ing the
market--restraint of trade, and monopoly. The broad principles,
however, upon which the gravamen of even these first three rests, is
restraint of trade, which was always obnoxious at the common law.
Contracts in restraint of trade, except such reasonable contracts as
partnership, or the sale of a business with condition not to engage in
the same trade in a certain limited locality or for a certain, limited
time, have always been void at the common law. They are not, however,
criminal except by statute, though a combination in restraint of
trade, etc., was always so. We found many such statutes as we also
found laws which gave a penalty in double or treble damages to the
person injured by such combination or contract. The great case of
monopolies, reported in full in the seventh volume of the State
Trials, is a perfect mine of information on this subject, having been
argued many months at great length by the greatest lawyers, three of
whom later were chief-justices of England. This is not the case of
the playing cards, Darcy's case, commonly called the "Monopoly Case,"
which is briefly reported in Coke and covers a far narrower subject,
the royal grant for a monopoly in the importation (not manufacture or
sale) of playing cards, presumably because Coke's reports are far more
accessible than the somewhat rare editions of the State Trials; but
the great case brought by the British East India Company against one
Sandys, the loss of which would have forfeited its charter and its
business, and possibly put an end to British dominion in the East.
Its charter dated from the early years of Charles II and the 43d
Elizabeth. It brought suit against the defendant, who freighted a
vessel to East Indian ports. Mention in it is made of a charter to the
Muscovy Company as early as Philip and Mary, a much earlier date than
is elsewhere assigned to trading corporations. Hundreds of cases of
unlawful monopolies are cited, among them the case of the tailors of
Norwich, where a combination to work only for certain wages and to
advise others not to work for less and to prevent such others from
getting employment with their own employer, was held a conspiracy and
an attempt to gain a monopoly at the common law. Another case, of one
Peachy, who had by royal grant an exclusive right to sell sweet wine
in London, was held to disclose an odious monopoly at common law and
the king's franchise void.

In the opinion of the writer, had this