There have been few more conspicuous instances of this use of the injunction than the successful endeavor of the Arkansas authorities to prevent the Corbett-Fitzsimmons prize-fight from taking place in that State. Few legal proceedings have in years attracted so much attention as did those to prevent this much advertised fight, and I do not remember ever having heard the Arkansas court attacked and abused for having used the equitable writ of injunction to accomplish in the premises what the law was powerless to do, for it was universally admitted that to place the expected participants and their aiders under the highest peace bond allowed by law, would have been utterly futile as a preventive measure. Said Chancellor Martin in overruling the demurrer in the Corbett-Fitzsimmons case: "The very objects of government are to restrain man's passions, to bridle improper and illegal impulses, to protect them in their civil and political rights of life, limb and property, to subserve the general welfare, and to induce or make them, if necessary, respect the rights of others, 'Tis true, a court of equity, under our system of laws, cannot administer punitive justice, except for contempts, but it may administer preventive justice in proper cases, and I feel sure that if there were more preventive justice administered, a vast deal of misery would be spared the innocent, conceding that * courts of equity have no power to enforce the criminal statutes of the State, and no jurisdiction to enjoin the commission of crimes ordinarily, yet where the crime arises from, or is a constituent part of a public nuisance, they should not fail to exercise their extraordinary powers to abate the nuisance, and in doing this they may by proper orders prevent the commission of the crime." The principle that equity will enjoin an act, for the commission of which the actor could be punished, when the injury from the commission of the act would be irreparable, was recognized by Chief Justice Marshall in 1824, in the case of Osborn v. Bank of U. S., Wheat. 738, 843-5. It appears to be now well settled that equity at the suit of a public officer has jurisdiction to restrain an individual or a corporation from committing acts which are “injurious to the rights of the public or contravenes public policy, even though they may constitute a crime, and be cognizable by the courts of law as such." Such relief will also be granted to a private person who alleges and proves a special injury to himself. This doctrine has long been recognized by the Federal courts, as may be seen from the following cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. Georgetown v. Alex. Canal Co., 12 Pet. 97 (1838). In the last case Mr. Justice Harlan quotes the Massachusetts court as "observing that the preventive force of a decree in equity, restraining the illegal acts before any mischief was done, would give a more efficacious and complete remedy than an indictment or proceedings under the statute for the abatement of the nuisance," and speaking by the same justice the court says: "Proceedings at law or by indictment can only reach past or present wrongs done by appellant and will not adequately protect the public interests in the future." This question is well considered in the able opinion of Mr. Justice Brewer in the Debs case, 158 U. S. 564. Other cases in which similar conclusions are reached ould be cited from Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and, perhaps, other States. It appears, therefore, that the interference of a court of equity to enjoin acts which are crimes when those acts threaten the destruction of, or irreparable injury to, property or civil rights, is not only reasonable, but is sanctioned by abundant authority, both State and Federal. It is said sometimes, with great bitterness, that the application of the injunction to strikes is an innovation; this, of course, is true in so far as strikes, as we know them now, are themselves innovations, and it is true only so far, for the courts have applied old established princiciples to new conditions; for instance, the first American case in which the word "boycott" is used seems to be State v. Glidden, 55 Coun. 46 (8 Atl. Rep. 890), decided in 1887, yet it was in accordance with well-settled principles that the injunction was granted in that case. There have been some score or more of cases in the Federal courts in which the injunction was used against strikers, and, although it does not come within our purpose to examine these cases in detail, yet a reference to several of them will be of interest. It was held in 1887, by the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, in Old Dominion Steamship Co. v. McKenna, 30 Fed. Rep. 48, that for outsiders to procure workmen employed upon terms satisfactory to them to quit work in a body in order to inflict injury upon the employer until he should accede to their demands, constitutes in law a malicious and illegal interference with the employer's business, which is actionable. This comes very near fitting the recent cases in West Virginia. Often the destruction of a man's business cannot be measured in damages, and we may safely say that in all these cases damages could not have been made even after being awarded, the defendants being invariably insolvent; the remedy at law (by an action for damages) being thus totally inadequate, the old first principle applies and equity takes hold and by an injunction prevents the commission of the threatened act. See also Coeur D'Allene Consolidated & Mining Co. v. Miner's Union (1892), 51 Fed. Rep. 260. In Casey v. Typographical Union (1891), 45 Fed. Rep. 135, it was held that a combination to boycott a newspaper for refusing to unionize its office is illegal and unlawful and will be enjoined; surely no action at law could compensate for the injury following from such a "boycott," and the granting of the injunction was in accordance with long established principles. This case was followed in the exhaustively considered one of Barr v. Essex Trades Council (N. J.), 30 Atl. Rep. 881. Nor were the cases arising during the recent miner's strike new in that the strikers were enjoined from congregating near the works of an employer in pursuance of a combination or conspiracy for the purpose of intimidating and threatening his employees and exposing them to jeers and contumely and so "persuading" them to leave their employment; not only were the acts resulting from such combinations or conspiracies ofttimes nuisances in themselves, but if unimpeded they would doubtless have led to the compulsory cessation of the employer's business and to the infliction of irreparable injury upon him, and therefore were properly enjoined (supposing that in each case a proper showing of facts was made and proper proceedings had). A large number of cases from the various State courts bearing upon this phase of the question are collected and commented upon in the case of Steel & Wire Co. v. Murray, 80 Fed. Rep. 811, which shows that abundant precedent exists for what has been condemned as a very recent innovation. Nor can we believe that the constitutional right of free speech was abridged or endangered when there was prohibited, not the peaceable assembling of men for the discussion of grievances, but the congregating and marching of a crowd upon the public thoroughfare near the property of another, or upon that other's property, for the very purpose of interfering with his business and of forcing themselves and their arguments upon his employees, unwilling listeners though they be, and practically coercing them to leave their employment. It would seem almost farcical, if it were not so serious a matter, to claim for such acts as these, the protection of the constitutional guarantee of free speech." On the general question of obstruction of highways, Justice Brewer pertinently remarked in his opinion in the Debs' case: "It surely cannot be seriously contended that the court has jurisdiction to enjoin the obstruction of a highway by one person, but that its jurisdiction ceases when the obstruction is by a hundred persons.' Under the act of Congress of July 27, 1890 (under which the anti-railroad pooling decision was rendered), declaring illegal and punishing combinations in restraint of commerce among the States and conferring jurisdiction on the United States Circuit Courts to prevent violations of the act, those courts have jurisdiction to restrain such violation by injunction, see U. S. v. Alger, 62 Fed. Rep. 824; U. S. v. Elliott, 64 Fed. Rep. 27; in which, with a number of other cases, the injunction was used in pursuance of this act. The matter of interstate commerce is one intrusted by the constitution to the care of Congress, and yet, even when acting under the express provisions of the act above mentioned, Federal judges have been attacked as unprincipled "'usurpers." It is a well-established principle that in some cases of trespass and in some cases of nuisance an individual is permitted by the law to prevent the one and abate the other by force, and surely no one should complain if the individual or the government prefer the peaceful process of a court of equity. We venture to say that the terrible tragedy enacted in Pennsylvania a short time ago would have been avoided had a court of equity been appealed to; certain it is that no such difficulty occurred in any place where the aid of the courts, State or Federal, was invoked. The use of injunctions in labor cases seems to have been restricted rather than expanded since 1868, when, in England, in Spinning Co. v. Riley, E. L. R. VI. Eq. 551 (the first reported labor case in which the injunction was |