thereby that they would demand a settlement of all these other strikes. That was a sympathetic strike in the second degree of anti-climax, in purpose and results. And then, in one last pyrotechnic fizzle, it was attempted to order a general strike of all labor unions throughout the country, which would have been the superlative degree of folly and wickedness. But by that time the moon was past the full, and Jack being unable to find the priest all shaven and shorn, his pasteboard house came tumbling about his cars.

So much for the general nature of strikes. It is evident from what has been already said that the striker exposes himself, under varying conditions, to both a civil and a criminal liability. The civil liability is two-fold: in the first place, to the master for breach of contract; and in the second place, to any third person who may be injured in person or property by his refusal to perform that contract.

For the breach of contract he is liable in damages to the ́extent of the injury directly due to the breach. That, of course, depends on the nature of the contract, and the facts of the case. If the employer has already broken his part of the contract, as by a reduction of wages, increase of hours, or any other change in the terms of employment, the contract is at an end, and there is no breach, and consequently no damages. But if the breach is all on the side of the employé the only question is as to the amount of damage. Here the law wholly fails to afford adequate relief. In a strike the damage is due not so much to the individual refusal to work, as to the concerted action of the strikers. The place of one man could be easily filled; but the places of a whole body of employés, especially if skilled workmen, are not so quickly supplied. In consequence of this, contracts may be forfeited, and the money already expended in wages and the purchase of material lost, machinery and furnaces rendered useless, and many other injuries and losses caused. Yet, in such a case, the body of strikers cannot be held liable jointly, nor can cach man be held liable for the damage due to the action of all. All for which he can be held responsible is for the loss caused by his refusal alone. That, of course, if susceptible of proof

at all, is very slight compared with the actual damage suffered, and is not worth the expense of collection by suit; while in many, if not the great majority of cases, the laborers could not be forced to pay, even if a judgment were recovered against them. And even if the damages recoverable were in some degree responsive, and the judgments available, the multiplicity of suits rendered necessary in many cases would be in the highest degree oppressive and vexatious, both to the employer and to the courts.

Furthermore, there are many items of damage that it is wholly impossible to estimate, arising from the loss of prospective business and profits, the injury done to third persons who are dependent upon the employer or his products, and the like. One very obvious instance is that of a strike of a body of workmen in a large establishment, the product of whose labor is necessary to keep others employed, as is the case in the present strike at Fall River. When they cease work, the others, willing or unwilling, are forced to do the same. If the butchers in a packing establishment strike, as they did in Chicago in July, all the packers, shippers, teamsters, and so on, must stop likewise. And the same is true of every large manufacturing establishment where the departments of labor are specialized.

Even a better instance of such damage is afforded by a railroad strike. In such case the first element of damage is the injury that the stoppage of work may do to the works and apparatus of the company; then the loss from perishable freight, and from failure to deliver freight and passengers at their destination in time, all of which are capable of calculation. But then comes the loss on the business which would have been done during the time of idleness, which the law cannot estimate; the loss to expecting passengers unable to travel; the loss to shippers unable to send their goods; the loss totradesmen unable to secure needed merchandise; the losses consequent on the general paralysis of business in the region supplied by the road; the loss to creditors unable to collect debts on account of the inability of others to pay, due to the stoppage of that trade; and so on through endless ramifica

tions, until it is safe to say that there is not a person in the whole district but suffers loss, directly or indirectly.

For some of these losses there are remedies; but a dead loss always falls somewhere. The owner of freight destroyed. or detained has his remedy against the railroad; but the railroad has no remedy except that against the striker. The railroad can recover damages for property destroyed from the county in many cases; but the county has no remedy except against the striker. In every case therefore the bulk of the injury suffered is without remedy, and the law proves wholly inadequate to meet the mischief.

There would seem to be no good reason why in some cases, at least, the third person injured should not have a remedy, also theoretical, but practically uscless, against the striker, not for breach of contract, but for a tort committed in that breach, by the misfeasance or nonfeasance of duty. It would appear to be as clearly an act of negligence to leave perishable freight side-tracked, as for a servant to drive his master's carriage carelessly along the street; and while the master is liable in each case for the tort of the servant, the servant is liable individually in the latter case, and should be so in the former. Such a liability is enforceable against a boycotter, for his tortious inference with the business of the person boycotted: Steamship Co. v. McKenna, 30 Fed. Rep. 48; Moores v. Bricklayers' Union, 23 Wkly Law Bull. 48; Carew v. Rutherford, 106 Mass. 1.

The criminal liability of the striker is capable of more efficient enforcement. It also has a twofold aspect, the one growing out of the act of striking, the other out of the acts done in pursuance of the strike. The latter, as a general rule, forces itself much more prominently before the public.

As has been said, the theoretical strike is a harmless affair, whether morally justifiable or not, being nothing but a cessation of work; but practically it is far different. There is no such thing as a peaceable strike. Snch a strike could not succeed. Mere supineness on the part of the employés would inevitably result, sooner or later, in their places being filled with new employés, and the business of the employer being

successfully prosecuted, while they themselves would be permanently thrown out of work. Accordingly, it becomes an absolute requisite of success that new employés be kept away, by force if necessary, and this, if peaceably done, is none the less a violation of the right of the employer to employ whom he pleases. If done by violence, as is usual, it is not only a violation of the rights of the employer, but of the intending employé, as well as a violation of positive law, resulting at times even in murder. The proofs of this are to be seen in the papers almost daily. We read of wanton attacks made upon men whose only offence was that they had taken the places of strikers, of dynamite placed under the houses in which they boarded, of shots fired through their windows, of poison placed in their food. Again, we read of the property of the employers being destroyed in sheer malice, by fire or other instrument of destruction, of reckless defiance of legal authority, of talk at least of open rebellion. At times, as at Homestead, the rebellion is all but a fact. Assault, riot, arson, murder, treason--this is a pretty list of offences to compare with the impudent claim, made at every strike, that the strikers are acting only on their lega! rights.

It is no excuse, as has been argued and refuted time and again, to urge that these crimes are committed, not by the strikers themselves, but by the criminal classes, who take the opportunity of indulging their evil propensities. This is no doubt true to some extent, but not by any means to the extent claimed, as witness the Homestead poisoning case, which is the most noted example of modern times. Even if it were true, the strikers would not stand acquitted of blame, for it is their action that incites and encourages the others; and they stand rather in the light of accessories than otherwise, as there are but few recorded instances in which they have interfered to check criminal excesses. Both morally and legally, they are responsible for most of the crimes thus committed.

The strike is itself criminal in many cases. If it have no valid reason, but is merely an attempt to coerce the employer

to accede to the demands of his employés by leaving his service in a body, it is an indictable conspiracy at common law, equally with an attempt to induce a workman to leave his master's employ: R. v. Ferguson, 2 Starkie, 489; R. v. Bykerdike, 1 M. & Rob. 179; R. v. Duffield, 5 Cox C. C. 404; R. v. Rowlands, 5 Cox C. C. 437, 466; S. C., 17 Q. B. 671; R. v. Brown, 12 Cox C. C. 316; State v. Glidden, 55 Conn. 46; S. C., 8 Atl. Rep. 890; State v. Donaldson, 32. N. J. L. 151; Pco. v. Fisher, 14 Wend. 9; State v. Stewart, 59 Vt. 273; S. C., 9 Atl. Rep. 559; Crump v. Com., 84 Va. 927; S. C., 6 S. E. Rep. 620. Vermont has adopted this rule by statute, R. L. Vt. §§ 4226, 4227, but Pennsylvania and New Jersey have abandoned it in favor of a weaker doctrine, by permitting the use of peaceable persuasion to induce others to quit service: Acts Pa. 1872, June 14, P. L. 1175, and 1876, April 20, P. L. 45; Rev. Sup. N. J. p. 774. § 30, wholly overlooking the fact that in so doing they deprive the employer of his best protection; that it is not the manner of the persuasion, but the persuasion itself, that makes the act criminal; that the wrongfulness of the persuasion depends not upon its nature between the persuader and employé, but upon its results as affecting the rights of the employer; and that the legalizing of a crime is a dangerous precedent.

Yet even this criminal remedy has proved inefficient, owing, as in the case of the civil remedy, to the expense and difficulty of prosecuting it fully. It would of course be impossible to prosecute criminal actions at one and the same time, against thousands of persons scattered over a large territory, all of whom are ready to defend at any length, without great cost and harassing of the courts. The very idea of punishing all the offenders is therefore preposterous; and the punishment of a select few only tends, in many instances, to encourage the rest by their impunity. Even if the leaders are convicted, there are always plenty of others willing, for the sake of a little brief authority, to emulate their prowess and take their · chances. Add to this the fact that the union movement is so widespread that it is almost impossible to secure a jury without union sympathies, and it will be clear that the criminal remedy,