a policy containing a coinsurance clause when a reduction in Insurance the rate is the consideration named.

In New York ['01 ch. 513] the law relating to the standard fire insurance policy was amended by requiring that the printed form of policy with permissible riders, heretofore filed with the secretary of state, shall be filed with the superintendent of insurance, which form and riders, together with such provisions, agreements or conditions as may be filed by the New York Board of Fire Underwriters previous to Dec. 31, 1901, with the superintendent of insurance and approved by him, shall be the standard fire insurance policy of the state. No other form of policy may be issued by any fire insurance company, nor may any other riders be attached to any policy. Tennessee ['01 ch.141] passed a law providing a penalty of 25% additional when any insurance company does not pay a loss within 60 days. A clause is added which makes the policy holder pay 25% of the claim if suit against the company is not brought in good faith. An amendment to the Colorado law provides that any foreign life or assessment company which contests any claim for insurance and has judgment entered against it shall be taxed for costs and an attorney's fee for the successful party, and when verdict of the jury or the court shall find that the defense was frivolous or instituted for the purpose of delay, 25% of the amount secured shall be added to the judgment [Col. '01 ch.54]. Nearly all the important changes in the laws relate to the various forms of life insurance, and particularly to assessment and fraternal insurance, the legislation showing the tendency toward safeguarding this class of insurance. Georgia ['01 p.47] has a new law which provides that assessment companies shall deposit securities with the state treasurer to an amount equal to the largest sum authorized on one life, and $1000 annually for each $1,000,000 of insurance in force until the sum deposited reaches $100,000. Georgia, Tennessee and Indiana [Ga. '01 p.71; Tenn. '01 ch.113; Ind. '01 ch.141] have provided by amendments for minimum assessment rates for all fraternal assessment associations hereafter organized or admitted, the rates being based on approved mortality tables. New York and Georgia [N. Y. '01 ch.722; Ga. '01 p.74] passed laws providing for the reincorporation of assessment life insurance corpo

Railroad accidents

rations, enabling them to do a general life insurance business. In both amendments the law provides for the maintenance of reserves on the insurance in force, by requiring a valuation of all policies on the basis of renewable term insurance at attained age.

New York ['01 ch.346] amended its law relating to life contracts by providing for two minimum standards of valuation. All policies issued prior to Jan. 1, 1901, are to be valued in the combined experience table of mortality, with interest at 4% yearly, unless the company chooses another standard giving an equal or higher reserve. On all policies issued after Jan. 1, 1901, contracts shall be valued on the American experience table of mortality, with interest at 31% yearly, unless the company chooses another standard giving results equal to or greater than such standard. Under the old law the companies generally used the combined 4% valuation experience tables. The new law fixes 31% as the minimum for all new contracts. Another amendment to the insurance code of New York provides for the valuation of health policies on the net premium basis according to the British Friendly society tables, with interest at 31% [N. Y. '01 ch.635]. The superintendent of insurance may in his discretion vary the standard in particular cases and may require additional reserves because of hazardous occupations or insufficient net premiums.

RAILROAD ACCIDENTS 1

EDWARD A. MOSELEY, SECRETARY INTERSTATE COMMERCE
COMMISSION

The only legislation by Congress in 1901 which has direct reference to transportation was an "Act requiring common carriers engaged in interstate commerce to make full reports of all accidents to the Interstate Commerce Commission," approved Mar. 3, 1901.

The commission, after conference with railway officials and officers of various organizations of railroad employees, adopted a form of report and notified the railroad companies on June 12 1 For summaries of all state legislation relating to transportation and communication see Comparative Summary and Index, 1901, no. 4422–652.

accidente

to make the reports required by the law, beginning with the Railroad month of July, the first month of the current fiscal year. The commission intends to tabulate and collate the information contained in the reports and to issue bulletins showing the principal facts.

By the terms of the act the scope of the reports is strictly limited; yet it is evident that the purpose of Congress was to secure the fullest possible information concerning the cause or causes of every accident reported; and in view of the existence. of federal statutes dealing particularly with couplers, power brakes and grab irons or hand-holds, accidents in which these details figure, either as main causes or otherwise, may be said to merit special attention. The primary object of the statute is, obviously, to promote the safety of passengers and of railroad employees; and this object is to be accomplished, so far as these records can accomplish it, by making the most instructive exhibit possible of those accidents which are preventable. Experience has shown that some classes of accidents, including many personal casualties in which the person injured is himself chiefly at fault, occur in such uniform percentages, year after year, in proportion to the total number of persons employed (or, in the case of passengers, to the total number transported), that they may be looked upon as unavoidable. These, under the act, are now reported to the commission in large numbers; yet it is not apparent that any useful purpose would be served by publishing the details of cases of this kind, as is attempted by some public authorities.

It should not be forgotten, however, that many of the injuries, fatal and nonfatal, which happen to railroad employees, and which, when looked at'in a mass, as presented statistically in an annual report, appear unavoidable, are nevertheless in some degree preventable by care; and it is the intention of the commission to present such lessons as may appear to be deducible from the reports it receives. The purpose of the law, as directed to the prevention of loss of life or limb, or to saving property, can not be said to contemplate only the railroad manager and the inventor of safety appliances; the result should also afford useful lessons for the trainmen and other workers. Employees should be aided both to care better for their own bodily safety

Railroad accidents

and to care more intelligently for their employers' property, which latter duty includes care for the safety of passengers.

The purpose of the act being general, and purely remedial, the commission will compile and present these accident statistics wholly without regard to the name of the company on whose premises any particular accident may occur, or on whose agents or employees the responsibility for an accident may rest; and the commission has taken ample precautions to insure that the reports received from the various carriers shall not be used for the benefit of private interests. None of the information contained in the monthly reports and on file in the office of the commission will be divulged except through the formal reports of the commission. By this means the facts gathered under this law can not be made the basis for unjustifiable suits for damages against the companies or for misstatements in the public prints.

The method contemplated by this law is doubtless the best that could be devised, unless the commission should follow England's example and employ inspectors to make personal investigations of accidents, for which a large body of men, peculiarly well qualified, would be required to cover the whole country. The only record of railroad accidents hitherto made which makes any pretense of covering the whole of the United States has been kept by the Railroad Gazette and published monthly. This is, of course, entirely unofficial, and is avowedly very incomplete, the facts being based mostly on reports which are found in the daily newspapers. Accounts in the telegraphic dispatches are not only very often inaccurate, but also are frequently misleading where not actually untruthful. The method adopted by Congress and embodied in the law secures the desired information from the men who best know the facts of each case. The regulations prescribed by the commission include questions adapted to the various kinds of accidents, so framed as to provide for a brief but clear account of each case. These questions ask of the railroads only such information as railroad managers usually, if not universally, gather for the records. of their own offices; so that the clerical labor of filling up the blanks is the principal burden imposed on carriers by the statute.

The law is defective, however, in that the monthly reports required under it are limited to accidents to employees and pas

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sengers, and do not include the large number of casualties to Mechanics other persons resulting from railway accidents. The latter are covered, or are intended to be, by the annual reports to the commission under the 20th section of the act to regulate commerce. But it is believed that reports under the recent law should embrace all railway accidents resulting in death or personal injury. This subject could then be omitted from the annual reports filed under the act to regulate commerce.

MECHANICS LIENS1

LOUIS BOISOT LL.B. 444 N. CLARK ST. CHICAGO

The only state that has during the year adopted a complete mechanics lien law is Pennsylvania ['01 ch.240]. This is an act of 61 sections, beginning with definition of the terms used therein, and containing full provision as to the creation and enforcement of mechanics liens, "it being intended that this. act shall furnish a complete and exclusive system in itself." The need of such a codification of the Pennsylvania laws on this subject is shown by the fact that until the enactment of this statute the legislation in Pennsylvania regarding mechanics liens was scattered throughout the special laws of that state from 1806 to 1897. No less than 109 different acts are repealed to make room for this new code. Many of these acts were of the antiquated and now nearly obsolete type of laws. applicable only to one or two counties or even to a single city.

The year's legislation in other states is merely amendatory, the changes made being generally in favor of the lienor. Thus Maine ['01 ch.166] has given a lien on wharves and piers for labor or material used in their construction or repair; Delaware ['01 ch.208] has given mechanics and materialmen who furnish labor or materials for constructing or repairing a vessel in her home port a lien similar to that given by the maritime law for such services in a foreign port; and California ['01 ch.108] has given laundrymen a lien on clothing washed by them. The right to mechanics lien has been extended in North Dakota ['01 ch.101] to improvements erected on government land, in Missouri ['01 p.206] to "license interest" in land, and in North 'See also Comparative Summary and Index, 1901, no. 1966-88.