Notes of Cases Ct. Rep. 220, without a dissenting vote, has affirmed the decision of the state court for feiting the permit of that company to do business in Texas, other than its interstate business, and imposing a fine of $1,623,500. The proceedings were instituted by the state under the Anti-Trust Acts of 1899 and 1903. The former makes it unlawful to enter into any agreement or understanding to fix or regulate the price in Texas of any article of manufacture or merchandise, and the latter defines a trust to be a combination of capital, skill, or acts by two or more persons or cor porations to create or carry out restrictions in trade or commerce in Texas. The Texas courts found that the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and the Waters-Pierce Oil Company were under a common management, which fixed the prices of oil in the state and carried out restrictions to prevent or lessen competition in its sale. The Anti-Trust Acts, under which the prosecution was begun, were assailed as being retroactive in effect and as depriving the company of its property and rights without due process of law, and it was argued that the fines imposed were so exces sive as to constitute a taking of property without due process of law. None of these contentions was sustained. It appeared that penalties were assessed at $1500 a day for 1033 days and at $50 a day for 1480 days. The company carried on an extensive busi ness in Texas. Its property amounted to more than forty millions of dollars, and its dividends had been as high as 700 per cent per annum. It had persistently ignored the Texas authorities and had continued its course of business notwithstanding a judg ment of ouster in a former case. All things considered, the penalties were not regarded as excessive. Municipal Corporations. Eligibility of Re moved Official for Same Office—Interpreta tion of Statutes. N. Y. The charter of a borough provided that its president be elected by its electors. Owing to charges against Ahearn, the incumbent of that office, he was removed by the governor. Thereafter the board of aldermen appointed him to fill the vacancy caused by his own removal. In People v. Ahearn, 113 New York Supplement 876, his right to hold office was contested. As there was no doubt about the vacancy and the legal method of filling it, the eligibility of the incumbent was the main question. The New York Supreme
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Court, holding that Ahearn was eligible, re marked that if in our form of government it was intended that removal from a public trust should also carry with it the penalty of depriving the person so removed from again holding or being chosen to the same, a clear expression of such an intention would have been stated. This decision has since been reversed by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, which held that the removal of a public official by the Governor after the officer has had proper opportunity to be heard, is a final determination, not reviewable by the courts, that he is unfit to hold office for the remainder of his term. The removal of the Borough President of Manhattan separated him from his office and every incident of it, including the remainder of his term. Each term of a public office is an entity separate and dis tinct from all other terms of the same office, and "to permit the immediate reinstatement of the same persons to the same office for the same term would nullify the constitutional provision for removal." In support of the proposition that the idea of a public office precludes the notion of an undefined term, the Court referred among several authorities to Matter of Oaths, 20 Johns. 492, and Matter of Hathaway, 71 N. Y. 238: "Public office as used in the constitution has respect to a permanent trust. ... It means the right to exercise generally and in all proper cases the functions of a public trust or employment, and to receive the fees and emoluments belonging to it and to hold the place and perform the duty for the term and, by the tenure prescribed by law." (N. Y. Law Jour. Mar. 11, 1909.) Ahearn has since secured leave to take the case to the Court of Appeals. Obscene Literature. Question One for the Jury—Practical Considerations—Impression on the General Public. Mass. A bookseller was convicted under a Massa chusetts statute prohibiting the publication and circulation of obscene literature, for sell ing the book known as "Three Weeks." The Supreme Judicial Court of that state, in Com monwealth v. Buckley, 86 N. E. Rep. 910 (Jan. 1909), affirmed the conviction unani mously, holding that the case had been properly submitted to the jury. "It could not be ruled as matter of law that the jury could not find the book within the prohibi tion of the statute." Considerations such as
