But perhaps the most important legislation affecting simple matters of business other than the line of statutes already mentioned, making new negotiable instruments and controlling the title of property by the possession of a bill of exchange, bill of lading, warehouse or trust receipt, are those statutes prohibiting the buying of "futures," or the enforcement of gambling contracts to buy or sell stocks or shares or other commodities without actual or intended change of possession, which we have necessarily referred to in our discussion of restraint of trade (chapter 4). There is a very decided tendency throughout the country, particularly in the South, to prohibit all buying or selling of futures, that is to say, of a crop not actually sold, or of any article where physical delivery is never intended, and it will be remembered we found plenty of precedent for such legislation in early English statutes. Gambling contracts may be forbidden only in specified places, such as stock exchanges; and the buying of futures may be specially permitted to favored persons, such as actual manufacturers intending to use the goods; and both such statutes will be held constitutional and not an undue interference with the liberty of contract. These matters were largely covered by the statutes of forestalling in early times. Legislation more distinctly modern is that against sales in bulk, and against department stores; more striking still is the statute, already passed in Wisconsin and Virginia, forbidding all tips, commissions, or private advantages secured by any servant or agent in carrying on the business of his principal, his master, or the person with whom he deals; the statute even forbids a gratuity intentionally given directly from the one to the other. It is hard to see how the last clause of the law can be held constitutional, any more than the laws forbidding department stores, although such commissions may be forbidden to be given "unbeknownst."