The Hastings Standard Published Daily TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1897. LEGISLATIVE FREAKS.

Hastings Standard, Issue 325, 18 May 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1897. LEGISLATIVE FREAKS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

It is questionable whether the law makers have exhausted all the subjects of legislation. Sometimes from the number of amending bills which absorb the attention of our Parliament, it would seem that the Legislature has reached the limits of its functions. Now and again our Parliament has shown us the foolish side of law making. The Washers and Manglers Bill was a piece of exquisite fooling, and so was that queer concoction the Undesirable Immigrants Bill. These are the milestones of folly in our otherwise prosaic political life. In America, where each State manufactures its own laws, and the Federal Parliament grinds out more for the aggregate, freaks in legislation are many and frequent. Thus we find that Kansas State, already notorious for much lunacy in legislation, is again to the fore with some startling and unconventional proposals. In the States Congress of Kansas a worthy lawyer —and all lawyers are worthy, as bills of costs proclaim—has brought in a bill to enact the Ten Commandments. This member of the Devil's Own" is brimful of Christian piety, and he wants to punish infractions of the Divine law summarily, instead of leaving the reckoning to the great hereafter. If the lawyer gets his bill through it will be interesting to note how soon he himself is the victim of his own legislature. To the lay mind it seems impossible that a lawyer can be a lawyer without infringing half of the Ten Commandments. Two other legislators in the same State of Kansas have little bills on hand to prohibit the wearing of bloomers and corsets. These two must be fossilised bachelors, crossgrained and disappointed. In Missouri a mealy - mouthed legislator has discovered that the railway employees in the State occasionally flirt with female passengers, and he has brought in a bill to stop the iniquitous practice. A statesman of Oklahama has presented a memorial praying for the closure of Wall street, New York. This is the great financial street of the great city, and the petitioner declares that this street reminds him " of that Biblical character, Shylock, who would have his pound of meat though the heavens fall." In Minnesota the Legislature has under consideration a bill to compel publicans to display a red sign with " Danger" printed on it, and there is a possibility of the bill going through. In San Francisco a municipal bye-law has just been put into force prohibiting spitting " on the floor of any public building, on any side walk, or on the floor of any street railway car." The penalty is a fine of £5 or ten days' imprisonment. In another State there is a proposal to compel hotel - keepers to print their menus in English, and somewhere else there is a desire to prohibit newspapers caricaturing people without their consent. The pure democracy of the great republic and pure lunacy

are, it seems, convertible terms; at any rate the Washers and Manglers' Bill of Mr Buckland is by comparison a very sensible measure.