conflicts with the Anderson case, where there was neither tendency nor intent to that effect. The Hopkins case is of the same class as the Anderson.
The Securities case has already been sufficiently noted. It really largely turned, as did the Knight case, upon an inference as to the fact of tendency; but trade had so changed as to demand a new finding on that score in the later case.
One thing that is puzzling, however, in the opinion of Mr. Justice White, may be noticed. Pollock, C. B., in the Egerton case,[1] says: "Where a contract is directly opposed to public welfare, it is void, though the parties may have a real interest in the matter, and an apparent right to deal with it." That has certainly been the accepted doctrine. Now, if "sole sale," or that tending to it, were the evils aimed at, the evils that constituted illegality in any contract tending to it, what earthly difference in principle does it make that the contract is made in one form rather than another? Every justice agreed that the contract in the Addyston case concerning admitted rights of property of the parties was illegal, because it tended to restrain trade; then why not any other form of contract that tended to the same evil? What special form of sanctity has a sale as contrasted with any other evil contract? Sales in all directions had been limited where tending to evil, and for centuries, and without doubt! With trade as it has since been conducted, the tendency in the Knight sales has been demonstrated to be as deadly as the sale of discretion in the Addyston. Would it not be strange, then, that form alone should be considered of the slightest importance, and is not the true explanation that "sales"
- ↑ 4 H. of L. 61.
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