Eight Hour Laws

Statutes making eight hours a day's labor for workmen, laborers, and mechanics. Acts regulating the hours of labor for women and children are generally upheld; Com. v. Mfg. Co., 120 Mass. 383; Com. v. Beatty. 15 Pa. Super. Ct. 5; State v. Buchanan, 2'.t Wash. G02, 70 Pac. 52, 59 L. R. A. 342, 92 Am. St. Rep. 930; but contra. Ritchie v. People, 155 111. 98, 40 N. E. 454, 29 L. R. A. 79. 46 Am. St. Rep. 315, where the Massachusetts case was expressly disapproved. See Atkin v. Kansas, 191 U. S. 207, 24 Sup. Ct. 124, 48 L. Ed. 14S; Liberty of Contract. Such statutes have been upheld in three classes of cases: (1) Occupations injurious to the health of employes; (2) occupations in which women and children are employed: (3) occupations involving the publi • safety and welfare. Holden v. Hardy, 1G9 U. S. 300, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 383, 42 L. Ed. 7S0. An act providing that in contracting for municipal work the contractor should bind himself not to accept more than eight hours as a day's work to be performed within nine consecutive hours or, except in case of necessity, not to employ any one for more than eight hours in twenty-four consecutive hours. was held not to violate either the federal or tln> New Y'>rk constitution: People v. Warren, 77 Hun 120, 28 N. V. Supp. 303; People v. Beck, 10 Misc. 77, 30 N. Y. Supp. 473, reversed on other -rounds in People v. Beck, 141 X. Y. 225, 39 X. E. 80. ies, servants and laborers (except farm and domestic workers) to eight hours are invalid as interfering with the constitutional rigbA to contract; Low v. Printing Co., 41 Neb. 127, 59 N. W. 3G2, 24 L. R. A. 702, 43 Am. St. Rep. G70; In re Bill Providing That Eight Hours Shall Constitute a Day's Labor, 21 Colo. 29, 39 Pac. 328; City of Cleveland v. Const. Co., 67 Ohio St. 197, 65 N. E. 885, 59