License Fees. 
163 
to be paid into the state treasury, and give the officials power 
to collect extra fees for their services. 1 Most states, however, 
give the fees as perquisities of office to one or more of the offi¬ 
cials concerned. 2 In many of these cases the marriage license 
fee loses its most important function, namely, that of regula¬ 
tion. It was originally intended to be a payment for a privilege 
granted only in cases where it appeared advisable. Under this 
system, the pecuniary interest of the official is in many cases 
diametrically opposed to his plain duty under the law. As a mat¬ 
ter of fact, it is notorious that marriage licenses are rarely re¬ 
fused in any state. It is largely to this system that we owe 
the large number of wild and runaway marriages, oftentimes 
contracted by mere children. 
B. LIQUOR LICENSES. 
To the great majority of the people, the word “ license ” will 
call to mind, or will mean, simply the permit to sell liquor, 
which is obtained in most states on payment of a certain sum 
of money. The license legislation on this subject alone, when 
taken together, shows a greater diversity in the different states 
than would at first thought seem possible. In most of the orig¬ 
inal states the license charges as they exist to-day, are the re¬ 
sult of a gradual increase of the amount charged at the begin¬ 
ning of the century. For example, the license fee in Rhode 
Island 3 has increased from $4 in 1822 to $400 in 1896. Many 
of the new Western states have of course adopted laws which 
are taken directly from the statute books of Eastern states, and 
some of them have attempted new experiments in license legis¬ 
lation. Scarcely two states have exactly the same system. One 
state grants all the licenses directly through a state official, and 
receives all the fees into the state treasury: another state leaves 
both the power to grant the license and the revenue therefrom 
to the local political units. One commonwealth 4 has a license 
Delaware requires two dollars. 
2 California gives half to the recorder and have to county clerk. Statutes, 
1870, p. 148. 
a Laws , 1822, pp. 295, 349. 
4 New York, “Raines law.” 
