at common law. "Such combinations cannot create any mutual obligation having the legal effect of binding each other not to work, or not to employ, unless upon terms allowed by the combination."2 But public policy does not forbid combinations of workmen who are bound by no contract for the purpose of obtaining reasonable prices for their labor.3 § 2410. Combinations of Employers and Traders. A combination of employers for purposes operating in restraint of trade, or the free employment of labor, is illegal upon the ground of public policy. Thus the following have been held void: An agreement by several commercial firms by which they bound themselves for the term of three months not to sell any India cotton bagging, except with the consent of the majority of them;" a covenant between citizens of Washington Territory and an Oregon corporation not to run a steamboat, or allow its machinery to be employed on any other boat, in any of the waters of Oregon or California, and many of the waters of Washington Territory; an agreement between two large coal-mining companies that one would take all the coal the other should mine, and the other should not sell to any third parties; a grant of the "exclusive" right of way and privilege to construct and maintain tubing for the transportation of oil through a tract of two 1 Leake on Contracts, 741. * Farrer v. Close, L. R. 4 Q. B. 612. 3 Sayre v. Benevolent Ass'n, 1 Duvall, 143; 85 Am. Dec. 613. See Master and Servant, Title Agency. Hooker v. Vandewater, 4 Denio, 349; 47 Am. Dec. 258; Morris Kun Coal Co. v. Barclay, 68 Pa. St. 173; 8 Am. Rep. 159; Hartford etc. R. R. Co. v. New York etc. R. R. Co., 3 Rob. (N. Y.) 416; Clancy v. Onondaga etc. Co., 62 Barb. 375; Kurtz v. Citizens' Oil Co., 72 Pa. St. 392; Arnott v. Coal Co., 68 N. Y. 558; 23 Am. Rep. 190; Santa Clara etc. Co. v. Hayes, 76 Cal. thousand acres of land;1 an agreement between the graindealers of a town which purported to be a contract of partnership for the purpose of dealing in grain, but the real object of which was to form a secret combination to control the grain trade and suppress competition; a contract by which one railroad company agrees with another not to do business between certain points, and not to connect with, or take business from, or give business to, any other railroad which may be afterwards constructed, and not accept freight and passengers from a certain other company, except at higher than the usual rates;3 a bond entered into by the mill-owners of a district conditioned to carry on their works, in regard to wages and the engaging of workmen and times of work, according to the resolutions of a majority of their number, during a period of twelve months; an agreement by the proprietors of transportation lines, whereby they agree to stock all the earnings of their boats, to appoint an agent to act under the advice of a committee and do such acts as the committee advises, to give such committee the power of making rates of transportation which shall govern the association, to make returns in writing to the agent each month of all freight and passengers transported for the preceding month, computed at such rates as the committee had established for that month, and of the tolls on the same, to make divisions and settlements on certain specified days; an agreement of a voluntary association of salt manufacturers that no member should sell any salt during the continuance of the association, except by retail at the factory, and at prices fixed by a committee; an agreement between several stockholders 5 1 West Virginia Transp. Co. v. Ohio River Pipe Line Co., 22 W. Va. 600; 46 Am. Rep. 527. Craft v. McConoughy, 79 Ill. 346; 22 Am. Rep. 171. 3 Denver etc. R. R. Co. v. R. R. Co., 15 Fed. Rep. 650. 66. Hilton v. Eckersley, 6 El. & B. Stanton v. Allen, 5 Denio, 434; 49 Am. Dec. 282. 6 Cent. Ohio Salt Co. v. Guthrie, 35 Ohio St. 666. of a corporation not to sell their stock nor to give powers to vote;1 a contract between common carriers that shippers shall be denied the advantage of improvements or new facilities adapted to the needs of transportation; a covenant by a canal company not to allow to others a drawback from established rates on the transportation of merchandise over its canal, which it agreed to allow to the covenantee;3 an agreement among the respective proprietors of five several lines of boats, engaged in transporting persons and freight, on the Erie and Oswego canals, to run for the remainder of the season at certain agreed rates for freight and passage, which the parties might change when they should deem expedient, and to divide the net earnings in certain proportions; a secret partnership agreement to stifle or diminish competitive bidding on public works; an agreement by members of an association, the terms of which are, that no one should carry the freight for less than the rate fixed by the association, without regard to the question whether the rate was reasonable or not; a contract entered into between two gas companies, that one of them shall discontinue for a hundred years the manufacture and sale of illuminating gas in a city in which it had been granted by the legis lature the right to manufacture and sell such gas.7 5 6 But the following have been held not illegal, viz.: A contract between a railroad company and a telegraph company that the former will not allow any other telegraph company to construct a line along its road; a contract 1 Fisher v. Bush, 35 Hun, 641. 2 Wiggins Ferry Co. v. R. R. Co., 5 Mo. App. 347. 3 Stewart v. R. R. Co., 38 N. J. L. 505. Hooker v. Vandewater, 4 Denio, 349; 47 Am. Dec. 258. Hunter v. Pfeiffer, 108 Ind. 197. 6 Sayre v. Benevolent Ass'n, 1 Duvall, 143; 85 Am. Dec. 613. Chicago Gas Light Co. v. Gas Light Co., 121 Ill. 530; 2 Am. St. Rep. 124. 8 Western Union Tel. Co. v. Tel. between a manufacturer and a storekeeper that the former shall furnish the trade of his workmen to the latter, and that the latter shall pay eight per cent on all sales;1 an agreement between proprietors of parks that neither shall pay any bonus to parties enjoying his park; a contract whereby the mill-owners of Milwaukee agree to pay to the warehousemen a certain amount per bushel on wheat coming into the Milwaukee market, so far as they are able to control the same, and the warehousemen agree to give the mill-owners the full, absolute, and uninterrupted control of the Milwaukee wheat market for a certain time, as far as they are able, by virtue of their capacity as warehousemen, or vessel and dock owners, and not to deal in wheat during that time, except as agents of the mill-owners; an agreement whereby three manufacturers of a certain kind of curtain-fixtures, under letters patent, owned by them severally, form themselves into a corporation which is to have the sole right for three years to sell all the fixtures made, neither manufacturer to dispose of his stock without the assent of a majority of the three.1 ILLUSTRATIONS. A railroad company, needing a ferry to complete transportation at its terminus, agreed with a ferry company to give it all its ferrying business at that point, and not to employ any other ferry. The ferry company agreed to furnish the requisite facilities, and transact the business promptly and with dispatch. Held, not void: Wiggins Ferry Co. v. R. R. Co., 73 Mo. 389; 39 Am. Rep. 519. T. agreed that he would not pay for ore he might thereafter purchase, taken from L.'s land, a greater price than L. was paying for such ore, and that he would not pay a greater price for ore taken from other lands than L. was paying for ore taken from his own land, and agreed to sell L. all ore thereafter purchased by him, for which he was to receive a certain sum per thousand pounds. Held, that_the contract was not void: Long v. Towl, 42 Mo. 546; 97 Am. Dec. 355. 1 George v. East Tennessee Coal Co., 15 Lea, 455; 54 Am. Rep. 425. 2 Koehler v. Feuerbacher, 2 Mo. App. 11. Kellogg v. Larkin, 3 Pinn. 123; 3 Chand. 133; 56 Am. Dec. 164. Central Shade Roller Co. v. Cushman, 143 Mass. 353. § 2411. Contracts Entered into on Sunday Void. At common law there was no distinction made between contracts entered into on Sunday and on any other day in the week.' But by a statute passed in England in the reign of Charles II. it was enacted that "no tradesman, artificer, or other person whatsoever, should do or exercise. any worldly labor, business, or work of their ordinary calling upon the Lord's day, or any part thereof (works of necessity and charity only excepted), and that every person of the age of fourteen years offending in the premises should forfeit five shillings."2 Contracts made in violation of this statute were held by the English courts to be void. Similar statutes (but differing in phraseology) are in force in nearly every state in the Union; and the same construction has been adopted as in England in regard to contracts entered into that day, i. e., they are void, because made in violation of a statute; the 1 Tucker v. West, 29 Ark. 386; Kepner v. Keefer, 6 Watts, 231; 31 Am. Dec. 460; Adams v. Gay, 19 Vt. 365; Bloom v. Richards, 2 Ohio St. 387; Amis v. Kyle, 2 Yerg. 31; 24 Am. Dec. 463. The federal courts will not adjudge a contract made on Sunday to be against the public policy of a state, unless it be so declared in the constitution, laws, or judicial decisions thereof: Swann v. Swann, 21 Fed. Rep. 299. So a contract made in Connecticut after sunset on Sunday, being valid in that state, may be enforced in Rhode Island, although the law of the latter state prohibits business in one's ordinary calling during the whole day of Sunday: Brown v. Browning, 15 R. I. 422; 2 Am. St. Rep. 908. * 29 Car. II. 3 Fennell v. Riddler, 5 Barn. & C. 406. 4 * Giving a promissory note is "business of a secular calling" within a statute: Varney v. French, 19 N. H. 233. It is an "act of common labor": Reynolds v. Stevenson, 4 Ind. 619. But see Glover v. Cheatham, 19 Mo. App. 656. Tucker v. West, 29 Ark. 386; Allen v. Gardiner, 7 R. I. 22; Hazard v. Day, 14 Allen, 487; 92 Am. Dec. 790; Adams v. Hamell, 2 Doug. (Mich.) 73; 43 Am. Dec. 455. In Cranson v. Goss, 107 Mass. 439, 9 Am. Rep. 45, it is said: "The ground upon which courts have refused to maintain actions on contracts made in contravention of statutes for the observance of the Lord's day is the elementary principle that one who has himself participated in a violation of law cannot be permitted to assert in a court of justice any right founded upon or growing out of the illegal transaction. It is upon this principle that a bond, promissory note, or other executory contract made and delivered upon the Lord's day is incapable of being enforced, or, as is sometimes said, absolutely void as between the parties: Pattee v. Greely, 13 Met. 284; Merriam v. Stearns, 10 Cush. 257; Day v. McAllister, 15 Gray, 433; Fowle v. Larrabee, 26 Me. 464; Pope v. Linn, 50 Me. 83; Allen v. Deming, 14 N. H. 133; 40 Am. Dec. 179; Finn v. Donahue, 35 Conn. 216. And it follows that, as between them, it is incapable of being confirmed or ratified; for, in suing upon the original contract after its ratification by the defendant, it |