maximum charge for warehouses belonging to class A for storing and handling grain, including the cost of receiving and delivering, and prescribed a fine on conviction for taking rates in excess of that fixed in the statute, and for not giving a bond or obtaining the required license. Munn and Scott possessed no corporate franchises, but as private persons were managers of a warehouse and elevator located at Chicago. They were convicted and fined for not taking out the license, not giving the bond, and for charging rates for storage and handling grain higher than the rates established by the act. The statute divided warehouses into classes and declared that it should be the duty of every warehouseman belonging to class A to receive into his warehouse any grain that might be tendered to him for that purpose. In short, the statutory regulations of the warehouses belonging to class A in Illinois were not materially different from the statutory regulations prescribed in chapter 126 of the Session Laws of 1891, and which are intended to apply to all warehouses and grain elevators within this state which come within the statutory definition of a “public warehouse.” The validity of the statute having been sustained by the supreme court of the state of Illinois, the case was removed by writ of error to the supreme court of the United States, and the contention there was that the statute was repugnant to the third clause of § 8 of article 1 of the federal constitution, and to the fifth and fourteenth amendment thereof. The tribunal of last resort in Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, affirmed the decision of the court below, and fully sustained the constitutionality of the Illinois statute, two justices publishing their dissent. We refer to the two decisions of the Munn Case already cited for a more complete statement than can here be given of the particular facts upon which Munn was prosecuted under the statute of Illinois.
Turning, now, to the history of a case well known to the profession, and arising in the state of New York, we find that a penal statute similar to that of Illinois, above cited, was approved by the governor of New York on June 9, 1888. It is entitled “An act to regulate the fees and charges for elevating, trimming, receiving, weighing and discharging grain by means
