South Dakota: The general local option law calls for the submission of the question of license or no-license at any annual municipal election upon petition by twenty-five voters of the municipality. A new county local option law was defeated at the general election in November, 1908.

Tennessee: The legislature enacts special laws prohibiting the sale of all liquors in all places having less than a specified population. The result is that legal sales can only be made in a few localities. There is no general local option law.

(This State has lately adopted prohibition).

Texas: A local option vote may be taken on petition of 200 voters in any county in any precinct or on petition of fifty voters. Stringent measures have been taken to prevent express companies from shipping liquor into districts under no-license, and a tax of $5,000 has been imposed on each express office or place in which liquors are delivered C. O. D. Soliciting orders in districts under no-license is also prohibited.

Utah: The question of licensing or prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicants is decided by municipal authorities who thus may exercise local option. The State has no general law on the subject.

Vermont: The question of granting licenses is submitted annually and if the vote is favorable to license a town meeting may be called to determine whether a license shall be granted for the sale of liquors of all kinds or for the sale of malt liquors only. The State thus has what, in effect, is a local option law, although it is not called by that name.

Virginia: Under the local option law a vote may be taken once in two years on petition of one-fourth of the voters in towns having not less than 1,000 in population.

Washington: There is no general local option law. The question of the regulation of licenses and the sale of liquor is left to cities, towns and counties as they may see fit.

West Virginia: The municipal authorities have power to exercise local option.

Wisconsin: Any town, village or city may vote on the question of license or no-license upon petition made by ten per cent. of the

voters. Licenses may be excluded from residential districts on remonstrance of a majority of the qualified voters.

Wyoming: Is without a local option law.

RECENT COURT DECISIONS.

Arkansas: Judge E. W. Winfield, of the Perryville Circuit Court declared the Lee Law, passed by the Legislature of 1907, constitutional. This law forbids liquor dealers to send circulars into, to advertise or solicit business in prohibition counties. The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court.

Georgia: A few weeks prior to the Arkansas decision cited above, the Court of Appeals of Georgia handed down a decision declaring it unlawful for a liquor dealer to solicit business by letter in Georgia, even if such letter be sent through the mails from a city in another State. The case was brought against the R. M. Rose Company, then located at Chattanooga, charging them with soliciting liquor orders through the mails in Bartow County, Georgia. The decision of the court is so novel and of such importance that its main facts are given in full:

1. Section 428 of the penal code, which prohibits the soliciting or taking orders for the sale of intoxicating liquors in counties where such sales are by law prohibited is a police regulation, necessary for the effective enforcement of the State's prohibitory regulations. The act forbidding soliciting orders for intoxicating liquors is not affected by the extension of the scope of its operations, caused by the passage of the general prohibition act.

2. By the terms of Section 428 of the penal code, for the solicitation or taking orders for the sale of intoxicating liquors is forbidden, whether the solicitation is by the seller personally, or whether the solicitor be only an agent of the seller. To solicit the sale of intoxicating liquors by letter or circular is a crime, if the latter is intended to be delivered, and is in fact delivered as intended, in any county in the State.

(a) The term "solicit personally" includes any act done by the seller himself which may tend to effect a sale, as contrasted with any like act "by an agent" of the seller, tending to a similar result.

(b) Whether a solicitation is personal or by an agent is not dependent upon the personal presence of the solicitor, but upon whether the means of the solicitation, whether oral or in writing, are used by an agent or by the principal himself. The solicitation of orders by mail for the sale of intoxicating liquors is personal solicitation, if the seller himself in person writes or mails the letter received by the prospective buyer..

(c) The venue of a crime committed by mail is at the point where the matter transmitted by mail is delivered and takes effect. Where a sale of intoxicating liquors is solicited by a communication, written or printed, and mailed in one State, as no crime is committed until the delivery of the letter in the State where such solicitation is forbidden, the courts of the county where the letter is received by the addressee of such letter and its contents ascertained, have jurisdiction of such offense.

3. The State may punish for a crime committed through the mails as a medium, without in any sense impinging the undoubted right of the national government to control the mails. Freedom to use the mails does not extend to their use as a means of committing crime.

4. The general power of the States to control and regulate, within their borders, the business of dealing in or soliciting orders for the purchase of intoxicating liquors is beyond question. DeLamater vs. South Dakota, 205 U. S. 93.

5. Under the provision of the Wilson bill, a statute which (in aid of a police regulation prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors within a State or any portion thereof) prohibits the solicitation of orders is not, for the reason that such statute conflicts with the power of Congress to regulate and control interstate commerce, void as to orders solicited in said State, although the seller and the liquor to be sold may both be in another State; because such regulations in no wise encroaches upon the power of Congress to control interstate commerce. The exercise of such State regulations, so far from being in conflict with the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, is expressly allowed by law. 26 Stat. 313, c. 718.

6. A corporation may be indicted and punished for any violation of law by its servants and agents in the conduct of its business

which it commands or ratifies. That the servant may also be punished does not relieve the corporation.

In a decision handed down in October, Judge Ellis, Superior Court of Atlanta, declared the law imposing a $200 license for the privilege of selling the so-called "near beer" and $500 for the right of manufacturing the article constitutional. The act imposing this tax was passed by the last legislature and designed to raise revenue for the support of convicts. An appeal will be taken from the decision.

Indiana: The Supreme Court of Indiana declared in a recent

decision:

"In the absence of legislation, the business of selling intoxicating liquors has universally been recognized as lawful, but there is no inherent right in the people to engage in such a traffic in any such sense as to remove it from the sphere of legislative control. * * * In the absence of constitutional inhibition it is competent for the legislature of a State to delegate to municipal corporations power to control and regulate the liquor traffic within prescribed territory."

The important point is the recognition of the power to restrict. It is held that cities have a right to enact ordinances restricting the sale of liquor to the business district by boundaries. Under the new statute, boundaries may be defined and their establishment must be left to the discretion of the municipality.

Iowa: In a decision adverse to the United Brewers' Company, of Davenport, which was seeking an injunction against the Civic Federation to prevent its interfering with saloon fixtures and leasehold rights in Scott County, Judge Smith McPherson, of the United States Court, declared that the Iowa liquor law which permits saloons to sell by paying the so-called “Mulct tax", and complying with certain strict regulations, is in no sense a license law. He ruled that the Iowa prohibitory law is still in effect, the "Mulct system" simply giving the saloons a defense against prosecutions, but specifically providing that it shall not be considered in any way as legalizing saloons.

The Court said:

"Complainants are wholly mistaken when insisting that this is a license system. There is no liquor license system in Iowa and has

not been for a quarter of a century. For that length of time there has never been a lawful sale of liquor in the State. No person to-day can lawfully sell liquor as a beverage. Of course this Court will not discuss the propriety of State legislation. The legislature has power under our constitution to prohibit the manufacture, use or sale of liquor as a beverage. Under the Iowa "Mulct System" absolute compliance with its provisions by saloons simply gives the saloon keepers and their clerks a method of escaping criminal prosecution."

Maine: Chief Justice Emery has made a very sweeping ruling in regard to what constitutes a liquor nuisance. The ruling arose out of a suit against a social club. According to the ruling, any place where liquor is kept for sale or to be given away for drinking purposes is a liquor nuisance and the custodian of such a place is guilty of maintaining a liquor nuisance. The Chief Justice held, furthermore, that it is not necessary to prove a sale in order to prove a nuisance, that the giving away of liquor or the keeping of liquor, or the keeping of a place resorted to for purposes of drinking is a nuisance; that a man found in charge of a place in which liquors were kept for unlawful purposes was guilty of maintaining a nuisance and that it does not make any difference for how long or short a period he has been in charge of such a place.

In the case of the State against the J. R. Bass Publishing Company, of Bangor, Maine, Chief Justice Emery, of the Maine Supreme Court, Thursday, handed down a rescript which in effect affirms the constitutionality of the Maine statute prohibiting the advertising of intoxicating liquors in Maine publications. This case has been in the courts for six or seven years and has attracted considerable attention. It was prosecuted on complaint of officers of the Maine Civic League. The rescript was as follows:

"If a penal statute is equally susceptible of two interpretations, that should be adopted which gives the statute the effect evidently intended by the legislature. The statute R. S., chapter 29, section 45, forbidding the publication of advertisements of the sale or keeping for sale of intoxicating liquors, includes advertisements of intoxicating liquors sold or kept for sale without the State. By the act of Congress (United States statute, 1901, page 3177) known as the Wilson act, intoxicating liquors are to a great extent withdrawn from the protection of the commerce clause of the United States Constitution and made subject to the police powers of the States.