weekly payments for the full amount due for such labor or service, in lawful money of the United States to within six days or less of the time of such payment; but if, at any time of stated payment, any employee as aforesaid shall be absent from his regular place of labor or service, he shall be paid in like manner hereafter on demand: provided, that this act shall not apply to any employee engaged by a common carrier in interstate commerce; and, provided, that the labor commissioners of the state, after notice and hearing, may exempt any of the aforesaid parties whose employees prefer a less frequent payment, from paying any of its employees weekly, if, in the opinion of the said commissioners, the interests of the public and of such employees will not suffer thereby.

SECTION 4. The assignment of future wages, to become due to employees from persons, companies, corporations or associations affected by this act is hereby prohibited; nor shall any agreement be valid that relieves said persons, companies, corporations or associations from the obligation to pay weekly the full amount due, or to become due, to any employee in accordance with the provisions of this act: provided, that nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent employers advancing money to their employees.

SECTION 5. Any person, company, corporation or association, found guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction of having violated the third and fourth sections of this act, shall be deemed guilty of having committed a misdemeanor, and shall be fined by such court in any sum not exceeding two hundred dollars.

SECTION 6. It is hereby made the duty of the chief inspector and of the department of inspection to enforce the provisions of this act by the processes of the courts and in the name of the state; and, upon their failure so to do, any citizen of the state is hereby authorized to do the same in the name of the state.

International Text-book Co. v. Weissinger et al., 65 N. E. 521 (Indiana, Nov. 25, 1902).

Action on an order executed by Weissinger, whereby he authorized his employers, American Car and Foundry Company, to pay $2 per month from his wages to the plaintiffs until the sum of $61.25 should be paid.

Demurrer on the ground that such an order violated Acts of 1899, c. CXXIV, § 4.

Judgment for defendants. Statute held constitutional.

DOWLING, J., says: "These sections (ie., sections 1 and 4 of this statute) do, unquestionably, limit and restrict in a very marked degree the liberty of the citizen to enter into contracts which, in the absence of statute, he would have the right to make. . . . Such a prohibition can be sustained only on the ground that some public interest is involved, and that it is of such a character as to render it a legitimate subject of legislative regulation or control. . . . The situation of these persons (ie., wage earners) renders them peculiarly liable to imposition and injustice at the hand of the employers, unscrupulous tradesmen and

others who are willing to take advantage of their condition.. It is clear that the object of the act of 1899, supra, was the protection of wage earners from oppression, extortion and fraud on the part of others, and from the consequences of their own weakness, folly or improvidence. We cannot say that no just ground existed for such legislative interference for so commendable a purpose."

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Laws rendering married women incompetent to bind themselves by contract of suretyship, and forbidding payment of wages in anything else than legal tender, are of a similar nature, and have been upheld. If the Legislature, in the exercise of its general police power, to secure the safety and welfare of the State, may deprive the laborer and his employer of the right to contract for the payment of wages in anything else than legal tender or other lawful money, we do not perceive why it may not also, in the exercise of that power, prohibit the assignment of wages before they are earned. The reason and public necessity are as clear and cogent in the one case as in the other (p. 524). The act of Feb. 28, 1899, applies equally to all citizens, and is not subject to the objection of a partial or improper classification."

APPENDIX No. 8.

STATE LAWS ON ASSIGNMENT OF WAGES.

Connecticut (Gen. Sts., 1902, § 836): No assignment of future earnings shall be valid against an attaching creditor of the assignor unless made to secure a bona fide debt due at the date of such assignment, the amount of which shall be stated therein as nearly as the same can be ascertained, nor unless the terms for which such earnings are assigned shall be definitely limited in the assignment; nor unless such assignment shall be recorded before such attachment in the town clerk's office in the town where the assignor resides, or, if he reside without the state, in the town where the employer resides, and a copy thereof left with the employer from whom the wages are to become due.

Indiana (Acts of 1899, c. XXIV, § 4): The assignment of future wages, to become due to employees from persons, companies, corporations or associations affected by this act, is hereby prohibited; nor shall any agreement be valid that relieves said persons, companies, corporations or associations from the obligation to pay weekly the full amount due, or to become due, to any employee in accordance with the provisions of this act: provided, that nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent employers advancing money to their employees.

Maine (Laws of 1897, c. 301): No assignment of wages is valid against any other person than the parties thereto, unless such assignment is recorded by the clerk of the city, town or plantation organized for any purpose in which the assignor is commorant while earning such wages;

and if said assignor is commorant in an unorganized place while earning such wages, said assignment shall not be valid against any other person than the parties thereto, unless said assignment is recorded by the clerk of the oldest adjoining town, provided there be an incorporated town adjoining such unincorporated place; and if there be no such adjoining town, such assignment shall be recorded in the office of the register of deeds for the registry district in which said unincorporated place is located, . . and no such assignment of wages shall be valid against the employer unless he has actual notice thereof.

Massachusetts (R. L., c 189, § 34; c. 106, § 63): SECTION 34. An assignment of future earnings shall not be valid against a trustee process, unless, before the service of the writ upon the alleged trustee, the assignment has been recorded in the office of the clerk of the city or town in which the assignor resides at the time of such record. Such record shall not affect the rights or liability of the person or corporation from whom such earnings are due, otherwise than is provided in this section.

SECTION 63. . . An assignment of future wages which are payable weekly under the provisions of this chapter shall not be valid if made to the person from which such wages are to become due, or to any person on his behalf, or if made or procured to be made to another person for the purpose of relieving the employer from the obligation to pay weekly. . . .

Nebraska (Compiled Sts., 1899, § 1620): It is hereby declared unlawful for any creditor of, or other holder of any evidence of debt, book account, or claim of any name or nature against, any laborer, servant, clerk or other employee of any corporation, firm or individual, in this state, for the purpose below stated, to sell, assign, transfer or by any means dispose of any such claim, book account, bill or debt of any name or nature whatever, to any person or persons, firm, corporation or institution, or to institute in this state or elsewhere, or prosecute any suit or action for any such claim or debt against any such laborer, servant, clerk or employee by any process seeking to seize, attach or garnish the wages of such person or persons earned within sixty days prior to the commencement of such proceeding, for the purpose of avoiding the effect of the laws of the state of Nebraska concerning exemption.

Nevada (Compiled Laws, 1900, § 1882): The fees and salaries of all persons holding office or positions of profit under the government of the state of Nevada, or under any county, township, city, town or school district within the state, shall be subject to attachment and execution for all debts and liabilities created or incurred by such officials or other persons, and all assignments, sales or transfers of such fees and salaries, previous to becoming due, unless made in good faith and not to defraud creditors, shall be null and void as against all such debts and liabilities.

New Hampshire (Pub. Sts., 1901, c. 215, § 4): No assignment of, or order for, wages to be earned in the future shall be valid against a creditor of the person making it, until it has been accepted in writing, and a copy of it and of the acceptance has been filed with the clerk of the town or city where the party making it resides.

New York (Gen. Laws, c. 32, § 12): No assignment of future wages, payable weekly (or monthly in the case of steam surface railroad companies), shall be valid if made to the corporation or association from which such wages are to become due, or to any person on its behalf, or if made or procured to be made to any person for the purpose of relieving such corporation or association from the obligation to pay weekly (or monthly). Charges for groceries, provisions or clothing shall not be a valid set-off for wages in behalf of any such corporation or association. Ohio (Rev. Sts., 1892, § 7014): Whoever assigns or transfers any claim for debt against a resident of this state for the purpose of having the same collected by proceedings in attachment in courts outside of this state, or whoever, with intent to deprive a resident of this state of a right to have his personal earnings exempt from application to the payments of his debts, sends out of this state any claim for debt against such person for the purpose aforesaid, where the creditor and debtor and the person or corporation owing the money intended to be reached by such process are within the jurisdiction of the courts of the state, shall be fined . and the person whose personal earnings are so attached shall have a right of action before any court of this state having jurisdiction, to recover the amount attached, and any costs paid by him in such attachment proceedings, either from the person so assigning, transferring or sending such claim out of the state to be collected as aforesaid, or the person to whom such claim is assigned, transferred or sent as aforesaid, or both at the option of the person bringing suit. . . .

Pennsylvania (Brightly's Digest, 1894, § 28, p. 2078): No assignment of future wages, payable semi-monthly, under the provisions of this act, shall be valid; nor shall any agreement be valid that relieves the said firms, individuals, corporations or associations from the obligation to pay semi-monthly and in the lawful money of the United States.

Rhode Island (Gen. Laws, 1896, c. 254, § 28): No assignment of future earnings shall be valid, except as between the parties thereto, until the same has been recorded in a book to be kept for that purpose in the office of the recorder of deeds if there be one, otherwise in the office of the clerk of the town or city where the assignor resides if a resident of this state, or in which he is employed, if not a resident of this state.

Tennessee (Acts 1903, c. 21): No action shall be brought whereby to charge any employer upon any assignment by any clerk, servant or employee of such employer to any person, persons, firm or association of any wages (or) unearned at the time of such assignment, unless such assignment at the time of execution thereof shall have been assented to in writing by such employer.

APPENDIX No. 9.

EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN.

Table showing Children at Work between the Ages of Fourteen and Sixteen Years, by Sexes, 1903, in Cities and Towns where One Hundred or More are employed, also Industries in which employed.

THE BRITISH WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT.

Careful inquiry made, by personal interviews, of employers, employees, and officials of the Home Office and Board of Trade, who are charged with the execution of the law, justifies the statement that the Workmen's