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The Green Bag
illicit relationships, the harm would be just as likely to occur and the public policy to be violated in a private, as in a public institution. Neither does the charter of the corporation present any new element. It has been thor oughly settled that no legislature can barter away the police powers of its successors. It is also to be remembered that the restrictions of the Kentucky statutes apply to white persons as well as to black, and that the white child is as much precluded from enter ing the classroom of the black, as is the black from entering that of the white. ANDREW A. BRUCE. COMMERCE. (Federal regulation of inter state commerce.)—Under the Safety Appli ance Act, penalties were sought to be recov ered against a carrier for moving a car, with a faulty coupling device, between two points within the state of Alabama. In United States v. Southern Ry. Co., 164 Fed. Rep. 347, defendant asserted that the act in question was invalid as it enabled Congress, under the guise of regulating commerce among the sev eral states, to regulate the instrumentalities of railroads used in carrying on interstate commerce, irrespective of whether the instru mentality was at the time of such use engaged in interstate commerce. The United States District Court upheld the validity of the statute and concluded that its provisions ex tended to transportation between points in the same state of a vehicle belonging to a carrier, regularly engaged in interstate com merce. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Carriage of their own product by railroads.) U. S. 0. 0.— Several carriers were prosecuted for violating the interstate commerce act, forbidding rail roads carrying anything except timber pro duced from their own property, by carrying coal from their own mines. In U. S. v. Delaware &*H. Company, 164 Fed. Rep. 215, the government contended that Congress was authorized to enact this law in pursuance of its power to regulate commerce. It appeared that some of the carriers, long prior to the passage of the act in question, had been granted charters, which entitled them to carry their own coal; that it could not be practically transported over other lines; that if they were restrained from carrying it the people without the state dependent on their anthracite coal for domestic purposes would be subjected to great suffering and depriva tion; and that the property of the carriers
would be greatly depreciated in value. The United States Circuit Court held that this provision was void as inimical to that article of the Constitution providing that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. It is not a regulation of commerce, but entirely excludes from such commerce a certain class of per sons and a useful subject thereof. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (SeU-mcrimination.) V. S. Sup. Ot.—The question whether the exemption from self-incrimination is one of the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, which the Fourteenth Amendment forbids the states to abridge, is considered in Twining v. State of New Jersey, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 14. Twining and another, as officers of a trust company, were convicted of having knowingly exhibited a false paper to a bank examiner, with intent to deceive. The paper was referred to in the indictment, and in the course of the trial defendant called no witnesses and did not testify himself, though the New Jersey law gave him the right to do so, if he chose. The jury were in structed that they might draw an unfavor able inference against him from his failure to testify, where it was within his power, in denial of the evidence which tended to in criminate him. The law of New Jersey per mitted such an inference to be drawn. The general question was whether such a law violated the Fourteenth Amendment by abridging the privileges or immunities of citi zens of the United States. The court stated in the outset that it was incumbent on de fendant to prove that the exemption from compulsory self-incrimination was guaranteed by the Federal Constitution against impair ment by the states. After a clear and logical discussion and review of former opinions of the court, the conclusion is reached that such exemption was not one of the funda mental rights of national citizenship, so as to be included among the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Statute pro hibiting traffic in game.) U. S. S. 0.—The constitutionality of the New York statute providing that grouse and plover shall not be possessed during the close season, whether killed within or without the state, was attacked in New York ex rel. Sih v. Hesterberg, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 10. It appeared that relator, a dealer in imported game, had in his posses sion two birds, one of each of the species
