The newer constitutions and amendments paid great attention to the regulation of corporations, providing for commissions to deal with railroads, insurance, agriculture, dairy and food products, lands, prisons, and charities. They restricted trusts, monopolies, and lotteries. Modifications of the old jury system were introduced. Juries were made optional in civil cases, and not always obligatory in criminal cases. Juries of less than twelve were sometimes allowed, and a unanimous vote by a jury was not always required. Growing wealth and the consequent multiplication of litigants necessitated an increase in the number of judges in most courts. Efforts were made, with some success, by combining common law with equity procedure, and in other ways, to render lawsuits more simple, expeditious, and inexpensive. Restrictions were enacted on the hours of labor, the management of factories, the alien ownership of land. The old latitude of giving and receiving by inheritance was trenched upon by inheritance taxes. The curbing of legislatures, the popular election of executives, civil service reform, and the creation of a body of administrative functionaries with clearly defined duties, betrayed movement toward an administrative system. A stronghold of political corruption was assaulted from 1888 to 1894 by a hopeful measure known as the "Australian" ballot. It took various forms in different States yet its essence everywhere was the provision enabling every voter to prepare and fold his ballot in a stall by himself, with no one to dictate, molest, or observe. Massachusetts, also the city of Louisville, Ky., employed this system of voting so early as 1888. Next year ten States enacted similar laws. In 1890 four more followed, and in 1891 fourteen more. By 1898 thirty-nine States, all the members of the Union but six, had taken up "kangaroo voting," as its foes dubbed it. Of these six States five were southern. [Illustration: About twenty men in a room with tables, some voters, and others officials.] A New York Polling Place, showing booths on the left. An official ballot replaced the privately--often dishonestly--prepared party ballots formerly hawked about each polling place by political workers. The new ballot was a "blanket," bearing a list of all the candidates for each office to be filled. The arrangement of candidates' names varied in different States. By one style of ticket it was easy for the illiterate or the straight-out party man to mark party candidates. Another made voting difficult for the ignorant, but a delight to the discriminating.