nder the head of "Labor." _Labor_ has become,
for all our minds, the general head under which that great and
important mass of legislation concerning the relation of all employers
and employees, and the condition and treatment of mechanical or other
labor, naturally falls. But if you search in our elaborate index of
Massachusetts for the head of "_Labor_" you will not find it. If you
look under "_Employment of Labor_" you will find it, but you cannot be
certain that you will find all of it, and you will find it under so
many heads that it would take you quite ten or fifteen minutes to read
through and find out whether there is an "hours-of-labor" law or not.
On the other hand, purely technical matters, such as "_Abatement_" are
usually well indexed, because their names are what we call "terms of
art," under which any lawyer would look.

But, after all, it does not so much matter what system we adopt as
long as it is the same system. At present I know of nothing better
than the forty heads contained in the "Principal Headings" of the New
York State Library Index, though I should like to change the names of
a few. For instance, "Combinations or Monopolies" is not the head to
which the lawyer would naturally look for statutes against Trusts. The
word "trust" has become a term of art. If not put under "Trusts" it
should be under "Restraint of trade" or "Monopolies," but the word
"combination" is neither old nor new, legal nor popular. A combination
is lawful. If unlawful, it is _not_ a combination, but a conspiracy.

The most important statute of the United States is perhaps the most
horrible example of slovenliness, bad form, and contradiction of all.
The "Hepburn Act" is the amended Interstate Commerce Act, and is
printed by Congress in a pamphlet incorporating with it quite a
different act known as the Elkins Act, besides the Safety Appliance
Act, the Arbitration Act, and several others. We all remember under
what political stress this legislation was passed, with Congress
balking, the senators going one way, the attorney-general another, the
radical congressmen in front, and the president pushing them all. It
is easily intelligible that such a condition of things should not tend
to lucid legislation, particularly when an opposing minority do not
desire the legislation at all, and hope to leave it in such a shape
as to be contradictory, or unconstitutional--or both. (This has been
intentionally done more than once.) All