The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-21
MONDAY, AUGUST Fl, 1905.
rrr.-coNsIDERED LEGISLATION.


 As an evidence of ill-ccasidered or vicious legislation the State of Con- necticut is not without a very shining example. Recently an act was passed giving to the Consolidated Railways Company additional powers and priv lleges which are set out in the act. The reads are authorized to build sin gle or double track. spurs or switches on any of the highways or public grounds on which 1t now operates. and also @upon any private lands or across intarsecting streets or highways in any of the towns in which said company shall lawfully operate an electric raii- way"
 If this sweeping enactment is held to be the law it Is plain that it relieves the railway company from all liability to private or public owners of land wherever they are operating electric railways. Taking the act to mean what 1t says the company Is not required to purchase rights of way, or to have property, condemned, or to take any of the other steps usually required be- fore railway can enter upon and oe- cupy private lands. or lands belonging to the State or any municipality. It may be that the courts will not uphold such a dangerous grant of power, but whether they do or do not the Legisla- ture Is not relieved of the odium of having enacted such a law. The Hart ford Times well calls 1t Ian astonishing grant of power.
 Another instance of impossible leg Isiation is found in the Indiana anti- :. cigarette law. Under that law 1t Is penalty to sell give away or otherwise diBpose of cigarettes or cigarette paper or tobacco What Is the result? On rood authority we are assured that "there are at least 1S,000 more cigar cite smokers in Indiana than there were before the passage of the State law forbidding the manufacture or sale of cigarettes, and that the increase is di- rectly due to the passage of the law. The cigarette manufacturers in other States are able to send their goods into Indiana freely undor the original pack age law. Certain tobacco dealers have given away cigarette paper to every body who will roll his own cigarettes, and if four-hfths cf the States in the Union would follow the example of In- diana and prohibit the sale or manu- fracture of cigarettes the tobacco trust, which has profted so much by the In- diana law, would be immensely bene- fted."
 The process is a perfectly simple. as well as effective one. Under the in- ter-state commerce law any citizen of Indiana can purchase cigarettes outside of the State and have them packed and shipped to him, and tho Indiana laws have no power to prevent 1t. That isn't all Dealers in cigarette papers outside the State can send the papers by mail and no one can prevent it. Mill lions of them. we are told, are mailed to Indiana citizens, for which many dealers do not charge anything, be- cause they are advertising their bus iness by this means. and sending them free Is really profitable. because they thus get their wares to new custom CTS. As every one in Indiana can buy the pulverized or cut tobacco and make his own cigarettes they actually get them cheaper than they did before the law was passed and with probably less trouble. The result of the law has been material increase in the number of smokers. as above stated.
 These are two recent examples of what we may fairly call fool legisIa- fion.