that determination by the club of the policeman and the bayonet of the soldier, it submitted all those questions to the peaceful determination of judicial tribunals, and invoked their consideration and judgment as to the measure of its rights and powers, and the correlative obligations of those against whom it made complaint."

In passing, the court say that it cannot be doubted that the government, by virtue of its property interest in the mails, has such an interest in the subject matter sought to be protected by the injunction as to entitle it to appear as a party plaintiff as a property owner, citing, Searight v. Stokes, 3 How. 151, 169.

But the decision is put essentially upon the proposition that

"Every government, entrusted by the very terms of its being
with powers and duties to be exercised and discharged for the
public welfare, has a right to apply to its own courts for any
preliminary assistance in the exercise of the one and the dis-
charge of the other, and it is not sufficient answer to its appeal
to one of those courts that it has no pecuniary interest in the
matter. The obligations which it is under to promote the
interest of all and to prevent the wrongdoing of one to the
injury of the general welfare, is often of itself sufficient to
give it a standing in court.
While it is not the prov-

ince of the government to interfere in any mere matter of
private controversy between individuals, or to use its great
powers to enforce the rights of one against the other, yet
whenever the wrongs complained of are such as to affect the
public at large, and are in respect to matters which are by the
constitution entrusted to the care of the nation, and concern-
ing which the nation holds the duty to all the citizens of
securing to them their common rights, then the mere fact that
the government has no pecuniary interest in the controversy is
not sufficient to exclude it from the courts, or to prevent it
from taking measures therein to fully discharge those constitu-
tional duties."

The opinion then cites numerous authorities to the prop

osition that a public nuisance may be enjoined at the suit of the state by an information filed by the attorney-general, or proper law officer of the state, and says that this doctrine which is well established in the states, applies in the federal government with regard to public nuisances in respect to all matters within the exclusive control of the federal government.

As to the objection which was strenuously urged that the injunction was in effect only a command against the commission of crimes, and that punishment for the commission of the acts enjoined was, therefore, in effect a punishment for crime without a trial by jury, the court say that

"There is not in this any invasion of the constitutional right of
trial by jury.
We fully agree that it matters not
what form the attempt to deny constitutional right may take,
it is vain and ineffectual and must be so declared by the courts,
and we reaffirm the declaration in Boyd v. United States, 116
U. S. 616, 635, that it is the duty of courts to be watchful
for the constitutional rights of the citizen and against any
stealthy encroachments thereon.' But the power of a court to
make an order carries with it the equal power to punish for
disobedience of that order, and the inquiry as to the question
of disobedience has been from time immemorial the special
function of the court. In order that the court may compel
obedience to its orders it must have the right to inquire
whether there has been any disobedience; therefore (quoting
from Watson v. Williams, 36 Miss. 331, 341), the power to
fine and imprison for contempt from the earliest history of
jurisprudence has been regarded as a necessary incident and
attribute of a court without which it could no more exist than
without a judge."

Also (quoting from Cartwright's case, 114 Mass. 230, 238)

"the summary power to commit and punish for contempts tending to obstruct or degrade the administration of government is inherent in our courts of chancery and other superior

courts as essential to the execution of their powers and to the maintenance of their authority, and is part of the law of the land within the meaning of Magna Charta and of the twelfth article of our Declaration of Rights."

“In brief, a court enforcing obedience to its orders by proceedings for contempt is not executing the criminal laws of the land, but only securing to suitors the rights which it has adjudged them entitled to."

The opinion of the court might well have stopped at this point. It had declared—

First. The exclusive control of the federal government over interstate commerce and the mails.

Second. The right of the federal government in that control to remove every obstruction, natural or artificial, to interstate commerce or the mails.

Third. The power of the federal government through the executive branch to forcibly remove all such obstructions.

Fourth. The power of the federal government to maintain a suit in its own courts for an inquiry and determination as to the existence and character of such obstruction.

Fifth. The power of an equity court upon such a suit by the government to order such an obstruction to be removed, or to restrain its being created, and to enforce its command to remove such an obstruction or to refrain from creating such an obstruction by injunction and by punishment for contempt in violating such injunction.

It necessarily followed from these propositions that the circuit court had jurisdiction of the bill by the federal government alleging such obstructions, and as that was the only question before the supreme court upon the petition for habeas corpus the petition was necessarily dismissed.

Attorney-General v. Corbett et al., Am. L. Reg. N. S. 100, 1895.

This was a bill in equity by the attorney-general of Arkansas to restrain a prize fight as a breach of the peace

and a public nuisance. The chancellor, to whom it was addressed, was by statute made a "conservator of the peace throughout the state." As such he had power to hold persons liable to commit breach of the peace in bonds not exceeding five hundred dollars to keep the peace, but it was admitted that this would not prevent the fight, and he therefore held that he could enjoin the fight, and punish a violation of the injunction as a contempt, saying,

"It were the rankest folly, the sheerest nonsense, to direct an
officer to conserve the peace throughout the state, and then deny
him the necessary jurisdiction and power to do so whenever an
emergency should arise which demands the exercise of such
powers as may be necessary to accomplish the
purpose.
It is true a court of equity under our system of laws cannot
administer punitive justice except for contempt, but may pre-
ventive justice in proper cases, and I feel that if there were
more preventive justice administered a vast deal of misery
would be spared the innocent.
Here a comparatively small part of the state in league with a
few prize fighters and their trainers, banded together in a col-
lusive determination to openly violate the statutes of the state,
flinging defiance in its face, say to the constituted authorities
of the state government: We will be protected by local
authorities, and you are powerless to vindicate the majesty
of your laws, to preserve the good name of the state, to
uphold its institutions, or to conserve its peace. The governor
has run the gamut of executive functions to find legal power
or authority lodged in him as the chief executive to lay hold of
the threatened infractions of the statute, and by reason of the

6

restrictive constitutional limitations upon his power he can

legally do nothing without the aid of some court to accomplish
a proper conservation of the peace in that part of Arkansas's
domain. It follows
that unless a court of equity
has jurisdiction to prevent the contemplated acts complained
of, there is practically no remedy, and the state would be pow-
erless to prevent its laws being treated with contempt, and
unable to put a quietus upon a vaunted defiance of its sover-
eignty and authority.'

For these reasons and because the fight would be a public nuisance as well as a breach of the peace, the chancellor enjoined them, saying the remedy for public nuisances

"must be either preventive or punitive, the one accomplishing by injunction, and the other by an indictment on the part of the public. The most effectual, humane and flexible remedy is that of injunction. Under this form, the court can prevent that being done which if done would cause a nuisance. It can command an observance of the peace before it is broken.” Shoe Company v. Saxey, 131 Mo. 212 (decided October, 1895).

Here striking employés of a shoe company were enjoined from picketing, obstructing access to the plaintiff's place of business, and intimidating and threatening other persons to induce them to leave the employment of the company. The court cited Sherry v. Perkins, 147 Mass. 212, and the cases in the federal courts.

Davis v. Zimmerman, 98 (N. Y. Supreme Court) 489. (Decided December, 1895).

The plaintiff was a cap manufacturer, and his striking employés who had gone out were enjoined against picketing and by threats and intimidation preventing others from entering his employment, and inducing those who had not gone out to go out, upon the ground that this conduct was an irreparable injury to the business of the plaintiff.

Vegelahn v. Guntner et al. (Supreme Court of Massachusetts; argued March 24, 1896, decided October 26, 1896), 167 Mass. 92.

This was a bill filed December 7, 1894, against fourteen individuals and two trades-unions, alleging that the plaintiff was a furniture manufacturer in Boston, and employing a large number of men, and that November 21, 1894, without notice the individual defendants left the plaintiff's employment and premises in a body; that the plaintiff had endeavored to employ other men to fill their