33*
THE GREEN BAG
an injunction. The validity of the statute referred to above, under which the pooling agreement was made, was attacked as being in violation of the Bill of Rights prohibiting the grant of exclusive privileges, of the section of the Constitution requir ing the General Assembly to enact necessary laws to prevent trusts, pools and other combinations "to enhance the cost of any article above its real value," and of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The court said that there was nothing in the evidence tending to show that it was the intention of the complainant to force prices up above the " real value " of the products pooled, and that, although the law confined the privileges granted to farmers, it did not in terms prohibit other persons from pooling or pledging their products for disposition, and came to the conclusion that it should be sustained. This case, unless properly distinguished, is likely to lead to confusion. It does not attempt to express the common law as to the public policy of the combination dealt with. The combination is tolerated merely because seemingly authorized by the statute, which in turn is enacted under a con stitutional provision which authorizes such com binations provided that they do not raise prices beyond the real value of the product or article. The court, while recognizing the' abuses which may grow up under the sanction of this statute and the impossibility of finding out in many instances what the real value is, feels constrained to yield to the public policy expressed by the con stitution. Certainly under the common law it would not be necessary in order to invalidate the combination to show that the prices were actually raised thereby beyond the fair value of the prod ucts, but simply that the organization had it in its power at any time to so raise them. From the viewpoint of the political scientist both the statute and the constitutional provision are interesting in that they recognize and encourage collective bargaining. ANDREW A. BRUCE. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. (Validity of Ordinance, N. Y. Sup. Ct. — An unusual ques tion, relative to the validity of a municipal ordi nance, was decided in People v. City of Buffalo, 1 08 N. Y. Supp. 331. A few years prior to the decision proceedings were instituted for certain paving to be done, and the matter was thereafter advanced in various ways, an ordinance confirm ing the assessment roll eventually adopted by the board of aldermen and common council, and presented to the mayor, by whom it .was vetoed, and transmitted back to the board of aldermen. Subsequent to the veto by the mayor, new mem
bers of the commofl council and board of alder men were elected, and took office. The matter of confirmation was again taken up, and the ordi nance passed over the mayor's veto. It was contended that the common council could not be considered as a continuous body and that the new board could not " reconsider " the question on the ground that they had never considered it in the first place, and that if any action could be taken at all relative to confirmation, it must be a vote on the original proposition, instead of one to pass the ordinance over the veto of the mayor. The Supreme Court held that a distinction should be drawn between the state legislature and com mon council, and that the latter should be con sidered as a continuous body, and that the ordi nance was valid as passed. PROPERTY. (Notice of Tax Sale.) N. Y. Sup. Ct. — An objection was raised to the title of land under contract of 'sale, in Rosenblum v. Eisenberg, 108 N. Y. Supp. 350, on the ground that a tax sale of the premises was invalid by reason of no notice of proceedings being given to the wife of the owner, and that therefore her inchoate right of dower was not extinguished. The statute provides for right of redemption by any person having estate in the lands or tenements sold, but the court held that an inchoate right of dower was not such an estate or interest as was contemplated, and that the wife of the owner was not entitled to any notice of the tax sale, and failure to give it could not therefore affect the marketability of the title. TRADE-MARKS. (Uncopyrighted Post Cards.) U. S. Cir. Ct., E. D. Pa. — The right of uncopyrighted post cards to protection as trade-marks is discussed in Bamforth r. Douglass Post Card & Machine Company, 158 Fed. Rep. 355, and it is held that they are not entitled to such protec tion, because they do not identify and distinguish the product' of the manufacturer, but constitute the product itself. The photographs were first made by the usual process and duplicates were printed on post cards, which were offered for sale to the public, and were sold -in large numbers The defendants made exact copies of these photo graphs by the half-tone process and were selling them on post cards at a much lower price than the original. The court says that a photograph, which is the result of original intellectual concep tion of the author may be copyrighted with the same effect as if it were a book; but without such protection neither the book nor the photograph could continue to be the author's exclusive prop erty after it had been printed and offered for sale. It concludes that plaintiff was not entitled to pro tection because it failed to avail itself of the pro tection provided by the copyright statutes, and
