"That the complainant, a citizen of New York, is a telegraph company carrying on the business of telegraphic communication in the State of North Carolina and other states of the United States, and that all its lines in the State of North Carolina are used by the complainant in interstate commerce by their connection with other telegraph lines of the complainant, and that in that State it does a large business, inter-state and infra-state, the former dominating the later.

"That the said complainant, under the regulations prescribed in section 40 of the public laws of North Carolina, 1903, chapter 251, is assessed and chargeable in the State of North Carolina with an ad valorem tax upon the entire value, not only of its real and personal property, in the State, but also with the value of the franchises and capital stock of complaint, determined by the amount of the mileage of its wires in North Carolina as compared with the entire mileage of complaint.

"That by section 80 of public laws 1903, it is provided that every telegraph company doing business in North Carolina shall pay an annual license tax of an amount equal to twenty-five cents on each mile of wire that such company operates within the State of North Carolina.

"That the defendant, B. R. Lacy, has demanded that the complainant shall pay to him for the State, under the provisions of this section, as a license tax, the sum of four thousand three hundred and seventy-seven ($4,377) dollars, which is an amount equal to twenty-five cents on each mile of wire which the complainant operates in the State of North Carolina; and it is the purpose of the said defendant, in case the complainant shall fail to pay the license tax aforesaid, to impose a penalty of one thousand ($1,000) dollars as authorized by said section, and to designate some sheriff in the State of North Carolina to collect the said tax and penalty by distress.

"Upon the foregoing facts the court doth adjudge that the license tax attempted to be imposed upon the authority of section 80, is a general license tax, as a condition precedent to doing business in this State, which business consists chiefly of inter-state transmission of messages by telegraph, and that such taxation is in addition to the taxation of the property of the complainant under the

constitution and laws regulating ordinary property taxation in North Carolina, and is a license or privilege tax attempted to be imposed upon the business of inter-state commerce, and is unconstitutional and void."

And of course, upon the above holding, the injunction was made perpetual.

THE RIGHTS OF MARRIED WOMEN.

This fruitful subject of discussion in the Supreme Court furnishes another chapter, in the case of Harvey Blair & Co., vs. Johnson, 133 N. C., 352, 45 S. E. 644, in which Justice Walker with his usual clearness states the doctrine as laid down from Pippin vs. Wesson to the latest case on the subject; not failing to quote with approval, Flaum vs. Wallace, Farthing vs. Shields, and many other cases.

Mrs. Johnson, with her husband, and another Mr. Johnson had executed a note which read as follows:

$275.00.

WARRENTON, N. C., Dec. 14, 1899. On demand, we or either of us promise to pay to Harvey Blair & Co., with interest from date at the rate of six per cent. per annum, the full and just of two hundred and seventy-five dollars, for value received. And Ella B. Johnson, one of the principals in this note, binds her own separate estate for the payment of this note, the aforesaid two hundred and seventy-five dollars having been advanced by aforesaid creditors for the benefit of her said estate.

This action was brought in the Superior Court to recover of all the defendants a balance of less than $200-which was admitted to be due.

The court holds that the Superior Court had no jurisdiction over an action upon the contract, the sum due being less than $200, but that, the action, being to subject the wife's estate to a charge, was properly brought in the

Superior Court for this purpose. So, all the defendants but Mrs. Johnson went out of court; as to her it was held that she had, by the instrument above quoted, sufficiently charged her personal, but not her real estate, and that the proper time for her to claim her personal property exemption was when the sheriff levied execution, and not before.

The Chief Justice is as clear as a bell in stating his contentions, which are already not unknown to the profession. He sums up as follows:

"There is no better time to return to the plain letter of the Constitution, which it is our duty to follow, than now. The old judge-made law that a husband had a right to chastise his wife was reiterated by this court again and again, till at last Settle, J., in State vs. Oliver, 70 N. C. 60, exploded the fiction that the wife, as to her person, was assimilated to the condition of a child, non sui juris, and subject to chastisement as such, by saying, "The courts have advanced from that barbarism." See Vann vs. Edwards, 128 N. C. 428, 39 S. E. 66. In like manner the Constitution of 1868 repealed the former ruling of the courts that as to her property rights a married woman was assimilated to the condition of a child, non sui juris, by providing as to her property she could "remain as if unmarried," save that as to her conveyances the assent of the husband should still be necessary. In England and all her colonies, and in nearly every state of this Union, by statute or constitutional provision, the emancipation of married women has been decreed, and in many instances even without the single restriction imposed by our Constitution. In this State alone have the decisions of the courts failed to be in accord with such action of the lawmaking power. In this case, the contract sued on having been held valid, the Constitution fixed the jurisdiction in the justice of the peace, and, in my judgment, this action brought in the superior court for the recovery of $170.63 was properly dismissed by the judge below, though not for the reasons he gave. The jurisdiction to recover upon this bond is held to be in the justice of the peace as to the co-obligors. There is nothing in the Constitution or statute which

indicates that recovery upon a valid obligation of the feme defendant is not enforceable in the same jurisdiction. Neville vs. Pope and Finger vs. Hunter, supra. There is no reason that when a married woman borrows $10 for her own use she should be suable only in the superior court, with the increased costs and delay, while if the husband borrows $200, recovery can be had before a justice of the peace. He is a party defendant in both actions. No statute, with the utmost research, has yet been found which authorizes or suggests the "charging" of a wife's property for her contracts. As "it is our duty to construe or expound the law, and not to make it," we should not continue a ruling which, besides, has been expressly overruled. In Brinkly vs. Ballance, 126 N. C. 396, 35 S. E. 632, the court held (Faircloth, C. J., alone dissenting) as follows: "An examination of the Constitution (Article 10, § 6) and of the statute (Code, § 1826) shows no foundation for the 'charging' of the wife's property, as laid down in some decisions of a former court. The Constitution requires only the written assent of the husband to 'conveyances,' and section 1826, Code, requires only the written consent of the husband to contracts affecting the wife's 'real or personal' estate in certain cases, dispensing with it in others." Code, § 178, authorizes a married woman to be sued. Laws 1899, p. 209, c. 78, takes her out of the class of those non sui juris (who are enumerated in Code, §§ 148, 163, and nowhere else,) and permits the running of the statute of limitations against her; and Code, § 443, directs that execution issue against a married woman. The provision that it shall be levied only upon her separate property can have no effect other than to exempt what she holds ex jure mariti; i. e., her contingent right of dower. There is nothing else to which the restriction could possibly apply. As a married woman can by the Constitution use her property "as if unmarried," save that the husband's written consent is required to her "conveyances" only; as by Code, §§ 1826, 1828, 1832, she can contract as if unmarried, except that in some cases, mentioned in section 1826, the husband's written consent is required (nothing more;) as by Code, § 178, she can sue without joining her husband, and she can be sued without joining a next friend; and by section 443 execution can be

levied on all the property she owns (with the same exemptions allowed men or femes sole;) as, further, by Laws 1899, p. 209, c. 78, the statute of limitations runs against her as if unmarried, and by Laws 1901, p. 859, c. 617, she be held liable in an action before a justice of the peace on an implied contract-it is difficult to see upon what principle she can be held a ward in equity, and that the doctrine of "charging" her estate can be revived, without there being now, or there having ever been at any time, a statute authorizing the doctrine of "charging," and after it has been overruled in Brinkley vs. Ballance, supra."

This domestic relation literature is expanding to a fearful extent.

A new edition of Brother Mordecai's summary "in three pages of fine, closely printed type" which was adopted with approval by the present Chief Justice in his dissenting opinion in Vann vs. Edwards will soon have to be prepared, and we trust he will favor us with it an early date. Law students long for more light upon the subject.

CONTRACTS BY MUNICIPAL BOARDS.

A very interesting question was discussed in the case of Wadsworth vs. Concord, 133 N. C., 587, 45 S. E. 984, as to the length of time for which municipal boards may bind their corporations by contract as to necessary expenses to be incurred thereafter.

The action was brought by a citizen and tax payer to enjoin the town from paying out money under a contract for lighting the streets and public buildings, it being alleged that the contract was made without authority and was therefore void.

In November, 1902, the board of commissioners made the contract with Scott & Burton for lighting the town with electricity from June the 1st 1903, the date on which a former contract was to expire, for a term of eighteen

years.