the common law and that no notice is required unless the plaintiff seeks to enforce a cause of action which did not exist at common law and was conferred by the statute (Rosin v. Lidgerwood, 89 App. Div. 245).*

In January, 1903, the Appellate Division, in the Fourth Department, held that a certain industrial school being a charitable and benevolent institution was not liable for the negligence of employees resulting in injury to an inmate. A boy 15 years old had been committed to St. Vincent's Industrial School of Utica, in August, 1900, after conviction of the crime of larceny. A month later he was injured while operating a laundry mangle and in February, 1902, obtained a verdict of $1,000 damages. which was unanimously reversed by the Appellate Division, holding as above noted that the school, as a charitable and benevolent institution, was not liable for the negligent acts of its employees or agents in failing to instruct the boy about the operation of the machinery or to warn him of its dangers (79 App. Div. 334). In January, 1904, this decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeals (177 N. Y. Rep. 16).

A case in which the Court of Appeals ruled that the employment of a child under the legal age of employment might in itself be some evidence of negligence has already been cited in the discussion of child labor.

The movement to make the industry, rather than the individual, bear the pecuniary responsibility of deaths and injuries makes slow but steady progress in this country. In Europe it has been nearly completed by the adhesion of all the principal industrial nations, Belgium and Russia having within the last few months enacted such laws. In Massachusetts the special committee on the Relations between Employer and Employee, which has just made its report to the Legislature, has recommended and framed a workmen's compensation bill on the lines of the English act. Maryland in 1902 took a step forward in the direction of European legislation by abolishing the defense of co-employment and contributory negligence in certain industries, but permitting the employer to relieve himself of the additional liability by depositing funds with the State insurance commissioner to indemnify all

*As this is in the press the Court of Appeals has rendered a decision sustaining the second ruling and reversing Gmaehle r. Rosenberg.

injured employees. A bill on the model of the Maryland law was introduced at the recent legislative session (Exhibit 20, Appendix III).

There was also introduced a bill to amend the Code of Civil Procedure in respect of actions to recover damages for deaths caused by negligence (Assembly bill No. 624, Int. No. 553). The bill aimed to abolish the defense of contributory negligence in case no witnesses were present. "If it is alleged in the complaint that decedent's death occurred without contributory negligence on his part, and it appears at the trial that there was no witness of the accident occasioning the death of the decedent, it shall be presumed that the accident happened and death resulted without contributory negligence on his part.”

LICENSING TRADES.

The measures thus far discussed have primarily concerned the health and safety of employees. Measures providing for the licensing of trades are designed primarily in the interest of the public health and safety. On this ground the courts have within the past year sustained the constitutionality of the law requiring the registration of plumbers in New York City.* The so-called "right to work" has been restricted by scores of legal enactments which deny the individual the right to work when, where and how he pleases. At the present time the asserted constitutional right of a citizen to dispose of his labor and property as he deems best is denied to him who would be a lawyer, physician, dentist, pharmacist, embalmer, veterinarian, public accountant, horseshoer, master plumber, stationary engineer or fireman, and he can exercise such occupation only on the condition that he passes a satisfactory examination and secures a license from the public authorities. This year two additional callings have been put under public supervision-that of a registered nurse and that of a barber. The regents of the State University are to have

*Chapter 803 of the Laws of 1896 which provides that "it shall not be lawful for any person or co-partnership to engage in, or carry on the trade, business or calling of employee or master plumber in the city of New York, unless the name and address of such person and of each and every member of such co-partnership shall have been registered" and which requires each master plumber to hold a certificate of competency from the examining board of plumbers of the city is in the nature of a police regulation for the protection of the public health and is constitutional.Schnaier v. Navarre Hotel and Importation Company, 82 App. Div. 25.

charge of the registration of nurses and appoint a State board of five examiners from a list of ten members of the New York State Nurses' Association nominated by the association (chapter 293).

The barbers' act (chapter 632) establishes a State board of examiners, consisting of two master barbers and two journeymen barbers, which has power to appoint sub-examining boards in villages and cities. No person is to practice the occupation of a barber without a certificate of qualification from the board of examiners; but persons who are now barbers of at least three years' experience are to receive such certificate, on the payment of a fee of one dollar, without examination. The board of examiners has the power to revoke a license or certificate, after a hearing, for conviction for felony, habitual drunkenness, gross incompetency, the use of unclean towels, cup, or other unclean utensils that are liable to spread infectious diseases. When any member of the State or local boards of examiners discovers a barber shop in an unsanitary condition, the State Board is empowered to call upon the State or local board of health to declare such shop a public nuisance. The expenses of the boards are to be defrayed out of the moneys received as fees for certificates and examinations. The bill as introduced (see Appendix III, Exhibit 21) contained a section providing for 50 inspectors at $3 per diem of service and expenses, but this was eliminated.

Appendix III also contains a copy of a bill to regulate the operation of elevators in New York City and license elevator conductors. Bills to license blasters in New York City and steam and hot water fitters in cities of 25,000 or more population were also introduced, but are not reprinted here as being matters of special rather than general interest.

LEGAL RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF WORKING

PEOPLE.

It has been the established policy of government to protect the wages of working people even to the extent of restricting the freedom of contract between employer and employee. In New York there is a law requiring corporations to pay wages in cash and at weekly intervals, with the exception that railways need pay only once a month. For several years railway employees have been endeavoring to secure more frequent pay-days, and in

Appendix III (Exhibit 24) there is printed one of the semimonthly payment bills.

Another bill reprinted requires employers to pay interest at 6 per centum on all moneys exacted from employees as cash security for the faithful performance of duties (No. 25).

ASSIGNMENT OF WAGES.

Long before the modern labor problem came into being governments had found it necessary to restrict the freedom of money lenders to do as they pleased with their money; usury laws making it a crime for money lenders to ask more than a prescribed rate of interest. A wage-earning class having no other resource than its wages is especially helpless when illness or other misfortune imposes the necessity of borrowing. The government of this State has extended the protection of the law against the class of small capitalists who loan money on goods deposited as security (pawnbrokers), but has not as yet afforded wage-earners protection against persons who loan money on the pledge of future wages and charge such exorbitant rates that the business has become known as "Shylocking." Publicity is the usual remedy proposed for this sort of business. A bill which passed the Assembly in 1903 but did not go beyond general orders in Senate required all persons engaged in this business to file with the county clerk a monthly statement showing the amount of money loaned, the name of each borrower and the interest charged on each loan (Assembly bill 1928). Another bill (No. 2102) provided for the licensing of persons in this business, the deposit of $200 as security and the payment of an annual license fee of $100, at the same time limiting the interest charge to 5 per cent (Exhibit 26 of Appendix III).

AGAINST ABUSES IN THE INSTALMENT BUSINESS.

Another measure for the protection of the poor is chapter 156, for the prevention of abuses in the instalment business. In the past few years there has been developed among the poorest and most ignorant classes of immigrants on the East Side of New York City, a wasteful system of credit in the sale of cheap jewelry and other articles of personal adornment or household decoration. Peddlers have sold these articles on the instalment plan

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and have used the power thereby obtained over purchasers to extort considerable amounts of money. Under the law of this State the ownership of an article sold on the instalment plan inheres in the seller, who can cause the arrest of a buyer upon the latter's defaulting in his payments. We read, for example, of one man who having paid $11.50 in instalments upon a $12.50 suit of clothes, was arrested for the balance of $1, and when dismissed by the court, immediately arrested again on a claim for costs amounting to $17.50, taken to jail and released only by the action of the Legal Aid Society." Relying upon the laws which technically allow instalment debtors to be imprisoned for a term not to exceed three months and acting with the conniv ance of certain city marshals, instalment dealers of the lowest type were able so to work upon the fears of ignorant foreigners as to plunder mercilessly such of them as could be induced to buy small articles on credit. For several years the Ludlow street jail has been virtually a debtors' prison; thus it is said of 561 persons lodged in jail on body executions in 1901, 452 were instalment cases; and in the preceding year 594 out of 697 body executions were instalment cases of a comparatively few dealers. In 1900 and 1901 83 per cent of the body executions in New York county were instalment cases. These cases of arrest sprang almost entirely from suits involving small amounts of money— frequently no more than $5. The investigator who ascertained these facts found that 45.5 per cent of all the above-mentioned cases were for debts of less than $25 and only 8.6 per cent involved more than $75. Hence the obvious remedy was to forbid the issuance of body executions in cases that involved these small amounts. This has been done by amending sections 56 and 140 of the Municipal Code to prohibit the issuance of body executions in instalment cases where the debt contracted or the obligation incurred amounts to less than $100.*

There was also a bill (Assembly bill 113, introduced by Mr. Ulmann) requiring persons who sell goods on the instalment plan to take out a license from the State Comptroller, pay a license fee and execute a bond in the sum of $5,000. This measure, however, was not enacted.

Held to be constitutional by Justice Blanchard of the Supreme Court in People ex rel. Arena r. Warden, even as applied to judgments secured before the enactment of the law.