employee, the increase varying from an average of $0.041 per week in the group of textiles to $0.517 per week in the group of building trades. During the entire period of five years the groups of building and clothing industries and employees of public authorities showed a steady increase in the average weekly rates of wages.

Returns regarding wages of agricultural laborers in England and Wales show a continued upward tendency in 1897 when compared with 1896, when an increase in wage rates was also noted. The number of laborers in districts in which changes in current rates took place in 1897 was 87,385, compared with 99,329 in 1896. Of this number, in 1897, 4,932 were in districts in which wages fell, compared with 40,751 in 1896, and 82,453 were in districts in which wages rose, compared with 58,578 in 1896. The total net effect of the changes in 1897 was an increase of £2,411 ($11,733) per week, or 64d. ($0.132) per head, compared with £383 ($1,864) in 1896, or a rise of 1d. ($0.02) per head. Calculated on the total number of agricultural laborers in England and Wales, the rise per head in 1897 amounted to gd. (80.015) per week, as compared with a rise of d. ($0.003) per week in 1896 and a fall of 3d. ($0.015) per week in 1895.

The information concerning railway employees is shown in the form of actual earnings, as the remuneration is usually regulated by gradu ated scales of pay rather than by fixed wage rates. Returns are published from leading railway companies employing nearly 90 per cent of all the railway employees in the United Kingdom. The returns cover the number of employees and total wages paid the first week in December, 1896 and 1897, respectively, in the passenger, freight, locomotive, and machinery construction departments.

The returns are summarized in the following table:

RAILWAY EMPLOYEES AND WAGES PAID IN 17 COMPANIES FOR THE FIRST WEEK IN DECEMBER, 1896 AND 1897.

The average wages for the 17 railways in the United Kingdom rose from 24s. 2ąd. ($5.90) in 1896 to 24s. 7d. ($5.98) in 1897, or 44d. ($0.001) per head.

Among seamen the data obtainable for 1897 showed a decidedly rising tendency in wages.

CHANGES IN HOURS OF LABOR.-There were 254 changes reported in the hours of labor, all but 7 of which resulted in a reduction of the

working time. Of 70,632 employees affected by these changes, 69,572 had their hours of labor reduced and but 1,060 had them increased. The total net reduction in weekly hours of labor amounted to 284,675 hours, or an average reduction of 4.03 hours per week per person affected by changes. The average reduction in working time is greater than in the years 1893, 1895, and 1896, and is nearly equal to that in 1894, the year of the introduction of the eight-hour day in the Government service, when the average reduction was 4.04 hours per week.

The following table shows the number of employees affected by changes in the hours of labor, classified according to the extent of such changes, for the years 1893 to 1897, inclusive:

EMPLOYEES AFFECTED BY CHANGES IN HOURS OF LABOR, BY EXTENT OF CHANGE PER WEEK, 1893 TO 1897.

The reduction of hours in 1897 in most cases amounted to less than two per week, although the proportion of employees whose hours of labor were reduced eight hours per week or over was unusually large. Where the hours of labor were increased, the increase amounted to less than one hour per week in the case of about two-thirds of the employees so affected.

The number of changes in the hours of labor and the number of employees affected during the year 1897 are shown by industries in the following table:

NUMBER OF INCREASES AND DECREASES IN HOURS OF LABOR, AND EMPLOYEES AFFECTED, BY INDUSTRIES, 1897.

The greatest number of changes in the hours of labor was reported in the group of building trades, all of which changes resulted in reduced hours of labor. The largest number of persons affected by changes in hours of labor was in the group of metal, engineering, and shipbuilding, in which industry 29,930 persons had their labor time reduced, and but 150 had it increased. In the clothing industry no change was reported. The greatest decrease in the average weekly hours of labor was 5.99, in the metal, engineering, and shipbuilding industries.

During 1897, 5,896 employees in private establishments and 200 employees in the public service secured an eight-hour day for a six-day week, while 5,036 employees in private establishments and 302 in the public service secured an eight-hour day for a week of seven days. On the other hand, 300 employees who had been working eight hours per day had their working day increased.

PIECE PRICE LISTS AND SLIDING SCALES.-Piece price lists adopted and revised in 1897 are given for the metal, textile, boot and shoe, tailoring, hat, glass bottle, and leather industries, and sliding scales for blast furnace men and coal miners. The report also shows the text of a number of the most important agreements entered into by employers and employees regarding rates of wages, hours of labor, and other working conditions.

DECISIONS OF COURTS AFFECTING LABOR.

[This subject, begun in Bulletin No. 2, has been continued in successive issues. All material parts of the decisions are reproduced in the words of the courts, indicated when short by quotation marks and when long by being printed solid. In order to save space, immaterial matter, needed simply by way of explanation, is given in the words of the editorial reviser.]

DECISIONS UNDER STATUTORY LAW.

CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTE-EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY ACT— RAILWAY RELIEF ASSOCIATION, ETC.-Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Co. v. Montgomery, 19 Northeastern Reporter, page 582.-Action was brought in the circuit court of Cass County, Ind., by William J. Montgomery against the above-named railroad company to recover damages for personal injuries due to the negligence of said company and sustained by him while in its employ. A judgment was rendered for Montgomery and the defendant company appealed the case to the supreme court of the State, which rendered its decision February 19, 1898, and affirmed the judgment of the lower court.

The opinion of the supreme court was delivered by Judge McCabe, and the facts in the case and the reasons for the decision are sufficiently shown in the following quotation therefrom:

The only objection urged to the complaint is that it shows that the plaintiff [Montgomery] was a freight brakeman in the defendant's above-named railroad company] service on its railroad, and that it was the negligence of the engineer of the train on which he was serving that caused his injury, and that, under the fellow-servant rule, there was no liability. The injury occurred on July 1, 1893, after the act approved March 4, 1893, took effect, touching the liability of railroads, commonly called the "Employers' liability act." Acts 1893, p. 294; Rev. St., 1894, §§ 7083-7087 (Horner's Rev. St., 1897, §§ 5206–5206v).

Appellant's [above-named railroad company] learned counsel contend that it is settled law that the employer is not liable to an employee for injuries caused by the negligence of a coemployee in the same general service, unless the employer was guilty of some negligence in employing the servant, with knowledge of his negligent habits or incompetency, or retained him after knowledge of such negligence or lack of skill. There is no showing of any such negligence on the part of the appellant, as employer, in the complaint. Appellee [Montgomery] concedes this to be the common-law rule, and that it prevailed in this State prior to the enactment above mentioned. Indeed, it is conceded by the appellee that his complaint depends upon that act for its sufficiency in its facts to constitute a cause of action, and is founded thereon.

It is first contended by the appellant that the act does not change the common-law rule, and it would seem to follow, if that is true, that the complaint is clearly bad. The first section provides: "That every railroad or other corporation, except municipal, operating in this State

shall be liable in damages for personal injury suffered by any employee while in its service, the employee so injured being in the exercise of due care and diligence, in the following cases." Then follow four subdivisions, specifying the cases in which liability is to attach, the fourth of which, and the one on which this action is founded, reads thus: "Where such injury was caused by the negligence of any person in the service of such corporation, who has charge of any signal, telegraph office, switch yard, shop, roundhouse, locomotive engine, or train upon a railway, or where such injury was caused by the negligence of any person, coemployee, or fellow-servant engaged in the same common service in any of the several departments of the service of any such corporation, the said person, coemployee, or fellow-servant, at the time. acting in the place and performing the duty of the corporation in that behalf, and the person so injured, obeying or conforming to the order of some superior at the time of such injury, having authority to direct; but nothing herein shall be construed to abridge the liability of the corporation under existing laws." Appellant's learned counsel say: "The complaint lacks two allegations to make it good under this provision, (1) That the engineer at the time was acting in the place and performing the duty of the corporation in that behalt; and (2) that appellee was obeying or conforming to the order of some superior at the time of such injury, having authority to direct. It was not alleged that the engineer was acting in the place or performing the duty of the master, or that appellee was acting in obedience to a superior," etc. This language, together with other parts of appellant's brief, indicates that appellant's learned counsel construe the language of the statute above quoted as conveying the meaning that the right to recover against an employer for the negligence of a coemployee or fellow servant rests upon the condition that such negligent coemployee was at the time acting in the place and performing the duty that the master or employer owed to his or its servants or employees generally, and yet they do not say so in so many words. The majority of the court are of the opinion that the decision of that question is not necessary to the decision of this case. They hold that the only part of the fourth subdivision of said section which is necessary to be considered in determining the sufficiency of the complaint is the following: "Where such injury was caused by the negligence of any person in the service of such corporation who has charge of any locomotive engine. upon a railway, and the person so injured, obeying or conforming to the order of some superior at the time of such injury, having authority to direct;" and that hence it was not necessary that the complaint should state that the alleged negligent engineer, at the time he committed the alleged negligent injury, as provided in such concluding clause, was acting in the place and performing the duty of the corporation in that behalf, while the writer hereof is of the opinion that the whole of the fourth subdivision must stand together, and that the words quoted from the concluding clause qualify the liability created in the first clause or clauses. But the duty of the corporation therein mentioned, in the opinion of the writer, means, not the duty it owes to its servants, but the duty it owes to the public in carrying on its business; and the words, "acting in the place of such corporation," with the other words quoted, were used to convey the idea that, in order that the liability mentioned should exist, the negligent person, coemployee, or fellow servant must be acting as such employee, in the line of his duty, at the time of his negligence. The writer is of opinion that the complaint is good under this construction; and the holding of the court

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