NEW JERSEY. 



eat young shad if they can get any other kind 

 of small fish. The Commissioners have fre- 

 quently seen a black bass in full chase after a 

 fleeing minnow, while the water was fairly 

 alive with young shad with which he could 

 have gorged himself had he been so disposed ; 

 and they have repeatedly found the stomachs 

 of bass tilled with other kinds of food, when 

 the fish has just been taken from water in 

 which young shad could be seen in thousands. 

 The brook-trout and California salmon have 

 been placed in the waters of Somerset, Cam- 

 den, Passaic, Morris, Sussex, Hunterdon, War- 

 ren, and Essex Counties. In accordance with 

 the recommendation of Professor Baird, the 

 United States Commissioner of Fisheries, who 

 says that California salmon will thrive in waters 

 where there is no access to the sea, but will 

 be smaller, a large number of young salmon 

 have been introduced into the deep, cold lakes 

 in Morris, Sussex, and Warren Counties. 



Nine cases for violation of the " act for the 

 preservation of fish " were argued on certio- 

 rari before Judge Reed of the Atlantic Coun- 

 ty Circuit Court. The convictions were of 

 two classes the first class for the violation 

 of the first section, and the second class for the 

 violation of the second section of the act. The 

 first section of the act provides generally that 

 it shall not be lawful for any persons to fish 

 with a net in any of the waters of this State 

 (except as hereinafter provided) between May 

 15th and July 15th. The second section pro- 

 vides that ifc shall not be lawful for any person 

 to fish with a net, etc., in the counties of At- 

 lantic and Burlington, between June 1st and 

 September 1st. It was contended that the sec- 

 ond section was local as to its character, and 

 that, being within the body of a general law, 

 it is, first, void in itself, and second, its presence 

 occasions the invalidity of the first section, 

 because it is in contravention of the 4th para- 

 graph of section 7 of the amended Consti- 

 tution, which provides, " No general law shall 

 embrace any provision of a private, special, or 

 local character." The Judge said that he did 

 not know of a similar provision ingrafted into 

 the Constitution of any other State ; that the 

 distinction between those acts which may be 

 considered general or public and special or lo- 

 cal acts, as used in the Constitution, has re- 

 ceived no direct judicial consideration. The 

 question has been considered in the courts of 

 New York, under the constitutional provision 

 that "no private or local bill which may be 

 passed by the Legislature shall embrace more 

 than one object, and that shall be expressed in 

 its title." There it was held that an act ia 

 local, within the meaning of the Constitution, 

 which in its subject relates but to a portion of 

 the people of the State or to their property, 

 and may not, either in its subject, operation, 

 or immediate and necessary results, affect the 

 people of the State or their property in gen- 

 eral (43 N. Y., 11). " The test is not whether 

 it applies to acts to bo done in a particular lo- 



cality, but whether the operation of the act is 

 restricted to the people of that locality. This 

 act does not impose a specific and exclusive 

 penalty for the punishment of the people of 

 Atlantic County, but upon all the people of 

 the State who fish in that locality within a re- 

 stricted time. I think the statute is constitu- 

 tional." The other objections raised were to 

 the formality of the proceedings and the right 

 of a trial by jury. The Judge held that the 

 defendants were not entitled to a jury trial, 

 and that the statement of the facts charged 

 brought the defendants within tho operation of 

 the statute. Tho convictions were affirmed 

 with costs. 



Two of the cities of the State, Elizabeth and 

 Rahway, are in a condition of bankruptcy. 

 Both have been crippled by the depreciation 

 of values. In the former the debt has been 

 increased by decisions of the Supreme Court 

 which reversed a former decision with regard 

 to assessments for improvements, and thus 

 threw on the city a large amount of obliga- 

 tions of private citizens. The people do not 

 say they will repudiate, but assert that they 

 are unable to pay. There is no authority for 

 compromising the claims against the city, and 

 both the citizens and the bondholders are at a 

 loss what to do. 



In 1869 the township of Bernards, in the 

 county of Somerset, issued $128,000 worth of 

 bonds to aid in the construction of the New 

 Jersey West Line Railroad. Eleven miles of 

 the road was built, from Summit to Bernards- 

 ville, at a cost of $5,000,000. The road went 

 into the hands of a receiver, and was sold un- 

 der foreclosure to the Delaware, Lackawanna, 

 and Western Company. Suit was brought on 

 the bonds of the township. They were signed, 

 but not sealed, and were issued in that condi- 

 tion. A plea that the bonds were not valid 

 by reason of such omission was set up in de- 

 fense. But Judge Nixon, of the United States 

 District Court, granted a perpetual injunction 

 restraining the township from making use of 

 this defense. The principal and interest amount 

 to $200,000. 



The great railroad question, as regarded in 

 New Jersey, was briefly and summarily pre- 

 sented on a festive occasion at Long Branch, 

 by the Vice-President (Smith) of the Pennsyl- 

 vania Railroad, in these words : 



The system Las to-day outgrown the limits of State 

 sovereignty, and the iron band holding this country 

 together reaches from the shores of the Atlantic to 

 those of the Pacific. Has not the time arrived when 

 the General Government should enact general laws 

 that would be applicable to all the interstate railways 

 of this country, which, among other things, should 

 provide for full reports to be made of their organi- 

 zation, working, and financial condition, as often as 

 might be required, with a power of verifying reports 

 of examiners, which would regulate the proportion of 

 stock to bonds, make the forms of mortgages uniform, 

 forbid the contraction of floating debts t>y railways 

 for other than supplies, and provide that the railways 

 shall publish their rates of freight, based on certain 

 principles, and make any evasion of such rates an in- 



