National Constitution. An amendment allows an appeal from the action of a registrar in placing a name among the registered voters. Heretofore, there has been an appeal only in those cases in which the registrar refused to add a name to the lists. The primary elections law is strengthened in some important particulars. The dates for the holding of the primaries are fixed by law, the judges and clerks are selected by the electoral boards and contests are heard by the courts. Heavy fines, imprisonment and disqualification for office are provided for those who falsify returns and steal or stuff ballot boxes.

ENABLING ACT.

The special election in the nature of a referendum on the question of prohibition presents some interesting legal questions A State-wide referendum is a departure in Virginia, which, it is claimed, may be permitted in regard to the liquor legislation under section 62 of the Constitution. It has been suggested that the adoption of the conference report in the Senate by a vote of 19 to 18, the Lieutenant-Governor casting the deciding vote, was not in accordance with section 120 of the Constitution, which provides that certain bills affecting the revenues may only be passed by a majority of members elected to each house. It is barely possible that those points may be raised after the election in September. In the report of the work of the Legislature of 1908, which I made to this Association at the session held that year, I said of the Byrd Liquor Law, “It might be said to reach the high watermark yet attained of temperance legislation in the State. This repressive tendency will doubtless continue until the State enjoys total prohibition, if a reaction does not set in." It may as well be added that during these half dozen years the reaction has not once materialized.

LABOR.

Some progress is being made in the protection of the lives, limbs, and health of the workers of the State. Among the acts passed for this purpose is the Safety Appliance Law, requiring substantial handrails and stairways, lights and other safeguards

in manufacturing establishments. There is an act regulating contracts of surety between common carriers and employees, allowing the latter to give bonds in a reliable surety company or personal bonds. The act relating to the employment of women and children is amended so as to prohibit their working in establishments handling intoxicating liquors, except hotels. There is a new provision of the third section of this act exempting from its terms mercantile establishments in rural districts, which was evidently intended to be appended to some other section. The ten-hour feature of this law is extended to include female workers in laundries and is also made applicable to mercantile establishments on Saturdays.

LEGAL PROCEDURE AND CONSTRUCTION.

There are two interesting acts relating to procedure in divorce cases, one of which allows orders of publications to issue out of the clerk's office "in vacation;" but this does not afford relief to corporation courts, which have no vacation; the other permits the court in its discretion, to require the whole or any part of the testimony in a divorce case to be given ore tenus in open court. From a lawyer's standpoint, no more interesting statute passed at this session than the one indexed in the printed acts under the title "Technicalities," which is brief and well worth repeating:

"In any suit or action hereafter instituted the court may at any time, in furtherance of justice, upon such terms as may be just, permit any proceeding or pleading to be amended, or material supplemental matter to be set forth in an amended or supplemental pleading. The court, at every stage of the proceedings, must disregard any error or defect in the proceedings which does not affect the substantial rights of the parties."

Another act that justified being quoted at length is that providing

"That in any action at law or suit in equity, where a pleading of either the plaintiff or defendant has been demurred to

by the opposite party, and such demurrer sustained, and as a consequence thereof the pleading has been amended by the party against whom the ruling is made, such party may except to the ruling of the court, and by his amendment shall not be held to have waived his right to stand upon his pleading as it was before amended, and in appeal in such a case, the party against whom the demurrer has been sustained may insist upon his exception, and if the lower court be in error the judgment may be reversed for such ruling."

These acts speak for themselves, and mark a forward step in the direction of a just simplicity. Section 3385 of the code. is amended to provide that when bills of exception are signed after the end of the term by consent of the parties, "the certificate of the court in the bill of exception shall be sufficient or the court after signing same may certify that fact to the Supreme Court of Appeals." The substitution of the words "Circuit Court" for "said court" may have a circumscribing effect upon the corporation courts, which are the very ones intended to be given greater latitude.

MISCELLANEOUS.

There are quite a number of acts of less general application than those already mentioned. Several slight changes are made in laws relating to fish and game. There is also an extension of the act of 1912, in regard to the drainage of swamp lands. One act is intended to eradicate orange or cedar rust and authorize the destruction of cedar trees that may harbor the contagious disease. There is another providing for the retirement of those judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals (on three-fifths of their salaries) who reach the age of seventy years having served twelve years or more as members of the court. The sum of $14,000 is appropriated to compensate the attorneys who prosecuted the Allens and Edwardses when tried for the murder of Judge Massie and others, and $1,200 for the attorneys for the defense. Permission is granted the Gorham Manufacturing Company, of Providence, Rhode Island, to make copies of the Houdon Statue

of Washington, from moulds belonging to the State of Virginia already in possession of the company for certain governments, commissions, universities, etc. No copies can be made for any other purpose without the consent of the Governor. For the use of these moulds the sum of $500 is to be paid for each replica, to go to the credit of the literary fund. A joint resolution was adopted by the House and Senate calling upon Congress to take steps for the acquisition by the United States Government of Monticello. An act empowers the Attorney-General to bring suit against J. Pierpont Morgan to recover the will of Martha Washington. The Governor is authorized to transfer to the State farm convicts sentenced "to jail" for more than five years, and suffering from tuberculosis. Evidently the word "jail" should be "penitentiary." Public health is sought to be protected by the testing of dairy cattle to discover tuberculosis. and by the requirement of cleaning and sterilizing receptacles used in the shipment of milk and cream. Boards of visitors of educational institutions are prohibited from appropriating money to pay the expense of their members to Richmond to seek appropriations for such institutions unless sent for by legislative committees. The Adjutant-General is directed to make a roster of the soldiers and sailors enlisted from Virginia for service in the Spanish-American War.

The State banks are authorized to become members of the Federal reserve system. The act of 1912 prescribing the effect as evidence to be given to deeds recorded prior to the year 1865, is repealed. The longest, and to many the most interesting measure is the appropriation bill distributing about fourteen millions for two years' expenditures.

NOT PASSED.

This list comprises most of the measures of general interest but there were many others which were defeated and several hundred of them were acted upon by the committees of one or both of the branches of the Legislature, but for one reason or another did not come to a final vote. Brief mention may be made of a few of these.

The failure of the bill regulating the business of commission merchants caused sorrow among the ranks of the agriculturists, but the strong sentiment behind it was no match for the filibuster in front. The anti-jug bill and that intended to abolish the segregation of vice were two so-called moral measures whose demise was regretted the more because it was felt that if there had only been a chance to vote on them they would have passed. They died upon the calendar of the Senate because they could not command votes enough to set them as special orders. The defeat of the game bill in the House after its passage by the . Senate seemed to be based upon the fear that the resident hunters' tax of one dollar would prove unpopular and so the lineup of the urban and rural sentiment had the usual result. The defeat of the bill for the co-ordinate college for women at the university was a painful surprise to a number of men and women who had devoted themselves with disinterested zeal to the establishment of this institution. There was a marked increase in the volume of its support over that of the previous session. The woman's suffrage amendment showed only a slight gain of strength over that of 1912.

No question has been more widely discussed in the State than the fee system of compensating public officials, and for at least two sessions the Legislature has struggled with the problem vigorously. The act passed in 1914 provides certain rather high mixima to take effect after the present terms of the officials, and also creates a commission composed of the Governor, Auditor and State Accountant to make an investigation of the whole subject, and report to the next session of the Legislature. The resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution allowing the initiative and referendum, which passed the House by the amazing vote of 64 to 22, hung up on the Senate calender and was not reached.

The defeat of the local option bill for the Torrens system of land registration by a narrow margin in the Senate on a vote to take it up out of its order was deplored by those who had striven so long and valiantly to overcome the prejudice against this admirable system. A long and comprehensive banking bill met defeat in the House because there was a general feeling that the