at the middle of the nineteenth century, while most of our other laws are liberal and adapted to the age.

While reform and improvement have reached every other science and system extant; that rule of evidence under consideration has remained untouched. Your committee would discard the idea, that the law is to remain untouched, and unimproved, while great improvements and reform, are going on in every thing else. We would not recommend the laying of violent hands upon the whole system of the law; but they do earnestly urge and press that system of policy upon our lawgivers, that will induce them when the reason of a law or rule, is gone, and as a consequence, the foundation upon which it rests, that they will repeal the law or abolish the rule, and not cling to the shadow, when the substance has departed.

In pursuing the subject farther, your committee would remark that some of the most learned jurists in this country, are urging that all the disabilities that render witnesses incompetent, should be removed, and that their credibility should go to the court and the jury.

Your committee will not now stop to enquire, whether such a course would be good policy or not, but they refer to the fact, in order to show that men learned in the law, are insisting upon removing all disabilities from witnesses. It is well known, that reforms in every science, or in every system are not all made at once. It takes time and experience, to reform and render perfect any system. Your committee only propose by the passage of this bill, to remove one of the many disabilities from witnesses, and that is, the one that renders a witness incompetent, by reason of an interest in the event of the suit, as before stated. Your committee believe that the passage of the bill under consideration, would be the greatest measure of law reform ever effected in this State, and that its salutary effects would be seen and felt at least by all who are engaged in the administration of the law.

Justice could be better dispensed, parties would be able, more effectually, to obtain a redress of their grievances, in resorting to legal remedies in pursuit of their just rights, the law of evidence in this respect would at length be placed upon a rational foundation, and the rule as it now exists, and which is so repugnant to common sense would be thereby swept away, and a more salutary one adopted, one more in accordance with the spirit of the age. Your committee, entertaining these views, report back the bill and recommend its passage. It is proper to remark that the bill was copied from Lord Denman's act, with alterations suitable and adapted to our situation, and in conformity with our practice in cases at law and in chancery.

All which is respectfully submitted,

H. W. SMITH,

G. E. PUGH.

The following is the bill to which the report refers:

A BILL

FOR IMPROVING THE LAW OF EVIDENCE.

Whereas, the inquiry after truth in courts of justice, is often obstructed by incapacities, created by, and in force by virtue of the common law, and it is desirable that full information as to the facts in issue, in civil cases, should be laid before the persons who are appointed to decide upon them, and that such persons should exercise their judgment on the credit of the witnesses adduced, and on the truth of their testimony, now therefore.

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Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That no person offered as a witness, shall hereafter be excluded by reason of incapacity from interest, from giving evidence, either in son or by deposition, according to the practice of the court, on the trial of any issue joined, or of any matter or question, or on any inquiry arising in any civil suit, action or proceeding in any court, or before any judge, jury, coroner, magistrate, officer, or person having, by law or by consent of parties, authority to hear, receive and examine evidence; but that every person so offered, may and shall be admitted to give evidence on oath, or affirmation, notwithstanding that such person or persons may, or shall have an interest in the matter in question, or the event of the trial, or of any issue, matter, question or inquiry, or of the suit, action or proceeding in which he, she or they, are offered as a witness or witnesses: Provided that this act shall not render competent a party to any suit, or action at law, or any person in whose immediate and individual behalf any action at law may be brought, or defended, or the husband or wife of such persons respectively.

Sec. 2. This act to take effect and be in force from and after the first day of March, A. D. 1849.

Sec. 3. All laws, whether statute or common law, that conflict with the provisions of this act, be and the same are hereby repealed.

REPORT

OF THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOUSE BILL NO. 21.

Your Select Committee to whom was recommitted House Bill No. 21, entitled "A Bill to secure to the laborer his hire," had the same in consideration, and now respectfully submit the following

REPORT.

The laboring part of our community, those brave and hardy men to whose chivalry in war we are indebted for the preservation of our country's honor and independence, and whose personal industry and perseverance, in times of peace, has produced all the wealth and all the comfort we so plentifully enjoy as individuals and as a nation, have always disdained to ask, at the hands of legislation, for any kind of special right or privilege. Yes, while GREEDY CAPITAL, real and fictitious, has actually besieged the halls of legislation from year to year, supplicating, by all means at its command, for special privileges, to be granted to its own minions; HONEST LABOR has never yet demanded nor obtained any special privilege for its representative, the laboring man. And, if this bill were calculated to confer anything like a special privilege, it would find no advocate in your committee.

But, while the honest laborer scorns to ask for special privileges, he demands the restoration of his inalienable RIGHTS, of which he has been robbed by special legislation.

The laborer is worthy of his hire. Even the good book says: "The wages of him that is hired, shall not abidewith thee all night until the morning." His wages are due to him, as soon as his labor is performed; but special legislation has deprived him of this right. Instead of enabling the laborer to collect his wages, when due, special legislation FORCES HIM to give to his employer a credit of from three to eight months, however wealthy such employer may be, and however much the laborer may need his wages for the maintenance of himself and family. In this respect, the bill proposes to restore to the laborer that right of which he has been wrongfully deprived by your stay laws.

There is still another act of special legislation equally as unjust and oppressive to the laboring man, namely: the law which exempts from

execution an amount of personal property of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars. It is admitted, that it would be HARD to deprive the family of a POOR employer of the necessary comforts afforded by said amount of personal property; but it is certainly UNJUST, by means of said law, to deprive the family of the laboring man of the comforts for which he has toiled in hard labor. If one of those families is bound to suffer, it should, by no means, be the family of him who has earned by the labor of his hands, the necessaries for his family.

Yet, such cases, where the laborer is hired by a man actually too poor for paying his wages, are of rare occurrence. Those who are themselves obliged to work, are generally the most careful to hire no hands, unless they have the means to pay them. Most generally it is from the reckless speculator, who lives without working, that the laborer has to suffer.

Your exemption laws secure from execution and sale an amount of personal property sufficient for the use of most families. The real property cannot be levied upon, on a judgment by a justice of the peace; thus, the employer may own any amount of real estate, and a judgment cannot be executed against him by any constable. Here your exemption law is as unjust against the laborer, as your stay law. In order to obtain an execution against such real estate, the judg ment of the justice must, by transcript, be carried to and confirmed by the Court of Common Pleas. This, by your law, can only be done by a lawyer, and the general consequence is, that the laborer, instead of receiving his wages, as due and when due, must sacrifice his earnings, or the greater part thereof, in his endeavors to collect them.~ Your committee knows hundreds of instances where all this is true to the letter.

There are also hundreds of cases, where reckless employers, for the purpose of embarrassing their judgment creditors, and without any good cause, appeal from judgments of small amount, rendered by justices of the peace. In all such cases the laborer is bound, by your law, to work for lawyers' fees, while his family is left to suffer or to

starve.

This is all wrong. Said bill No. 21, is intended to remedy these evils as much as possible, under our present state of legislation. The laborer has submitted in silent patience to these legislative iniquities; but he shall do so no longer. The laborer has, thank God, a voice in this government, and he shall and must be heard.

Your committee, therefore, reports said bill No. 21 back, as amended, and respectfully recommends its passage.

HENRY ROEDTER,

Select Committee.

HOUSE BILL NO. 21, AS AMENDED.

A BILL-TO secure to the Laborer his Hire.

Sec. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio: That in all actions for wages of labor, when the amount or balance claimed to be due, shall be less than fifty dollars, and when, upon the trial of such action, it shall appear to the satisfaction of any justice of the peace, before whom the same has been commenced, that such amount or balance, or any part thereof, has become due to the plaintiff from the defendant, for any kind of mechanical or manual labor by such plaintiff personally performed, within six months next preceding the commencement of such action; then such justice of the peace, in entering his judgment, shall note the fact, that the same is for wages of labor.

Sec. 2. That upon all judgments for wages of labor, rendered in conformity with the foregoing section, execution shall be issued forthwith; that all such executions shall be returnable within thirty days after the date thereof; that no personal property whatever shall be exempt from levy and sale upon such execution; and that no stay of such execution shall be allowed, except by the written consent of the plaintiff entered upon the docket of such justice of the peace.

Sec. 3. That the provisions of this act shall also extend to, and be in force upon all actions, judgments and executions instituted, rendered and issued under the provisions of the act, entitled an act to create a lien in favor of mechanics and others in certain cases, passed March 11, 1843, commonly called "the lien law."

Sec. 4. That any person whose claim is partly for wages of labor, and partly on any other account, may bring a separate action for so much of his or her claim as may be due wages of labor.

Sec. 5. That so much of the act entitled an act to amend an act entitled an act to regulate judgments and executions at law, passed March 1, 1831; and so much of the act entitled an act, defining the powers and duties of justices of the peace and constables in civil cases, passed March 14, 1831, and so much of the act entitled an act to create a lien in favor of mechanics and others in certain cases, passed March 11, 1843, as may be conflicting with the provisions of this act, be and hereby is repealed.

Sec. 6. This act to be in force from and after its passage.