160 ARTICLE 1.

four persons for Commissioners, and such judges of election, before open-
ing the polls, shall take oath before some justice of the peace in Alle-
gany County to permit every qualified voter to vote and none other, and
the majority of said judges shall have power to do all things herein pro-
vided in case one should die or refuse to act.

MANUFACTURERS AND MINERS.*

P. L. L. (1888), Art. 1, sec. 185. 1880, ch. 273. 1900, ch. 453, sec. 185.

440. Every corporation engaged in mining or manufacturing or opera-
ing a railroad in Allegany County, and employing ten or more hands,
shall pay its employees the full amount of their wages in legal tender money
of the United States, and any contract by or on behalf of any such corpora-
tion for the payment of the whole or of any part of said wages, in any
other manner than provided shall he and is hereby declared illegal, null
and void; and every such employee shall be entitled to recover from any
such corporation employing him, the whole or so much of the wages earned
by him as shall not have been actually paid to him in legal tender money
of the United States without set-off or deduction of his demand for or in
respect of any account or claim whatever, but no such corporation em-
ploying hands as aforesaid shall issue any scrip or metallic or paper checks
in payment of the sums due such employees, nor shall such employees
make any contract with its employers by which such employees shall be
compelled to purchase their supplies, merchandise or goods from any pri-
vate or company stores owned and operated by the said employers; nor
shall said employers by means of such employment exercise any influence
whatever on said hands by promises or threats to compel their employees
to deal with any particular merchant or storekeepers.

P. L. L. (1888), Art. 1, sec. 186. 1880, ch. 273. 1900, ch. 453, sec. 186

441. Nothing in the preceding section shall be construed to prevent
any such corporation from demising to any of its employees the whole or
any part of any tenement in said county at any rent thereon reserved,
or from contracting for or advancing money to supply him with medicine
or medical attendance needed for himself or family, or smithing or fuel,
and deducting from the wages of any such employee for and in respect
of such rent, medicine, medical attendance, smithing or fuel, or money
advanced as aforesaid, or deduction of dues for Miners' Mutual Aid So-
ciety; but no such corporation shall have the right to deduct any moneys
from the wages of its employees in payment for merchandise of any other
character than those hereinbefore in this section mentioned and specified,
subject to all the penalties prescribed by Section 444.

*Ch. 493, 1898, making it unlawful for any railroad or mining corporation doing
business in Allegany County to own or have interest in stores selling merchandise
in said county was held invalid in Lurman v. Hitchens Bros. Co., 90 Md. 14.