against whom crimes might be committed, as well as those who might be charged with the commission of such crimes. The object sought to be attained by the disabilities expressed by the statute was to secure an efficient and representative body of citizens to take part in the due administration of the law for the benefit of all who were entitled to its protection, and not specially or even primarily for the benefit of those who were charged with its violation. In view of the purpose of the statute is the classification justified, are the persons constituting the classes in different relations to the purpose of the law. It is obvious that they are, and the law neither offers nor withholds substantial rights. It constitutes one of its instrumentalities of persons having certain qualifications which cannot affect essentially the charge against, or the defense of, any defendant. It is the conception of the state that a grand jury so constituted would be more efficient in the administration of justice than one not so constituted, but that there would be counteracting disadvantages if the right of challenge should be extended beyond the date of the impanelment of the jury. It was competent for the state to so provide. Lang v. New Jersey, 209 U. S. 467.

§ 571. Difference of procedure against corporations. Corporations are not denied the equal protection of the laws because corporate violators of the Tennessee antitrust act of March 16, 1903, may be proceeded against by bill in equity on relation of the attorney general, while natural persons offending against its provisions cannot be tried without a preliminary investigation by a grand jury, and indictment or presentment, and a trial by jury, with the right to an acquittal unless their guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt, and to the benefit of a statute of limitations of one year. The law of Tennessee sees fit to seek to prevent a certain kind of conduct. To prevent it the threat of fine and imprisonment is likely to be efficient for men, while the latter is impossible and

the former less serious to corporations. On the other hand, the threat of extinction or ouster is not monstrous, and yet is likely to achieve the result with corporations, while it would be extravagant as applied to men. Hence, this difference is justifiable. Standard Oil Co. v. Tennessee ex rel. Cates, 217 U. S. 413.

§ 572. Appeal by government in criminal case. Congress could, by the act of March 2, 1907, authorize the government to bring up a criminal case from a Federal Circuit Court to the Supreme Court when a demurrer to an indictment has been sustained, although the same privilege is denied the accused when the indictment is sustained, even assuming that the United States is bound to afford the equal protection of the laws to persons within its jurisdiction. The Supreme Court has decided that the right of appeal is not essential to due process of law. Even if the explicit clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, forbidding a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws, can be said to apply to the United States, it can have no broader meaning when so applied, than when applied to the states. Even assuming that Congress may not discriminate in its legislation, it certainly has the power of classification, and the act in question is well within such power. United States v. Heinze, 218 U. S. 532.

§ 573. Classification of prisoners committing assaults. Singling out convicts serving life sentences in a state prison as proper subjects for the imposition of the death penalty, as is done by the California penal code, in case they shall, with malice aforethought, commit an assault upon the person of another with a deadly weapon or instrument, or by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury does not deny such life prisoners the equal protection of the laws. The contention is to be tested by considering whether there is a basis for the classification made by the statute. The classification of

the statute in question is not arbitrary, but is based upon valid reasons and distinctions. "The 'life-termers,' as has been said, while within the prison walls, constitute a class by themselves,-a class recognized as such by penologists the world over. Their situation is legally different. Their civic death is perpetual." Manifestly there could be no extension of the term of imprisonment as a punishment for crimes they might commit, and whatever other punishment should be imposed was for the legislature to determine. The power of classification which the lawmaking power possesses has been illustrated by many cases. They demonstrate that the legislature of California did not transcend its power in the enactment of this statute. Finley v. California, 222 U. S. 28.

8574. Quo warranto. A foreign corporation ousted and fined $50,000 in civil quo warranto proceedings in the highest court of a state, for misuser of its license to do business in the state, cannot claim to have been denied the equal protection of the laws because corporations prosecuted in the inferior state courts for identically the same acts, in violation of the state anti-trust act, are entitled to a trial by jury, and, if convicted, can be ousted of their franchises and subjected to a fine not exceeding $100 per day during the time the combination continued in effect. Proceedings by information in the nature of quo warranto differ in form and consequence from a prosecution by indictment for violation of a criminal statute. In the one, the state proceeds for a violation of the company's private contract; in the other, it prosecutes for a violation of public law. The corporation may be deprived of its franchise for nonuser,-a mere failure to act. It may also be deprived of its charter for that which, though innocent in itself, is beyond the power conferred upon it as an artificial person. If, however, the act of misuser is not only ultra vires but criminal, there is no merger of the civil liability in the criminal offense. Separate proceedings may be instituted,-one to secure

the civil judgment, and the other to enforce the criminal law. Both cases may involve a consideration of the same facts; and evidence warranting a judgment of ouster may be sufficient to sustain a conviction for crime. A judgment may in one case sometimes be a bar to the other; but neither remedy is exclusive. The double liability, in civil and criminal proceedings, finds its counterpart in many instances; as, for example, where an attorney is disbarred or ousted of his right to practice in the court because of conduct for which he may likewise be prosecuted and fined. Plaintiffs in error cannot complain that they were denied the equal protection of the law, because in the civil proceeding they were not tried in the manner, and subjected to the judgment, appropriate in criminal cases. Standard Oil Co. v. Missouri ex rel. Hadley, 224 U. S. 270.

§ 575. Punishing habitual criminals. Bringing a convict after judgment before the court of another county in a separate proceeding instituted conformably to West Virginia statute, chap. 165, §§ 1-5, by information charging him with prior convictions which were not alleged in the indictment on which he was last tried and convicted, and, on the finding of the jury that he was the former convict, sentencing him to the additional punishment which chap. 152, §§ 23, 24, in such cases prescribes, does not deny him the equal protection of the laws because of the difference in procedure between the case where the fact of former conviction is alleged in the indictment and determined by the jury on the trial of the charge of crime, and the case where it is charged in the information, and determined by a jury in a proceeding thereby instituted. The statute in question applies to all those "convicted of an offense, and sentenced to confinement therefor in the penitentiary," who previously have been sentenced to a like punishment. The fact of such sentence, indicating the gravity of the offense, affords a reasonable basis for classification. Those who have been so sentenced once before, and those so sentenced twice

before, are subjected, respectively, to the same measure of increased punishment, but in all cases before the increased punishment can be inflicted, there must be a conviction on the new charge; the former conviction must be shown, and there must be a finding by a jury, if the fact is contested, of the identity of the defendant with the former convict. The distinction, upon which the denial of the equal protection of the laws is based, has regard simply to the difference in procedure between the case where the fact of former conviction is alleged in the indictment, and determined by the jury on the trial of the charge of the second offense, and the case where the fact of the former conviction is perhaps subsequently discovered, and is charged in an information and determined by a jury in a proceeding thereby specially instituted for that purpose. This cannot be said to give rise to a substantial difference in right, or to any inequality within the meaning of the constitutional provision. Graham v. West Virginia, 224 U. S. 616.

§ 576. Attachment of property of nonresident. The attachment, conformably to local law, at the instance of a foreign creditor, of bonds of a foreign corporation, for the debt of their nonresident owner, does not deny such owner either the equal protection of the laws or the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, where such bonds had been deposited with a custodian in the state, under the directions of the state court, in the exercise of admittedly lawful powers, and could not be removed therefrom without obtaining the authority of the state court,-an authority which was unaffected by the fact that the bonds were registered in the names of the attachment debtor's minor children, since they were so registered solely because of the previous action of the state court. De Bearn v. Safe Deposit & T. Co., 233 U. S. 24.

§ 577. Right to preliminary examination in criminal prosecutions in Manila. Denying to an inhabitant of