one imprisoned in default of bail awaiting indictment for a mere misdemeanor.

A question was raised by a complaint of a criminal confined in the Richmond, Va., jail, that he was not allowed to send or receive mail matter without having it inspected by the prison authorities. The prisoner was not under indictment, nor was his mail examined under the authority of any general prison rule. In that case it was the duty of the postmaster to deliver the mail addressed to the prisoner to the person authorized by him to receive it. To reconcile a seeming conflict between the opinions referred to, it must be understood that while the custody, care, transmission and delivery of mail matter is a function of the National Government beyond the interference and control of state and municipal government, it is equally true that the citizen in all his rights of life, liberty and property is the subject of state or municipal government. The state or municipal government may deprive him of life, liberty or property. Among other rights of which it may deprive him is that of using the mails for any purpose. Among other classes of property of which it may deprive him is his property in letters addressed to him. Of course all of this must be done by process of law. The municipal authority may prescribe, among other rules for his confinement, that the prisoner shall receive no sealed communications from persons outside of the prison, and may direct that no postal official or other person be allowed to deliver to him any such communication. All this the local authorities may do as a means of enforcing local law. However, neither state nor other local authority can control the officers of the United States in the matter of the delivery of mail matter. The local authority may so guard the prisoner as to prevent him from receiving mail matter addressed to him, but it cannot require the postmaster to deliver such matter to one of its own officers, nor to anyone not authorized by the party addressed to receive it. An order by prison authorities, therefore, directing the warden to take from the post office mail matter addressed to a prisoner under his charge, and to open it, would be in violation of law, and would not authorize the postmaster to deliver such matter to the warden. It does not follow, however, that a rule requiring the warden to open letters addressed to prisoners under his charge, and directed to his care, is in violation of law;

for it is fair to assume that a party addressing the prisoner in the care of the warden thereby agrees to submit to such prison rules as may be enforced touching the correspondence of prisoners.

In 1883 there was referred to the Assistant Attorney General's office a communication from the postmaster at Nashville, from which it appeared that letters addressed to convicts undergoing confinement in the state penitentiary were opened by the warden before being delivered to the parties addressed. It further appeared that there were one or more branch prisons. The postmaster stated that letters were frequently returned to his office "opened or otherwise mutilated, with a request to send them to the coal mines, or branch prisons, as they are called." The Assistant Attorney General held that the warden had no right to open letters not addressed to prisoners under his personal care, and that letters intended for the prisoners in the branch prisons should be forwarded to the person or officer having such prisoners in charge.

The postmaster further inquired if it was not the duty of the warden "to envelope such mutilated letters and pay postage thereon." The Attorney General said:

"It is the duty of the warden before opening a letter to satisfy himself that the prisoner addressed is under his personal charge. If by mistake he should open a letter addressed to a person not under his charge, it would be his duty to return the letter in such condition as to admit of its being forwarded without endangering its contents. Additional postage should not be charged unless the envelope should be so mutilated as to render it necessary to enclose the letter in a new one. If the postmaster should have knowledge of the fact that a prisoner was confined in a branch prison, he should forward such mail matter without having first delivered it to the warden of the principal or local prison."

Another entertaining question, that relating to the liability of newspaper subscribers for their subscriptions, has lately been discussed in a New York paper. The Post Office Department is not infrequently in receipt of appeals from citizens of which the following is a fair specimen :

"I sent one dollar to a well-known weekly paper for trial subscription last July. At the end of that time I did not request the publishers to continue it. They did so, however, and I finally refused to take it from the carrier. They sent me the bill and enclosed subscription laws notice.

If

"What I would like to know is, if reputable newspapers do business this way; also, if the enclosed is a correct transcription of the laws of the United States. so, it would seem as if the United States laws were framed to admit of blackmailing."

The "subscription laws" notice referred to in the letter purported to contain a compilation of "the decisions of the United States courts on the relation of subscribers to publishers." The "compilation" was divided into seven paragraphs, thus:

1. Subscribers who do not give express notice to the contrary, are considered as wishing to renew their subscriptions.

2. If subscribers order the discontinuance of their periodicals, the publisher may continue to send them until all the arrearages are paid.

3. If subscribers neglect or refuse to take their periodicals from the post office to which they are directed, they are responsible until they have settled their bills and ordered them discontinued.

4. If subscribers move to other places without informing the publishers, and the papers are sent to the former address, they are held responsible.

5. The courts have decided that refusing to take periodicals from the office or removing and leaving them uncalled for is prima facie evidence of intentional fraud.

6. If subscribers pay in advance, they are bound to give notice at the end of the time if they do not wish to continue taking it; otherwise the publisher is authorized to send it, and the subscriber will be responsible until express notice with payment of all arrearages, is sent to the publisher.

7. The latest postal laws are such that newspaper publishers can arrest anyone for fraud who takes a paper and refuses to pay for it. Under this law, the man who allows his subscription to run along for some time unpaid and then orders it discontinued, or orders the postmaster to mark it “refused” and have a postal card sent notifying the publisher, leaves himself liable to arrest and fine the same as for theft.

There are no such laws or rulings as are here represented to exist. All the relations between publishers and subscribers are governed by the common law and statutes as in force in the several states. In New York one rule may prevail, in Massachusetts another. The Post Office Department, moreover, has nothing whatever to do with the matter further than to instruct its postmasters that they must not lend their official aid to publishers in forcing periodicals upon unwilling addressees. If a person notifies a postmaster that he does not want a certain paper or magazine delivered any longer, the postmaster is required not only to respect the request, but also to send to the publisher a formal notice to discontinue it. If the publisher ignores this notice, the postmaster is authorized to dispose of the periodical for old paper.

In

The franking privilege is a fruitful source of discussion. 1890 the question was raised whether a compilation composed of extracts from the message of the President, the annual reports of

the heads of the executive departments, the admiral of the navy, and the commissioner of navigation, could be admitted to the mails as "free matter." General Tyner discussed it thus:

"Two kinds of mail matter are, by the provisions of law, admitted to the mail without the payment of postage: (1.) public documents printed by order of Congress, the Congressional Record, or any part thereof, or speeches, or reports contained therein, which may be sent in the mails under the frank of senators and representatives, and certain officers of the two houses of Congress; (2.) official matter, which the law defines as 'relating exclusively to the business of the government,' and which may be sent free in penalty envelopes, not under a frank, by any authorized officer of the Government. Strictly construed, the law does not permit a senator or representative to frank the report of a cabinet officer or head of a bureau, or any other strictly official document, unless it shall have been printed by special order of Congress, or shall have been subsequently incorporated as a part of the Congressional Record. The law expressly provides that the right to send 'official matter' free in the mails shall be extended to all officers of the United States Government, not including members of Congress (see act of July 5, 1884, Sec. 3, 23 Stats., p. 158). On the other hand, the law, strictly construed, will not permit an executive officer to send free in the mails the Congressional Record, speeches or reports therein contained, or other public documents printed by order of Congress-such as can be carried under the frank of a member of Congress.

"The one can be franked and must bear the signature of the person sending it, to whom the franking privilege is by the law intended; the other is not matter that can be carried under frank, and is sent for the benefit of the Government only, under certain penalties intended to protect the mails.

"The compilation presented is not a public document in any reasonable sense. So much of it as is made up of quotations from executive documents, reports, etc., cannot be lawfully carried as free matter under the frank of a member of Congress, and so much as is made up of the Congressional Record, speeches, reports of committees, etc., cannot be lawfully carried free in a penalty or official envelope. Some action by Congress authorizing the compilation and publication of such a document is necessary to entitle it to come within the provisions of the law relating to free matter, or such as can be carried under a frank, or to official matter or such as can be enclosed in penalty envelopes.

"It would require a construction so liberal as not to be warranted by the language or spirit of the law, to permit an individual in no wise connected with the Government, to make up pamphlets, or other publications, or extracts from speeches, executive reports, and other public documents, so as to admit them to the mails 'free,' even under the franks of senators and representatives. It is also somewhat questionable whether a member of Congress should be rightly exercising the franking privilege by putting his frank upon pamphlets gotten up for special purposes by unofficial persons, societies, committees, or corporations, though considerable latitude in such cases has been heretofore allowed by the Post Office Department during political campaigns."

A decision rendered by Judge Thayer not long ago upon demurrer to the indictment in the case of the United States vs. Boyle, in the

District Court of Missouri, discussed the transmission of "dunning postal cards" through the mails. This question had been similarly discussed and passed upon in many instances by General Tyner. The postal cards in the case read thus:

"Please call and settle account which is long past due, and for which our collector has called several times, and oblige."

(The postal card upon which the above words were written without display was held to be mailable.)

"You owe us $1.80. We have called several times for same. If not paid at once, we shall place with our law agency for collection."

(The postal card on which the above words were written was held to be unmailable.)

"You owe us $1.80 long past due. We have called several times for the amount. If it is not paid at once, we shall place the same with our lawyer for collection." (The postal card on which the above words were written was held to be unmailable.)

Judge Thayer, discussing the case, said:

"Section 1 of the Act of September 26, 1888, provides 'that all matter, otherwise mailable by law, upon the envelope or outside cover or wrapper of which, or any postal card upon which, any delineations, epithets, terms or language of an indecent, lewd, lascivious, obscene, libellous, scurrilous, defamatory or threatening character, or calculated by the terms, or manner or style of display, and obviously intended to reflect injuriously upon the character or conduct of another, may be written or printed, or otherwise impressed or apparent, are hereby declared non-mailable matter, and shall not be conveyed in the mails,' etc. If the postcards in question are non-mailable, it is because they contain language of a 'threatening character,' within the meaning of the law, or because they contain language calculated and obviously intended to reflect injuriously upon the character and conduct' of the person to whom they were addressed. It is clear that they fall within no clause of the statute unless they are within the clauses last referred to.

"Two of the cards, as will be observed, contain a demand for the money alleged to be due, and a threat to place the demand in the hands of a lawyer for collection if not paid at once. The question, therefore, arises whether Congress intended to prohibit the mailing of postal cards containing, or on which are written, threats of that kind. The language of the statute is very general, and certainly may be construed as a prohibition against mailing postal cards which contain threats to bring suit if debts are not paid, as well as being a prohibition against mailing cards containing threats of personal violence, or threats of any other character. It is most probable, I think, that Congress intended the Act should receive that construction. It is a well known fact that prior to the passage of the law some persons had made a practice of enforcing the payment of debts by mailing postal cards or letters bearing offensive, threatening or abusive matter, which was open to the inspection of all persons through whose hands such postal cards or letters happened to pass. In some quarters the practice alluded to of sending communications through the mail that were both calculated and intended to humiliate and injure the person addressed in public estimation, had become one of the recog nized methods of compelling payment of debts. Congress evidently intended by the Act of September 26, 1888, utterly to suppress the practice in question. It has not only declared that libellous, scurrillous and defamatory matter written on postal cards, or on envelopes containing letters, shall not be disseminated through the mails, but no matter of a threatening character,' or that is even 'calculated . . . and . . . intended to reflect injuriously upon the character or conduct,' shall be so disseminated, if written on postal cards, or on the envelopes