of the State, supported by the revenues derived | ligion. All sects and denominations may teach from taxation. The clause, that, "no sectarian the people their own doctrines in all proper instruction shall be allowed therein," was in- places. Our Constitution protects all, and faserted ex industria to exclude everything per- vors none. But they must keep out of the taining to religion. They are called by those common schools and civil affairs. It requires who wish to have not only religion, but their but little argume it to prove that the Protestant Own religion, taught therein, "Godless version of the Bille, or any other version of the schools." They are Godless and the educa- Bible, is the source of religious strife and optional department of the government is Godless position, and opposed to the religious belief of in the same sense that the executive, legislative many of our people. It is a sectarian book. and administrative departments are Godless. The Protestants were a very small sect in religSo long as our Constitution remains as it is, no ion at one time, and they are a sect yet, to the one's religion can be taught in our common great Catholic Church against whose usages schools. By religion, I mean religion as a sys-they protested, and so is their version of the tem, not religion in the sense of natural law. Bible sectarian, as against the Catholic version Religion in the latter sense is the source of all of it. law and government, justice and truth. Relig The common school is one of the most indision, as a system of belief, cannot be taught pensable, useful and valuable civil institutions without offense to those who have their own this State bas. It is democratic, and free to all peculiar views of religion, any more than it can alike, in perfect equality, where all the children be without offense to the different sects of re- of our people stand on a common platform, and ligion. How can religion, in this sense, be may enjoy the benefits of an equal and common taught in the common schools without taxing education. An enemy to our common_schools the people for or on account of it. The only is an enemy to our state government. It is the object, purpose or use for taxation by law in same hostility that would cause any religious this State must be exclusively secular. There denomination that had acquired the ascendis no such source and cause of strite, quarrel, ency over all others, to remodel our Constitufights, malignant opposition, persecution and tion, and change our government and all of its war, and all evil in the State, as religion. Let institutions, so as to make them favorable only it once enter into our civil affairs, our govern- to itself, and exclude all others from their benment would soon be destroyed. Let it once efits and protection. In such an event, relig enter into our common schools, they would be ious and sectarian instruction will be given in destroyed. Those who made our Constitution all schools. Religion needs no support from saw this, and used the most apt and compre- the State. It is stronger and much purer hensive language in it, to prevent such a catas- without it. This case is important and timely. trophe. It is said, if reading the Protestant It brings before the courts a case of the plausversion of the Bible in school is offensive to ible, insidious and apparently innocent enthe parents of some of the scholars, and antag-trance of religion into our civil affairs, and of onistic to their own religious views, their children can retire. They ought not to be compelled to go out of the school for such a reason, for one moment. The suggestion itself concedes the whole argument. That version of the Bible is hostile to the belief of many who are taxed to support the common schools, and who have equal rights and privileges in them. it is a source of religious and sectarian strife. That is enough. It violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution. No State Constitution ever existed that so completely excludes and precludes the possibility of religious strife in the civil affairs of the State, and yet so fully pro-religion, and makes the state despotic. tects all alike in the enjoyment of their own re

an assault upon the most valuable provisions of the Constitution. Those provisions should be pondered and heeded by all of our people, of all nationalities and of all denominations of relig ion, who desire the perpetuity, and value the blessings of our free government. That such is their meaning and interpretation no one can doubt, and it requires no citation of authorities to show. It is religion and sectarian instruc tion that are excluded by them. Morality and good conduct may be inculcated in the common schools, and should be.

The connection of church and state corrupts

NOTE.-Lessor railroad, not liable for injuries re- the public; and when such lease is made the lessor sulting from negligence of its lessee.

It has been held in Texas that a railroad company cannot, without statutory authority, lease its road to another so as to absolve itself from its duties to

will be liable for injury to a passenger resulting frem negligence of the lessee. International & G. N. R. Co. v. Underwood, 67 Tex. 589; East Line & R. R. R. Co. v. Rushing, 69 Tex. 308.

Nugent v. Boston, C. & M. R. Co. 5 New Eng. Rep. 870, 80 Me. 62; Georgia R. & Bkg. Co. v. Friddell, 79 Ga. 489; Singleton v. South-cause of action, and for the same amount, $30,western R. Co. 70 Ga. 464.

So the lessor company was held responsible to a | under a lease from another company, made withpassenger on a train of the lessee who was improp-out authority of law, cannot recover against the erly expelled by a servant of the lessee, in Wash-lessor for injuries sustained by the negligence of ington, A. & G. R. Co. v. Brown, 84 U. S. 17 Wall. 445 his employer or of its officers or agents. East Line (21 L. ed. 675). & R. R. R. Co. v. Culberson, 3 L. R. A. 567, 72 Tex.

But the servant of a railway company operating 375.

to go to the jury, but instructed them that "the defendant could not, by the lease shown in evidence, exonerate itself from the duties and liabilities imposed upon it by law, and that it was the duty of the jury to consider the evidence before them as though the said motion (to exclude) had not been made." To which ruling of the court the defendant excepted.

Upon this evidence, and this instruction, the jury rendered a verdict for $10,000 damages for the plaintiff, which verdict the defendant moved the court to set aside; but the court overruled the motion, and entered judgment upon the verdict. To this action of the court the defendant excepted, and the case comes up to this court upon the three bills of exceptions to the said rulings of the court.

in the record, that the appellee, Washington, was not in the employment of the Virginia Midland Railway Company, which had, before Washington entered the service of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, by solemn and formal lease, for a term of ninety-nine years (as it was duly authorized to do by Acts of General Assembly of Virginia, passed February 15, 1866, and July 11, 1870), surrendered and transferred the sole and exclusive use, management, possession and control of itself and of everything pertaining to its autonomy, rights, powers and duties (except only so much as to keep itself alive) to the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, of which said lease and transfer notice was given in the most public manner, by the authorities of the Virginia Midland Railway Company, that they had abdicated, and by the Richmoud & Danville Railroad Company that they had acquired and assumed, control of the Virginia Midland Rail

The exceptions may be all grouped, as the demurrer to the declaration, the motion to exclude the testimony of the plaintiff, and the instruction given by the court to the jury, all present the question for this court to decide-way, and the pay-rolls and vouchers running viz., the liability of the defendant, Virginia Midland Railway Company, to respond in damages to the suit of the plaintiff, Washington, for injuries inflicted on him while he was an employé of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, by the negligence of the conductor of another train of the said Richmond & Danville Company, which company had leased the said Virginia Midland Railway, by virtue and authority of an express Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, for ninety-nine years, and was in the exclusive and absolute operation, possession, management and control of the same when its own employé, Washington, a fireman upon one of its own freight trains, was run into and injured by another train of its own, under the conduct of another employé of its own-the conductor of its passenger train No. 53-without the knowledge or complicity of the Virginia Midland Railway Company, defendant, who, by solemn Act of the Legislature, had ceased to exist, so far as operating its road, and who had given up its road before this appellee was employed by the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, and who owned and operated no trains, employed no servants, and had no knowledge of, contract or affinity with, the plaintiff whatever, at any time or in any way.

We are of opinion that the circuit court erred in not excluding the evidence, after it manifestly failed to prove the case set out by the declaration against the defendant, and did, as manifestly, show an entire disparity between the allegata and the probata; and it aggravated the error, to the prejudice of the defendant, by its instruction, which, without defining what were the "duties and liabilities" which the defendant Company could not escape by the lease in evidence, virtually told the jury that one of the "duties and liabilities" to the public of the Virginia Midland Railway Company is to pay damages to the employés and servants of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company who are hurt by the negligence of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, provided the accident occurred on the road bed of the lessor, Virginia Midland Company. The court erred in refusing to set aside the verdict. It is established beyond question or controversy, by the evidence of the appellee, and by the pleadings

through the whole period of Washington's employment, all signed by him and all paid by the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, show conclusively that Washington knew of the change of ownership and management, and knew whose "servant he was to obey." He had contracted with the Richmond & Danville Company, was in its service when he was hurt, and he was injured by the negligence of the conductor in the employ of the said company. These facts are all proved in the record, and there is no question of the fact of neg ligence, and of the severe injuries inflicted on the plaintiff, Washington, nor of his right to recover damages for the wrong and injury; but it is contended by the plaintiff, and was held by the circuit court, that, in spite of the lease, the contract relation of master and servant between appellee, Washington, and the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, and of the negligence of that company; by whom and whose conductor he was injured, the defendant, Virginia Midland Railway Company, is liable to the suit of the plaintiff, Washington, for injuries received in the service of the lessee, Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, and which were caused by the negligence of that company.

A corporation exists and acts towards the public through and by its agents and agencies, but there is a discrimination between its duties, obligations and liabilities to the public, as such, and its duties and responsibilities to its own necessary employés, to whom it stands in the relation of master and servant by contract of employment, which may, or may not, implicate the ri-kor hazard of the employment. That question obtains between Washington and the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, in whose service and by whose servant he was injured. His case against the defendant is not within the reason or the rule of the numerous cases decided by this and other courts, involving the policy and law of the duty and responsibility of railway carriers to the passenger public, nor even the duty and measure of redress due for injuries inflicted by the negligence of their own servants upon those whom they employ and contract with to enable them to discharge their public duties. But the decision of the Circuit Court of Alexandria City, under review, is that the

jured by the negligent operation of a train by the servants of the lessee railway, upon the ground that the Statute authorizing the lease did not, in terms, exempt the lessor railway from liability, but this case is certainly in conflict with the current of authority.' Patterson, Railway Acct. Law, § 130, 131.

lessor, Virginia Midland Railway Company, is | Southwestern_ R. Co. 70 Ga. 464, where a lease liable to be sued and mulcted in damages by had been authorized by statute, the lessor railthe employés of the lessee, Richmond & Dan-way was held liable to a passenger who was inville Railroad Company, for injuries caused in the service of that company to its own employés by the negligence or malfeasance of the lessee company's own servants, non obstante, the Act of the General Assembly of Virginia authorizing the lease of its road and the transfer of all its rights and powers, and the actual lease or transfer thereof in pursuance of the said legislative authority given and enacted by the same grantor of its charter, and in as public a law, and as much in the interests of the public, as the charter itself.

In the case of Mahoney v. Atlantic & St. L. R. R. Co 63 Me. 68, it was decided that the lessee company, for the purposes of the lease, became, pro hac vice, the owner of the road, and that, while the lessee operates the road under its lease, the lessor is not liable, under its charter or the statutes of the State, for an injury sustained thereon by a passenger, caused by the wrongful acts of the agents or servants of the lessee towards him; nor is there, in such case, any privity, either of contract or by implication of law, between the passenger and the lessor as common carrier of passengers by which it is rendered liable for such an injury. The remedy of the passenger for an injury thus caused is against the lessee, who had the exclusive use, care, direction and control of the road, and with whom alone the passenger contracted. See the case of Georgia R. & Bkg. Co. v. Friddell, 79 Ga. 489; Nugent v. Boston, C. & M. R. Co. 5 New Eng. Rep. 865, 80 Me. 62-72.

It is contended, however, by the appellee, and was so decided by the court, that, as the Act of the General Assembly authorizing the Richmond & Danville Company to acquire, by lease or otherwise," of the Virginia Midland Railway "is franchises and property, and to hold, use and enjoy the same in like manner as the proper franchises and property of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company are held, used and enjoyed," does not, expressly and in terms, grant a positive exemption from the liabilities imposed upon it by law under its charter, the lease and transfer of its road for ninety-nine years to the absolute and entire and exclusive use, conduct and control of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company does not operate in law to relieve it from liability-rot | to the passenger public, or even to its own serv- All the cases cited and relied on by the apants and for its own negligence, but to the pellee to support his suit against the Virginia working agencies employed by the Richmond Midland Railway Company for damages for ia& Danville Railroad in operating and discharg-juries inflicted by the Richmond & Danville ing its own duties to the public, and for the Railroad Company upon Washington, its own negligence and wrong-doing of the Richmond contract servant and agent, in the operation of & Danville Company's own servants. a road which was exclusively its own road, unThis construction is not tenable in law order a lease for ninety-nine years, by special reason, and is not warranted by the broad scope, comprehensive language and obvious intend ment of the Act of the General Assembly, nor by the act of the parties to the lease. The lease of a railroad, under due authority of law, effects a transfer of rights and liabilities in its management, so that the corporation owning the railroad is discharged from responsibility for the lessee's torts." Pierce, Railroads, 283, and note, citing Mahoney v. Atlantic & St. L. R. R. Co. 63 Me. 68; Ditchett v. Spuyten Duy vil & P. M. R. Co. 67 N. Y. 425, 5 Hun, 165; Norton v. Wisrall, 26 Barb. 618.

"Statutes imposing police and other duties and liabilities on railroad companies are usually construed to apply to companies and persons who are in possession, under contracts with or by permission of the company owning the railroad." Pierce, Railroads, 283, 2×4.

"A railway cannot, without express statutory authority, devest itself of its franchise, or delegate to others the performance of that duty which the Legislature has imposed upon it." "On the other hand, where a railway, under due authority of law, has leased its line to another railway, the lessor railway is not liable for torts committed by the lessee railway in the operation of the line. Yet in Singleton v. 7 L. R. A.

legislative consent, given in a special Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, of as much public importance and as high a sanction as the original charter of the lessor company, are inapplicable to the facts of this case, which take it wholly out of the purview and the policy of the law which holds railroad companies to the strict and inexorable duties which they owe to the public, and to their own servants withal; but not one of them involved the question of liability of a lessor company to an employé of the lessee company, for injuries inflicted by the lessee company upon its own agent or servant in its own operations.

There is a proper suit of the appellee pending in the Circuit Court of Orange County-the scene of the accident-against the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, in whose service alone Washington was, and by whose conductor be was injured, and in that suit the question of gross negligence, the extent of his injuries and the just measure of his redress must be adjudged. The verdict in this suit must be set aside and the cause dismissed.

There is error in the udgment of the Circuit Court of Alexandria City, as shown by this record, and it must be reversed and annulled. Reversed.

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT.

PEOPLE of the State of California, ex rel. | dicial powers within the State of California,

The complaint charges: (1) that the defendants are exercising the office of judges of the Supreme Court of the State of California, and as such claim the right to and do pass upon cases appealed from the superior courts of the State to the supreme court, and decide the same by virtue of their appointment as supreme court commissioners; (2) that the Act of the 2. Commissioners "to assist" a court Legislature creating the commission, approved do not usurp judicial functions or ex- March 12, 1885, and the Acts amendatory of ercise any judicial power by taking such tran- and supplementary thereto, are contrary to the scripts and briefs as the court shall assign to provisions of article 6, § 1-4, of the Constithem, and reporting the result of their examina-tution of the State of California, and are null tion thereof, with opinions and suggestions merely for the consideration of the court as to the proper disposition of the cases.

APPEAL by relator from a judgment of the by virtue of their appointment under the Acts

Superior Court for the City and County of San Francisco in favor of defendants, and from The defendants answer, denying that they an order denying a motion for new trial in a or either of them claim, or have ever claimed, proceeding to test the right of defendants to or that they or either of them have ever exerexercise judicial powers as alleged in the capac-cised, or are now exercising, the office of judges ity of Supreme Court Commissioners. Af firmed.