, whether living in municipalities or counties created directly by the constitution, or organized under general laws.

HOURS OF LABOR-MINES-VIOLATION OF STATUTE-CONSTRUCTION-State v. Thompson, Supreme Court of Wyoming, 87 Pacific Reporter, page 433.-Al Thompson, a miner, was charged with the offense of having violated the law limiting to eight per day the hours of labor of miners and laborers in coal mines, and demurred to the charge. The district court of Sheridan County sustained the demurrer and the State appealed. The supreme court sustained the ruling of the court below, holding that the act of a miner working more than the prescribed eight hours was not an offense within the intent of the law.

The law in question is found in sections 2586-2589, Revised Statutes of Wyoming of 1899. The act provides that "Eight hours shall constitute a day's work for all miners and laborers" in coal mines, with exceptions as to emergencies; that the term "day" in a contract shall be construed to mean eight hours, and fixes a penalty for a vio

lation of the statute by "any owner, lessee or operator, his or its agent, employees or servants." The construction of these provisions is found in the following quotation from the opinion of the court, as delivered by Judge Beard. After citing the law in full, he said:

The first section of the statute enacts that eight hours shall constitute a day's work for all coal miners and laborers employed in any coal mine; but does not attempt to fix the number of hours that shall constitute a day's work for any other class of persons employed in or about the operations of the mine. The second section defines the meaning of the word "day" when used in any contract made between the owner, lessee, or operator of a coal mine with such miner or laborer for his services as such. It is only in contracts between the operators of coal mines and a miner or laborer in the mine and for his services as such that the word "day" is to be construed to be eight hours. Thus it will be seen that by those sections of the act miners and laborers are treated as a distinct class of employees, and it is nowhere in the act declared, in terms, to be unlawful for them to work more than 8 hours in any 24. The object of the statute, we think, was to prevent the employers of such miners and laborers from requiring of them an unreasonable number of hours of work in a calendar day, and to fix the number of hours that should constitute a day's work for such miner or laborer and entitle him to a day's wages, and not to punish the miner or laborer who, as in this case, should voluntarily perform more than eight hours labor in the mine in a calendar day. In a case arising under the statutes of Utah, which are somewhat similar to ours, in which case an employer was prosecuted for unlawfully employing one to work in a mine for the period of 10 hours each day, the Supreme Court of the United States quotes and expressly concurs in the language used by the supreme court of Utah, as follows: "The legislature has also recognized the fact, which the experience of legislators in many States has corroborated, that the proprietors of these establishments and their operatives do not stand upon an equality, and that their interests are, to a certain extent, conflicting. The former naturally desire to obtain as much labor as possible from their employees, while the latter are often induced by the fear of discharge to conform to regulations which their judgment, fairly exercised, would pronounce to be detrimental to their health or strength. In other words, the proprietors lay down the rules and the laborers are practically constrained to obey them." (Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, 397, 18 Sup. Ct. 383, 390, 42 L. Ed. 780.) The penalty imposed by the statute is to be inflicted upon "any owner, lessee or operator, his or its agent, employees or servants, violating any of the provisions of this act.' We think the persons designated by the words "employees or servants," as used in this section, must be construed as belonging to the same class of persons as those designated by the word "agent," used in the same connection; that is, that class of employees or servants who stand in the place of the owner, lessee, or operator of the mine, and who have something to do with employing, superintending, or directing the miners and laborers in the performance of their labors. The legislature having twice, in the preceding sections of the act, used the terms "miners and laborers" as a class distinct and separate from other employees and servants, it is reasonable to suppose that, if it

was the intention to include them in the penal provision, they would have been designated by the same terms or at least by terms equally unequivocal.

SUNDAY LABOR-RAILROADS INTERSTATE COMMERCE-CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTE-Seele v. State, Supreme Court of Georgia, 55 Southeastern Reporter, page 472.-This case arose under the law of Georgia which prohibits the running of freight and excursion trains within the State on Sunday, with exceptions as to trains carrying live stock, perishable goods, etc. J. N. Seele, superintendent of transportation of the Southern Railway Company, was convicted in the superior court of Habersham County, and appealed on the ground that such a regulation was in excess of the power of the State inasmuch as it interfered with interstate commerce.

The supreme court ruled in favor of the constitutionality of the act and affirmed the judgment of the court below, as appears from the following extract from its opinion, delivered by Judge Atkinson:

In Hennington v. State, 90 Ga. 396, 17 S. E. 1009, it was held that section 4578 of the Code of 1882 (Pen. Code 1895, section 420), in making it a misdemeanor to run a freight train upon any railroad in this State on the Sabbath Day, was a regulation of internal police, and not a regulation of commerce, and was, therefore, not in conflict with the provisions in the Constitution of the United States delegating to Congress the power to regulate commerce among the several States. This decision was rendered in 1892, and upon writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States the ruling was affirmed by that court. (Hennington v. State of Georgia, 163 U. S. 299, 16 Sup. Ct. 1086, 41 L. Ed. 166.) It was said by that court that there was nothing in the legislation in question that suggests that it was enacted with the purpose to regulate interstate commerce, or with any other purpose than to prescribe a rule of civil duty for all who on the Sabbath Day were in the territorial jurisdiction of the State; that, while the statute affects interstate commerce in a limited degree, it is not for that reason a needless intrusion upon the domain of Federal jurisdiction, nor strictly a regulation of interstate commerce, but is an ordinary police regulation, designed to secure the well-being and promote the general welfare of the people of the State, and is not invalid by force alone of the Constitution of the United States; and that it is to be respected in the courts of the Union until superseded and displaced by some act of Congress passed in execution of the power granted to it by the Constitution. There has been no legislation by Congress on this subject, and therefore the ruling of this court, as affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, is the law of the land at the present time. We have been requested to review and overrule the decision of this court above referred to. We decline to do this, for two reasons: (1) We are entirely satisfied with the reasoning of the learned Chief Justice who rendered the opinion in that case. (2) The conclusion reached by him was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States; and, until that court sees fit to overrule the decision made by it, we are bound to follow it.

LAWS OF VARIOUS STATES RELATING TO LABOR, ENACTED SINCE JANUARY 1, 1904.

[The Tenth Special Report of this Bureau contains all laws of the various States and Territories and of the United States relating to labor, in force January 1, 1904. Later enactments are reproduced in successive issues of the Bulletin, beginning with Bul etin No. 57, the issue of March, 1905. A cumulative index of these later enactments is to be found on page 473 et seq. of this issue.]

NEW YORK.

ACTS OF 1906.

CHAPTER 129.-Inspection of factories-Sweat shops.

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SECTION 1. Section one hundred of chapter four hundred and fifteen of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, as amended by chapter one hundred and ninety-one of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-nine and chapter five hundred and fifty of the laws of nineteen hundred and four, is hereby amended to read as follows:

Section 100. No tenement house nor any part thereof shall be used for the purpose of manufacturing, altering, repairing or finishing therein, any coats, vests, knee pants, trousers, overalls, cloaks, hats, caps, suspenders, jerseys, blouses, dresses, waists, waistbands, underwear, neckwear, furs, fur trimmings, fur garments, skirts, shirts, aprons, purses, pocketbooks, slippers, paper boxes, paper bags, feathers, artificial flowers, cigarettes, cigars, umbrellas, or articles of rubber, nor for the purpose of manufacturing, preparing, or packing macaroni, spaghetti, ice cream, ices, candy, confectionery, nuts, or preserves, without a license therefor as provided in this article. But nothing herein contained shall apply to collars, cuffs, shirts or shirt waists made of cotton or linen fabrics that are subjected to the laundrying process before being offered for sale. Application for such a license shall be made to the commissioner of labor by the owner of such tenement house, or by his duly authorized agent. Such application shall describe the house by street number or otherwise, as the case may be, in such manner as will enable the commissioner of labor easily to find the same; it shall also state the number of apartments in such house; it shall contain the full name and address of the owner of the said house, and shall be in such form as the commissioner of labor may determine. Blank applications shall be prepared and furnished by the commissioner of labor. Upon receipt of such application the commissioner of labor shall consult the records of the local health department or board, or other appropriate local authority charged with the duty of sanitary inspection of such houses; if such records show the presence of any infectious, contagious or communicable disease, or the existence of any uncomplied with orders or violations which indicate the presence of unsanitary conditions in such house, the commissioner of labor, may, without making an inspection of the building, deny such application for a license, and may continue to deny such application until such time as the records of said department, board or other local authority show that the said tenement house is free from the presence of infectious, contagious or communicable disease, and from all unsanitary conditions. Before, however, any such license is granted, an inspection of the building sought to be licensed must be made by the commissioner of labor, and a statement must be filed by him as a matter of public record, to the effect that the records of the local health department or board or other appropriate authority charged with the duty of sanitary inspection of such houses, show the existence of no infectious, contagious or communicable disease nor of any unsanitary conditions in the said house; such statement must be dated and signed in ink with the full name of the employee responsible therefor. A similar statement similarly signed, showing the results of the inspection of the said building must also be filed in the office of the commissioner of labor before any license is granted. If the commissioner of labor ascertain that such building is free from infectious, contagious or communicable disease, that there are no defects of plumbing that will permit the free entrance of sewer air, that such building is in a clean and