Commissioner of Agriculture. 81 



pursuit, and in a manner not injurious to the community, is 

 ■certainly infringed upon, limited, perhaps weakened or 

 destroyed by such legislation. It is certainly lawful to sell (as 

 in this instance) coffee. It is an article of food, and is now 

 almost one of the necessaries of life to a large number of people. 

 A person engaged as a retailer of coffee might very well think 

 that he could greatly enlarge the amount of his trade by doing 

 precisely what was done by the defendant in this case, and that 

 while his profits on the same amount of coffee sold would be 

 smaller than if he gave no present, Yet by the growth of his 

 trade his income at the end of the year would be more than by 

 the old method. This statute, if valid, steps in to prevent his 

 adopting such a course, to procure trade and from it to secure 

 an income and livelihood for himself and family. He is thus 

 restrained in the free enjoyment of his faculties, which he ought 

 to have the right and liberty to use in the way of creating or 

 adopting plans for the increase and growth of his trade, busi- 

 ness or occupation, unless such restraint is necessary for the 

 common welfare. This law interferes with the free sale of food, 

 for the condition is imposed that no one shall sell food and at 

 the same time, and as part of the transaction, give away any 

 other thing. It is not material if by reason of the prohibition 

 the owner's sales of food are greatly cut down and his ability 

 to support his family thereby, perhaps, largely decreased. If 

 the law is valid, the fact of its existence is a complete answer 

 to the complaints of the owner of food that his liberty to sell 

 his property and his chance to make a livelihood are very greatly 

 impaired. 



It cannot be truthfully maintained that this legislation does 

 not seriously infringe upon the liberty of the owner or dealer 

 in food products to pursue a lawful calling in a proper manner, 

 or that it does not, to some extent at least, deprive a person 

 of his property by curtailing his power of sale, and unless this 

 infringement and deprivation are reasonably necessary for the 

 common welfare, or may be said to fairly tend in that direction 



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