Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/226

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206 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. admitted that the personal rights granted by the Constitution extended to the Territories only by necessary inference. Mormon Church v. United States^ 136 U. S. i, 43. But why, it may be asked, is this inference necessary? If it is necessary, it should apply equally to the control of tribal. Indians ; but in dealing with them Congress has never felt itself limited by the amendments or by the analogous clauses in the Constitu- tion itself. On principle, the Constitution is not to be regarded as a curb on a dangerous legislature, nor did the framers so regard it. Per- haps they never thought of colonies except with vagueness ; but if they did, they surely did not intend to set up hard rules for their government. Much less were the amendments intended for the present contingency, being framed for what was felt to be a lack in the existing state of affairs, to protect the people of the States then existing, and possibly the subse- quent States that might be admitted. 2 Lloyd, Debates of Congress, 324, 227. When colonies come, we cannot suppose that the Constitution or its amendments were meant as checks upon the nation's necessary political experience, and we should avoid any inference tending to give them that effect. Politic or impolitic as the possession of colonies may be, Con- gress should be unfettered in devising a system of laws for them. The Liability of Landowners to Children. — The conclusion was reached in a recent leading article that upon principle the law ought not to impose upon a landowner a special liability. to children entering his land without permission, although the children were attracted by his method of making beneficial use of his premises. 1 1 Harvard Law Review, 349, 434. There is upon this question a remarkable conflict of authority. The line of decisions has attained a certain notoriety as the "turn-table cases;" but an exhaustive review of the authority must in- clude, as did the principal article, an examination of collateral cases where the injury was the result of other beneficial user. In the few months since the publication of the article referred to the main question has been considered in several decisions. Of first impor- tance are the decisions in jurisdictions where the question was yet an open one. In the very case of injury from a turn-table two New Jersey courts, — the Supreme Court and the Court of Errors and Appeals, — declare in able opinions, though with dissent in each case, that there is no special duty cast upon the landowner to protect the child. On the other hand, the Illinois court, in the case of an injury in a grain elevator, evidently inclines to the opposite view. In Michigan, the court distin- guishes an unguarded street car from a turn-table ; yet the decision notes the conflict of authority, and cautiously inclines toward the decisions for the landowner. Again, the North Dakota court held for the landowner in the case of an injury to a child by coming in contact with moving shaft- ing ; and in a dictum an opinion is clearly indicated adverse to the turn- table cases. Upon the whole, then, these last cases distinctly follow the tendency of the decisions of late years to deny that the landowner is under any special liability to the child. Turess v. N'ew York, S. <5^' W. H. R. Co., 40 Atl. Rep. 614 (N. J. Sup.) ; Delaware, L. (S^• M^. R. R. Co., V. Reich, 40 Atl. Rep. 682 (N. J. C. A.) ; Kaumeier v. City Electric Ry. Co., 74 N. W. Rep. 481 (Mich.) ; O'Leary v. Brooks Co., 75 N. W. Rep. 919 (No. Dak.) ; Siddallv. Jansen, 48 N. E. Rep. 191 (111.). When a State has once committed itself to the turn-table doctrine that