and was sentenced by the court to pay a fine of thirty dollars and the costs, and in default thereof to hard labor "for twenty days in lieu of said fine and one hundred and sixteen days on account of said costs." It can be readily seen that if the laborer in this case had worked eleven months, he would have owed the employer a dollar and a quarter, and if he had left him might be arrested, indicted, and convicted and be made to serve at hard labor for at least one hundred and sixteen days, the cost of prosecuting a case involving the failure to pay one dollar and a quarter being the same as the cost of a prosecution involving any larger sum. The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, rendered January 3, 1911, declares in effect legislation of this kind to be in violation of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. It should be observed, however, in this connection that when the decision was rendered there were two vacancies in the court, and that two of the seven members then sitting dissented from the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Lurton, Mr. Justice Holmes rendering the dissenting opinion. In summing up, he said: "That a false representation expressed or implied at the time of making a contract of labor that one intends to perform it, and thereby obtaining an advance may be declared a case of fraudulently obtaining money, as well as any other, that if made a crime it may be punished like any other crime, and that an unjustified departure from the promised service without repayment may be declared a sufficient cause to go to the jury for their judgment, all without in any way infringing the thirteenth amendment or the statutes of the United States." The importance of this dissenting opinion is enhanced by the reflection that if all the vacancies in the court had been filled at the time there might have been four concurring in the dissenting opinion rather than two, and even as it is, the opinion being that of a divided court is a basis for the fear that at some future when the same question may be presented to the court, constituted differently from what it now is, the constitutionality of these statutes may be upheld. Another form in which peonage is practiced is by the passage of acts making it unlawful to entice laborers to leave their employers or landlords, or to employ persons who have left their employers without fulfilling their contracts. Such laws are found in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. It will be observed that all of these States are former slave-holding States.