If rules are legal in themselves, it is the duty of the officers to carry them out legally. The objects of the rule may be abused, in practice, but if in such case the abuse is the fault of individuals, it ought not to be viewed as affecting the rules themselves or the general purposes of the society to which they belong. If the printed rules are not the real rules of an association, and if a society under pretense of being a benevolent institution, is really a scheme in whole or in part designed for the support and encouragements of illegal strikes, the society must be deemed to be established for an illegal purpose."

Two important decisions in trades-union cases have recently been made in England' by Chief Justice Coleridge and the associate justices of the court of Queen's Bench that serve to define what, in law, constitutes "intimidation" in connection with "strikes." While there is no law against strikes as such, intimidation is held to be illegal and is indeed declared to be so by statute. Every workman has the right to "strike," and so far as the law is concerned he is the sole judge of the reasonableness of his action in the premises. But he has no right to intimidate; and the same law which will uphold him in his liberty to act in combination with others for the advancement of the interests of his trade will punish anything on his part that can be properly construed to be intimidation. What, then, is intimidation within the meaning of the law?

A coal merchant of Plymouth, with a large trade, especially in supplying steamers touching at that port, employed four gangs of hands to unload the colliers. Three of those gangs were composed of union men, and those who made up the fourth belonged to no union. The secretaries of the three unions came to the coal merchant and ordered him to dismiss his non-union men, under a threat that, in case of a failure to comply, they would withdraw the union workmen, and so leave him short-handed, in a way to cripple his business at a busy time. The coal merchant refused; a strike was ordered, and the union men went out.

The secretaries of the unions were immediately prosecuted under the statute forbidding intimidation, and the court found. 'Farrer v. Close, L. R. 4 Q. B. 612.

Connor v. Kent (1891) Week. Notes (English) 154.

them guilty on the ground that the threat which accompanied their demand amounted to intimidation. On appeal this decision was reversed, Lord Coleridge holding that a threat to notify the men to leave their work, unaccompanied by violence or any menace of violence, cannot be called intimidation within the English Conspiracy Act of 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. chap. 86, § 7, sub. 1, which makes it an offense for one to "use violence to or intimidate,” etc., to compel another to do or abstain from doing an act which he has a legal right to abstain from or to do. Of course, the final decision would have been otherwise had there been any recourse to or threat of violence. It seems, therefore, that a threat, in order to sustain a legal charge of intimidation, under the English Conspiracy Act, must at least imply some act that would justify a magistrate in binding the offender over to keep the peace.

Another decision of the court below to the effect that a "strike which could have the effect of injuring an employer is illegal and indictable" was unhesitatingly reversed.

In the different states legislation has been had upon the subject of trade conspiracies and the rights of the employer and employé, In Alabama, the Code of 1886, Vol. 2, part 5, title 2, § 3763. declares that any person who, by force or threats of violence to person or property, prevents or seeks to prevent another from doing work or furnishing materials, or from contracting to do work or furnish materials for or to any person engaged in any lawful business, or who disturbs, interferes with or prevents the peaceable exercise of any lawful industry, business or calling by any other person, must, on conviction, be fined not less than ten, nor more than five hundred dollars, and may also be imprisoned in the county jail or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not more than twelve months. Under this Act any two or more persons conspiring together to violate the Statute, and doing some act to carry their agreement into effect, are each guilty of the offense of conspiracy.'

The Colorado Acts 1887, page 58, 88 1 and 2, forbid the "blacklisting" of employés, to prevent their securing other employment.

1State v. Murphy, 6 Ala. 765, 41 Am. Dec. 79; Cleaveland v. State, 34 Ala. 254; Scully v. State, 39 Ala. 240.

The Acts of 1889, page 92, § 1, declare that "it shall not be unlawful for any two or more persons to unite or combine or agree in any manner, to advise or encourage, by peaceable means, any person or persons to enter into any combination in relation to entering into or remaining in the employment of any person, persons or corporation, or in relation to the amount of wages or compensation to be paid for labor, or for the purpose of regulating the hours of labor, or for the procuring of fair just treatment from employers or for the purpose of aiding and protecting their welfare and interests in any other manner not in violation of the Constitution of this State or the laws made in pursuance thereof; provided, that this Act shall not be so construed as to permit two or more persons, by threats of either bodily or financial injury, or by any display of force, to prevent or intimidate any other person from continuing in such employment as he may see fit, or to boycott or intimidate any employer of labor."

The Connecticut General Statutes, 1888, § 1517, enacts that every person who shall unlawfully, maliciously and in violation of his duty or contract, unnecessarily stop, delay, or abandon any locomotive, car or train of cars, or shall maliciously injure, hinder, or obstruct the use of any locomotive, car or railroad, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than six months.

Chapter 99, § 1518, "Intimidation, Boycotting, etc." Every person who shall threaten or use any means to intimidate any person to compel such person against his will to do or abstain from doing any act which such person has a legal right to do, or shall persistently follow such person in a disorderly manner, or injure, or threaten to injure his property, with intent to intimidate him, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than six months. When to the intention is added the actual agreement to conspire, the offense is complete.' The Delaware Acts, 1877, chapter 481, are in substance:

§ 1. If any locomotive engineer engaged in a strike or to incite others to strike, or in furtherance of any combination or preconcerted arrangement with any person or persons to produce a strike,

'State v. Glidden, 3 New Eng. Rep. 849, 55 Conn. 46. See United States v. Donau, 11 Blatchf. 168.

abandons his locomotive at any other place than its schedule or appointed destination, or refuse to proceed to such destination;

§ 2. If any locomotive engineer, to aid any strike on any other road, refuse or neglect to aid in the movement over the tracks of the company employing him, of the cars of such other railroad company, or received therefrom in course of transit where strikes are, either then, or may have been organized or attempted to be maintained;

§ 3. If any person in aid of any strike upon any railroad, shall interfere with, molest or obstruct any railroad employé engaged in the discharge of his duty;

§ 4. If any person in aid of a strike shall obstruct any railroad track or destroy the rolling stock or other property of any railroad company, or take possession of or remove or prevent the use thereof, or shall by offer of recompense induce an employé to leave the service of the railroad;

5. If any conductor, baggage master, brakeman or other trainman, abandons his train in aid of or to incite a strike, or refuses to proceed to its destination,-in either case the person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not less than $100, nor more than $500, and imprisonment from six months to one year.

In Florida, McClellan's Digest, 1881, chap. 69, § 24, it is provided that if any person shall entice, induce or otherwise persuade any laborer or employé to quit the service of another to which he was bound by contract, before the expiration of the term of service stipulated in said contract, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be fined in any sum not exceeding one thousand dollars.

The Georgia Code, 1882, Part IV., § 4498, is that: If any two or more persons shall associate themselves together in any society organization whatever, with intent and for the purpose of preventing, in any manner whatever, any person or persons whomsoever from apprenticing himself or themselves to learn and practice any trade, craft, or vocation or calling whatsoever, or for the purpose of inducing by persuasion, threats, fraud, or any other means, any apprentice or apprentices to any such trade, craft, or calling or vocation, to leave the employment of their employer or employers, or for the purpose by any means whatever, of preventing or

deterring any person or persons whomsoever from learning and practicing any such trade, craft, vocation or calling whatsoever,— every such person so associating himself in such society or organization, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, imprisonment not to exceed six months, to work in the chain-gang on the public works or on such other works as the county authorities may employ the chain-gang, not exceeding twelve months.

Acts 1887, Act No. 347, page 107, § 1. . . If any person or persons by threats, violence, intimidation or other unlawful means, shall prevent or attempt to prevent any person or persons in this State from remaining in or performing the business, labor or duties of any lawful employment or occupation; or if any person or persons, singly or together, or in combination, shall conspire to prevent or attempt to prevent any person or persons by threats, violence or intimidation from engaging in, remaining in, or performing the business, labor or duties of any lawful employment or occupation; or if any person or persons, singly or by conspiring together shall hinder any person or persons who desire to labor from so doing, or hinder any person by threats, violence or intimidation from being employed as laborer or employé, or by the means aforesaid shall hinder the owner, manager or proprietor for the time being from controlling, using, operating, or working any property in any lawful occupation, or shall by such means hinder such persons from hiring or employing laborers or employés, such person or persons so offending shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction be punished as stated in section 4498.

The Illinois Annotated Statutes 1885, chapter 38, paragraph 73, as amended by Act June 16, 1887, p. 167, declare that if any two or more persons conspire or agree together, or the officers or executive committee of any society or organization or corporation shall issue or utter any circular or edict as the action of or instruction to its members, or any other persons, societies, or organizations or corporations for the purpose of establishing a so-called boycott or blacklist, or shall post or distribute any written or printed notice in any place, with the fraudulent or malicious