close of the preceding section.

Sec. 3. #Limitation of the wage contract#. In general the law does
not attempt to interfere with the making, by individuals, of such
contracts as they choose to make. Its main function is to interpret
and enforce the contracts that are made. But there has been an
increasing group of exceptions to this general statement. It was
forbidden even by the English common law for wage-workers under
some conditions to sign away their right to claim damages in case
of accident, and many recent statutes have added more specific
limitations in this respect.[2] Legislatures and courts have been
particularly watchful of the interests of children, who are usually
deemed incapable of entering into contracts binding them to their
injury. Sailors, likewise, have been somewhat exceptionally treated,
because, journeying far from home, they are under the often despotic
control of their employers. The English courts may even change the
contract if the sailors have been coerced by their masters.

Laws regulate the form, time, and methods of payment in manufactures
and mining. Companies sometimes keep stores and pay the workers in
mines and factories in goods instead of money. Such a store in the
hands of a philanthropic employer might easily be made, without
expense to himself, a great boon to his workmen, giving them the
benefits of consumers' cooeperation. But the usual result is told
by the fact that such stores are often known as "truck stores" and
"pluck-me stores," and heartily disliked by the wage-workers. They
are most often found where some one large corporation dominates in
the community, as in a mining district, and the workers are in a very
dependent condition. If the higher prices demanded practically lower
real wages, it would seem that the worker had an immediate remedy in
his power to demand higher money-wages. Recognizing that this is for
the most part an illusion--for it is just in such places that the
conditions for free competition are least present--the law in many
states prohibits these stores. It regulates also the measuring of
work, fixing the size of screens and of cars used in coal-mining.
The law is especially favorable to the hand-laborer in regard to the
collection of his wages, requiring monthly or fortnightly or sometimes
weekly payments. Mechanics' liens give to workmen in the building
trades the first claim upon the products of their labor.

Sec. 4. #Usury laws#. The limitati