Latest Important Cases every county, district or jurisdiction into which these papers go, or they are only guilty here. There is no middle ground to take. "Where people print a newspaper here and deposit it in the post-office here for cir culation throughout the counties and dis tricts, there is but one publication and that one is here. If that is true, then there is no publication, according to the evidence, in Washington." Equity. Court will Enjoin a Directory Publisher from Omitting Plaintiff's Name from List of Reputable Express Companies— Such Omission not a Libel. Mass. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachu setts has overruled the defendants' demurrer in the suit in equity brought by William L. Davis against the New England Railway Publishing Company et al., seeking to pre vent the defendant company from excluding reference to the plaintiff's business in its publication, entitled "A. B. C. Pathfinder and Dial Express List." The court says: "The ground on which the plaintiff seeks relief is not that he has a right to compel the defendants, or either of them, to do anything for his benefit, but that he has a right to have them refrain from intentionally doing anything, without legal justification, to his injury. The defendant corporation professes to give to the public a full list of all the reputable express com panies doing business in Boston. While it does not say in express words that the list is complete, that is the meaning which the publication is intended to convey and does convey. Its list is false and misleading, to the plaintiff's injury. . . . "It is peculiarly a case for equitable relief. The wrong is continuing, and in a sense an irreparable one. The extent of the injury cannot be measured accurately in an attempt to assess damages. The injury is to property, and it is not technically a libel upon the plaintiff. The rule that a court of equity will not enjoin the mere commission of a crime does not apply." Franchises. See Public Service Corpora tions. Interstate Commerce. See Legislative Powers. Legislative Powers. Interstate Commerce Clause Violated by Statute Regulating Busi ness of Itinerant Vendors. Colo. The Itinerant Vendors' Act, of Colorado
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(Sess. Laws 1905, p. 274, et seq.; Rev. St. 1908, c. 114, section 3563 et seq.) in Smith v. Farr, 104 Pac. Rep. 401, has been held to violate the interstate commerce clause of the Con stitution. The petitioner for habeas corpus was a salesman representing a factory located in the state of Iowa, and at the time he was arrested was engaged in the sale of vehicles to farmers in Colorado. The court held that none of the conditions which would authorize the state to impose a license fee were present in the case at bar. Its police power was not involved and the vehicle which the petitioner sold was not dangerous nor injurious to health or morals. Neither did the law purport to be one providing for inspection of manufactured articles brought into the state for the purpose of sales to consumers or the levy of taxes thereon as a part of the mass of property therein. Such a law was a clear violation of the Constitution. Monopolies. Prosecution for Conspiracy under Sherman Act Barred by Statute of Limitations—"Conspiracy" Synonymous with "Contract" in Restraint of Trade. U. S. An important decision was rendered by Judge Holt of the United States Circuit Court Oct. 26, in the cases of Gustave E. Kissel and Thomas B. Harned, indicted under the Sherman act for conspiracy in restraint of trade, with others of the American Sugar Refining Company. The defendants pleaded the statute of limitations. The court dismissed the indictments, declaring that the operation of the statute invalidated any action against the defendants, inasmuch as the offense for which they were indicted was committed more than three years ago (reported in N. Y. Law Jour., Nov. 1, 1909). The court said in part:— "Statutes of limitations are beneficial statutes. The interests of the community and justice to persons charged with crime require that offenses be promptly prose cuted. Statutes of limitation should be given a plain and sensible construction. Their effect should not be frittered away by a strained interpretation, based on subtle and refined reasoning. The Government has waited, before bringing this prosecu tion, for five years and a half after the alleged offence was complete, and in my opinion the statute of limitations is a bar to this indictment. "The law of conspiracy has been the subject of a great deal of over-refined discussion
