The age-herald., 1898-09-11
REPRESENTATIVE
 ELECT DAVIDSON On the Coming Session of the General
 Assembly. A CHANGE IN ORGANIC LAW Is Badly Needed, and FaVOrS COnStitu-
 tiOna. Convention.
POINTS OUT DEFECTS IN THE CODE
And Suggest That Special Committee Sit During Recess to Look Into and Recommend Changes
 Favors Good Roads.

S. c. Davidson, one of Jefferson's rep resentatives to the next general assembly which meets at Montgomery on November b is already turning his attention to mat ters of interest to his constituents. He is strongly sn favor of a constitutional con vention, and offers several valuable sug- gestions to facilitate needed legislation, especially in regard to the code In winch he points out many defects.
 MT. Davidson was seen in his office in Twenty first street yesterday afternoon previous to his departure for his home in Warrior and in speaking of the work of the next general assembly said:
 ravore 60 4stitutiona1 Sonsention
 "To begin with. I favor a constitutional convention and I suppose the delegation from this county will be- unite on that question.
 T am proud of the fact that I live in Ala bama and in Jefferson county, and with honest, careful and wise legislation to back up the business-iike administration of Gov ernor Johnston it will be only a short time until Alabama wln take her rightfui stand as the best state in the best county in the world. Her unequalled resources fully guarantee this statement, but before we can advance much we must have a new CT ganic law, and I believe that we will surely have it.
 Il have no special hobby except to do the best possible good for the people of this county, and I shall appreciate any sugges- tons offered me. l hope that there will be harmony so far Jefferson's members are concerned. Without it we will be able to accomplish little.
 NoParticuIar Leg gislation
 AS to any particular legislation, I cannot say that anything has definitely been de- termined upon, but believe there is a gen eral demand that something be done with our public road law, and while I have not formulated bill. have given the matter some attention and shall perpare a plan soon which would be pleased to have eK- amined by those who are competent to suggest or criticise. I think this is very important matter, and I want to see good roads all over Jefferson county
 "I have given the new code some atten- tion. It is generally known that the last legislature adopted our code late in the session, when they did not have time to examine as they should have done. As result there are many errors both in the civil and criminal code. I have not made thorough examination of the work of the commissioners on the criminal code, but as far as l have examined I find some changes that leaves the law in confusion on some subjects. For instance the com mittee amended section 373S of the code of lSS6 so as to raise the age of consent from ten to fourteen years. This section in the new code is numbered 5i47, and the penalty for it's violation is death or life Imprisonment, while the next section for the same offense as to girls between 10 and II years of age is only a misdemeanor and provides fine of not more than $500 or less than $50 and Imprisonment for six months.
 Defects in Civil Code
 'I have only gone through about one- half of the civil code, and I find about eighty changes, some of which are very good while others are not only bad, but are very erroneous in verbiage and in some instances the meaning is uncertain. Sev- eral amendments made by the committee are not, in my opinion, good law, and would not have passed had they been con- sidered as separate bills. "Section 7SS, new section adopted by the joint committee, entities an examiner in chancery cases to charge for his sery- ices in taking depositions zoe per 100 words and s1.50 per day and mileage. An expert typewriter could make probably $50 or $60 l per day at such fees, which is excessive.
 "As amended by the committee, section | 1166 of the new code provides for the pay | ment to stockholders who refuse to accept | new stock in the consolidation of railroad | corporations provided for in this section par value for their stock, I hardly think 1 that a stockholder owning stock worth ! more than par could be required to surren- der it for less than it's value. Again. the l committee attempted in section 263O of the | new code to provide for forfeiture of usu- l