MISSOURI.

The supreme court of this State, on November 26, 1895, affirmed the judgment of the circuit court of the city of St. Louis in the case of Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company 2. Saxey et al., by which A. J. Saxey and others, employees of said company who had quit work and gone on a strike, were forbidden by injunction to attempt by intimidation, threats of personal violence, and other unlawful means, to force the employees of said company, still continuing in their work, to leave the same and join in the strike. The case is reported in volume 32 of the Southwestern Reporter, page 1106. In its opinion the supreme court used the following language:

We are brought to face the proposition that a court of equity has no criminal jurisdiction, and will not interfere by injunction to prevent the commission of a crime. These two propositions are firmly established; and as to the first, that a court of equity has no criminal jurisdiction, there is no exception. As to the second, that a court of equity will not interfere by injunction to prevent the commission of a crime, that, too, is perhaps without exception, when properly interpreted, but it is sometimes misinterpreted. When we say that a court of equity will never interfere by injunction to prevent the commission of a crime, we mean that it will not do so simply for the purpose of preventing a violation of a criminal law. But when the act complained of threatens an irreparable injury to the property of an individual a court of equity will interfere to prevent that injury, notwithstanding the act may also be a violation of a criminal law. In such case the court does not interfere to prevent the commission of a crime, although that may incidentally result, but it exerts its force to protect the individual's property from destruction, and ignores entirely the criminal portion of the act. There can be no doubt of the jurisdiction of a court of equity in such a case. Equity will not interfere when there is an adequate remedy at law. But what remedy does the law afford that would be adequate to the plaintiffs' injury? How would their damages be estimated? How compensated? The defendants' learned counsel cites us to the criminal statute, but how will that remedy the plaintiffs' injury? A criminal prosecution does not propose to remedy a private wrong.

What a humiliating thought it would be if these defendants were really attempting to do what the amended petition charges, and what their demurrer confesses-that is, to destroy the business of these plaintiffs, and to force the eight or nine hundred men, women, boys, and girls, who are earning their living in the plaintiffs' employ, to quit their work against their will-and yet there is no law in the land to protect them. The injunction in this case does not hinder the defendants doing anything that they claim they have a right to do. They are free men, and have a right to quit the employ of the plaintiffs whenever they see fit to do so, and no one can prevent them; and whether their act of quitting is wise or unwise, just or unjust, it is nobody's business but their own. And they have a right to use fair persuasion to induce others to join them in their quitting. But when fair persua sion is exhausted they have no right to resort to force or threats of violence. The law will protect their freedom and their rights, but it will not permit them to destroy the freedom and rights of others. The

same law which guarantees the defendants in their right to quit the employment of the plaintiff's at their own will and pleasure also guarantees the other employees the right to remain at their will and pleasure. These defendants are their own masters, but they are not the masters of the other employees, and not only are they not the masters of the other employees, but they are not even their guardians.

MONTANA.

Upon a petition to the supreme court of Montana to issue a writ of mandamus to compel an interstate railroad company, the employees of which had gone out on a general strike, to operate its line within the State, the petition alleging that "sufficient competent, skillful, and experienced men are available, ready, and willing to serve said company in the operation of said road for reasonable compensation," the court, in a decision rendered in 1894, refused to issue the writ. The case is reported under the title of State ex rel. Haskill. Great Northern Railway Company, 14 Montana, 381. The decision of the court reads as follows:

It is therefore proposed that this court shall inquire and determine what would be a schedule of reasonable wages for a corps of skilled and unskilled employees necessary to operate said railway, and then ascertain whether the requisite number of employees can be procured at the wages determined, and, if that fact is found to be true, as alleged, then command the operation of said railway under the penalties attached to disobedience of the writ of mandamus.

Those questions mentioned must be determined by the court upon the proper inquiry whether the respondent should answer and traverse the allegations of the petition or no, because the court, before sending forth this extraordinary writ, will, by careful inquiry, become satisfied of its own jurisdiction, and that the conditions are such that the act commanded is feasible of performance.

If the proposed scheme is feasible, and the court has jurisdiction to carry it out, it evidently affords a remedy going far toward the solution of a problem of great moment to all parties concerned. But, aside from the relations of this property to interstate jurisdiction, as shown by the averments of the petition, already asserted by the United States courts to some extent, the difficulty is that this court does not at present possess jurisdiction for the arbitrament of the question. involved, as aforesaid, and, having ascertained what is just in the premises, to enforce the same upon contending parties.

The time may come when the State-that is, the National Government by reason of its interstate jurisdiction, may, by proper provisions of law, come into the attitude of permanent trustee of such property so vitally related to the welfare of the whole people, instead of the occasional exercise of trusteeship by receivers, when the property has become financially swamped; and then the proper courts will be empowered to interpose an equitable authority in a threefold direction for the orderly correction of abuses existing toward employees and investors (minority as well as majority stockholders) of the vast capital involved in such property, and also toward the public as patrons thereof. For the reasons suggested, we must deny this application. The cases called to our attention lead to this conclusion also.

NEBRASKA.

The syllabus of the opinion delivered by the supreme court of this State in 1879 in the case of Mapstrick v. Ramge (9 Nebr., 3990), which sufficiently shows the facts and decision in the case, is, in language, as follows:

The defendants, to the number of eighteen, were engaged by the plaintiff as journeymen tailors to do tailoring work for the plaintiff by the piece. They conspired together to stop work simultaneously, and return all work in an unfinished condition. On the 31st of March, 1876, they did stop work, and returned to the plaintiff various and numerous pieces or jobs of work (garments) in an unfinished state, which were entirely worthless in such an unfinished condition. Plaintiff could not get any workmen to finish said jobs, to plaintiff's damage, etc. Held, that the above facts were sufficient to constitute a cause of action for conspiracy and damages.

NEW JERSEY.

In a celebrated case for conspiracy, etc., tried in this State in 1867, that of State v. Donaldson et al. (3 Vroom, 151), it was held by the supreme court of the State that it was an indictable conspiracy at common law for several employees of a patent-leather establishment to combine and notify their employer that unless he discharged certain enumerated persons they would quit his employment in a body; that this was an "unwarrantable interference with the conduct of his affairs, a threat that they would disarrange his business." This doctrine of the common law concerning conspiracy continued to be that of the courts of New Jersey until 1883, when it was abrogated by an act of the legislature (chapter 28, acts of 1883, approved February 14, 1883; now section 23, on page 2344 of the General Statutes of New Jersey of 1895, see post, p. 1015.)

Section 1 of this act was construed by the court of chancery in a decision rendered in 1890 in the case of Mayer . The Journeymen Stonecutters' Association et al. (47 N. J. Equity Reports, 519), as to its effect upon the right of workingmen to combine for the accomplishment of lawful purposes. The following is a synopsis of the facts in the case and the points of the decision:

This court has no jurisdiction to compel the admission of a person, not elected according to its rules and by-laws, to membership in a voluntary association. Courts do not exercise visitorial powers over voluntary associations or their proceedings, except to prevent the violation of some law of the State, or to protect or enforce some right already acquired. This court will not interfere by injunction to prevent the circulation of a slander or libel, even though it may tend to injure the person affected in his business or employment. This court will not interfere by injunction to restrain acts of an association, on

the ground that they may be detrimental to trade or injurious to individual business, when it appears that the acts done or threatened are declared by statutes as not unlawful. Since the enactment of the above section it is not unlawful in this State for the members of an association to combine together for the purpose of securing the control of the work connected with their trade, and to endeavor to effect such purpose by peaceable means.

A question as to the right of a court to interfere by injunction to prevent a boycott, there being a legal remedy for the damage done to the plaintiff's business, arose in New Jersey in the case of Barr v Essex Trade Council et al. (30 Atlantic Reporter, 881). The decision in said case was rendered in 1894 by the court of chancery, and the following is a summary of the same and shows the facts in the case:

A person's business is property, entitled, under the Constitution, to protection from unlawful interference. Every person has a right, as between his fellow-citizens and himself, to carry on his business, within legal limits, according to his own discretion and choice, with any means which are safe and healthful, and to employ therein such persons as he may select; and every other person is subject to the correlative duty arising therefrom, to refrain from any obstruction of the fullest exercise of this right which can be made compatible with the exercise of similar rights by others. Malicious injury to a person's business is actionable. An injury to the business of another is malicious and actionable if done intentionally and without legal excuse. B., the proprietor of a daily newspaper, determined to use plate matter in the make-up of his paper, notwithstanding the interdictive resolution of the local typographical union, of which all his employees were, at the time, members. On this, some of them left his employment; others remained, and in consequence lost their said membership. The union thereupon withdrew its indorsement of the paper, and reported the matter to the Trades Council, a representative association, in which it and other trades unions were affiliated, the whole comprising a body of operatives in the county of Essex of a purchasing capacity of $400,000 a week. After the publication, by each side, of its version. of the difficulty, a circular was issued by the Trades Council calling on all friends to boycott the paper, and to cease buying and advertising in it. A boycott of a newspaper, started under these circumstances, in pursuance of which not only the members of the various societies were, by their rules, but the public was, by the circular, which was widely distributed, called on to cease buying or advertising therein, and personal application was made to actual advertisers, by the distribution of printed circulars and resolutions of the societies, suggesting that they discontinue their advertising therein, even if they had made contracts to so advertise, enforced by a threat, in the guise of a suggestion, that if they did continue to do so they would also incur the enmity and opposition of organized labor, followed by damage to the proprietor of the paper, from loss in circulation and advertising, is an actionable wrong. Even where there is a legal remedy, equity will interfere by injunction to prevent (1) an injury which threatens irreparable damage, and (2) a continuing injury, when the legal remedy therefor may involve a multiplicity of suits. The criterion of the application of this jurisdiction is the inadequacy of the legal remedy,

depending on (1) whether the injury done or threatened is of such a nature that, when accomplished, the property can not be restored to its original condition, or can not be replaced by means of compensation in money; (2) whether full compensation for the entire wrong can be obtained without resort to a number of suits. The facts in this case warrant the issuing of an injunction to restrain the defendants from certain acts which threaten a continuing injury, and probable ruin of the complainant's business, the legal remedy for which is inadequate, and would involve a number of suits.

In the case of the Cumberland Glass Manufacturing Company . Glass Blowers' Association of the United States and Canada et al. (46 Atlantic Reporter, 208), a bill in equity was brought in the court of chancery of New Jersey by the above-named manufacturing company, asking for the issuance of an injunction to restrain the defendants from interfering with workmen engaged by the company. The bill of the complainant sets out that it was a manufacturer of both window glass and hollow ware; that on March 16, 1899, it received a letter from Dennis A. Hayes, president of the Glass Bottle Blowers' Association of the United States and Canada, stating that the nonunion glass blowers of South Jersey had organized and agreed that they should ask their employers to concede them such wages and privileges as had been agreed upon between the union manufacturers and their employees; that the letter requested a meeting to discuss this matter; that those manufacturers who had received copies of the letter met and appointed a committee to confer with Mr. Hayes; that this committee. being unable to come to an agreement with Mr. Hayes, suggested the appointment of an arbitration committee, to which suggestion Mr. Hayes refused to accede and declined to consider any proposition which did not include an increase of wages and a reduction in the number of future apprentices and the subjection of all manufacturers to the domination of the defendant association; that on April 8, 1899, all the journeymen blowers and finishers, with two exceptions, in the hollow-ware department of complainant's works left their work while the molton glass was in the furnace and tanks, and this branch of work has since been idle.

The bill further stated that Hayes lived in Philadelphia, but came to Bridgeton, where the glassworks were located, and directed the strike, either personally or through orders issued by him to William M. Doughty, Charles Doughty, and George W. Branin, none of whom were residents of Bridgeton, but who, since the strike, were continuously in the city, conducting it; that Mr. Hayes, William Lanning, secretary, Conrad Auth, its treasurer, and William Doughty and George W. Branin, members of the executive committee of the Glass Bottle Blowers' Association, had furnished sums of money to prevent the workers from returning to their work; that two branches of said association, namely, No. 8 and No. 19, were organized in Bridgeton