a direct relation to the general welfare.  For example, a railway engineer may be prohibited from working continuously for more than sixteen hours, for that is a direct danger to the safety of the public; but a man may not be prohibited from taking service for long hours as stoker on a steamship, although the life of a stoker be a short one and not over merry.  Apparently, however, a woman can be; and indeed there have for a long time been laws prohibiting the labor of women in England and regulating their hours.  But then there are laws prohibiting women from serving in immoral occupations, or occupations which are supposed to be dangerous to their morals, as, for instance, many States have laws against the serving of liquor, or even of food, by women or girls in places or restaurants where liquor is served, or for certain hours, or in certain places.  Very conceivably a law might be passed prohibiting women and girls from the selling of programmes, or attending upon dime museums, or even selling newspapers, or being district messengers; but, as we all know, there are women cabmen in Paris.  Would legislation prohibiting such employment to women be unconstitutional?  There is already a considerable amount of it.  The cases are conflicting, the earlier view, and the view taken in the South and in at least one Federal court, being that such laws are unconstitutional.  The modern doctrine, backed up by that public opinion which we have above described as the ethical force, would seem to sustain them.  The truth is probably that the legislature must be the sole judge of the expediency of such legislation; where the court can see that it does bear a direct relation to the morals of the young women concerned, or the morals of the general community, it will be sustained as constitutional under the police power, although to that extent interfering with the personal liberty of women and with their means of getting a livelihood.

[Footnote 1:  Georgia and South Carolina have such law requiring sixty-six and sixty hours a week respectively in cotton and woollen manufacturing; but their constitutionality has never been tested.  For public work, see below.]

[Footnote 2:  Commonwealth v. Hamilton Manufacturing Co. 120 Mass. 383.]

[Footnote 3:  Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412.  So in Pennsylvania:  Commonwealth v. Beatty, 23 Penn.  C.C. 300.]

[Footnote 4:  People v. Williams, 81 N.E. 778.]

[Footnote 5:  Bucher v. People, 93 Pac. 14.]

As to children there is, of course, no question.  Laws limiting their labor are perfectly constitutional, and some child-labor laws exist already in all States and Territories except Nevada.  The only dispute on the child-labor question is whether such legislation should be Federal, or rather whether the Constitution should be so amended as to make Federal legislation possible.  Practically this would meet with a very much wider opposition than is commonly supposed.