artificial commodities it is easier; so in the Northern Pacific
corner, a nearly perfect engrossing; the shares of stock went to a
thousand dollars, and might have gone higher but for the voluntary
interference of great financiers. Leiter's Chicago corner in wheat,
Sully's corner in cotton, were almost perfect examples of engrossing,
but failed when the regrating began. All these tend to monopoly, and
act, of course, in restraint of trade; the broader meanings of these
two latter more important principles we leave for later discussion.

(1285) The Statute of Bakers, or Assize of Bread and Ale, is by some
assigned to the 13th of Edward I. If so, we find all these great
modern questions treated by statute in the reign of the same
great law-making king, Edward I, who well was called the "English
Justinian"; for, in 1305, twenty years later, we have the first
Statute of Conspiracy. This statute only applies to the maintaining
of lawsuits; but the Statute of Laborers of 1360 declares void _all_
alliances and covins between masons, carpenters, and guilds, chapters
and ordinances; and from this time on the statutes recognize the
English common law of conspiracy in general words.

As this is one of the most important doctrines of the English law, and
moreover one which is most criticised to-day by large interests, both
of capital and labor, it will be wise to dwell upon its historical and
logical origin in this place, though we shall consider it at length
later as it touches various fields of legislation. It is notable for
two most important principles: first, that it recognizes the great
menace of combined action, and both forbids and punishes combinations
to do an act which might be lawful for the individual; second, of all
branches of civil, as distinct from criminal, law, it is the one which
most largely recognizes intent; that is to say, the ethical purposes