McLean v. Bryer

To His Excellency, Charles Dean Kimball, Governor of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

The request of your excellency for an opinion upon the constitutionality of chapter 1004 of the Public Laws, entitled "An act to regulate the hours of labor of certain employees of street railway corporations," calls for a critical examination of the provisions of a penal statute enacted on April 4, 1902, to take effect on June 1, 1902.

The corporations referred to in the act are quasi-public corporations, and their property is in a large measure impressed with a public use. And it is…