Latest Important Cases ment upon habitual criminals. Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U. S. 616, 32 Sup. Ct. 583. Mr. Justice Hughes says: "The propriety of inflicting severer punishment upon old offenders has long been recognized in this country and in England. They are not punished the second time for the earlier offense, but the repetition of criminal conduct aggravates their guilt, and justifies heavier penalties when they are again convicted. Statutes providing for such in creased punishments were enacted in Virginia and New York as early as 1796, and in Massa chusetts in 1804; and there have been numerous acts of similar import in many states. This legislation has uniformly been sustained in the state courts." The opinion also shows that this legislation by states was sustained by the federal Supreme Court in two cases. Moore v. Missouri, 159 U. S. 673; McDonald v. Mass., 180 U. S. 311. Jurisdiction. See Conspiracy. Marriage and Divorce. Limited Powers of Dominion of Canada Parliament — Unconsti tutional Laws — Marriages of Catholics by Protes tant Clergyman. British Empire. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided the Quebec marriage question July 29 in favor of the Province of Quebec and against the recent proposed legislation of the Dominion Parliament, which undertook to provide that no law or canonical decree or custom of any province should have force or effect to invalidate any marriage performed by any person author ized to perform any ceremony of marriage by the laws of the place of celebration, notwith standing any differences in the religious faith of the persons so married, and notwithstanding the religion of the person performing the ceremony. This proposed legislation, contained in what was known as the Lancaster bill, was desired by the Dominion Parliament as a means to a uniform system of marriage and divorce throughout the provinces, and also to prevent any interference on the part of any religious body with the application of civil law to those subjects. The Papal ne temere decree, which had had influence in the Province of Quebec, declared that the marriage of two Catholics or of a Catholic with a Protestant must be per formed before or with the sanction of the Catholic parish priest. The Lord Chancellor in giving judgment said that the proposed bill, the Lancaster bill, would be unconstitutional, as beyond the powers of the Dominion Parliament. The Canadian
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Parliament was declared to be without power to act in such a case without concurrent legislation by the province or provinces concerned. The Privy Council followed the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada. The question in this case was similar to that which the Supreme Court has to face in con struing the distribution of powers between the federal Government and the states in our own Constitution. In the division of legislative functions made by the British North America Act, marriage and divorce are assigned to the exclusive authority of the federal Parliament, and the solemnization of marriage and civil rights in the several Provinces to the exclusive authority of the provincial legislature. The Judicial Commiteee, following the Supreme Court of the Dominion, upheld the objections of the Provinces and declared the Bill ultra vires. We would say, in the event of a similar decision in the United States, that strict construction and state rights had triumphed over liberal construction and federal sovereignty. The Canadian court, however, while it denied the right to the Dominion Parliament to legis late, at the same time upheld a lower court decision that a marriage of two Catholics by a Protestant clergyman, or a marriage of a Catho lic and a Protestant under the same conditions, was valid in the province of Quebec. In the lower court Judge Charbonneau refused to annul a marriage in accordance with a decision of the archbishop's court, on the ground that it had been performed between two Catholics by a Protestant minister. In the eye of the law, Judge Charbonneau declared, the clergyman acted as a civil officer, one authorized to keep registers of marriages. A marriage performed by a clergyman was really teo ceremonies, one — the registering of the marriage, etc. — civil; the other religious. It was the civil ceremony alone that the law was concerned with. This view the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed. Race Distinctions. Arizona Segregation Act Sustained. Ariz. By reversing the decision of the lower courts in the case of S. A. Bayless, negro, against the Phoenix Board of Education, the Supreme Court of Arizona on July 16 upheld the constitutionality of the recently enacted state law to segregate negroes from white children in the public schools. In his suit, Bayless contended that under the Constitution of the United States, his children had the right to attend school with white children.
