1 See also Mouflet v. Cole, L. H. 7 Ex. 70; 8 Ex. 82; Boutelle v. Smith, 116 Mass. Ill; Morris Run Coal Co. v. Barclav Coal Co. 68 Penn. St. 173; Perkins v. Clay, 64 N. H. 518; Craft v. McConoughy, 79 Ill. 346; Fairbank v. Leary, 40 Wis. 637.

found for believing that the * law in relation to these contracts grew out of the English law of apprenticeship, to

Leach, said: "Although the policy of the law will not permit a general restraint of trade, yet a trader may sell a secret of business, and restrain himself generally from using that secret. Let the Master, in settling the deed which is to give effect to this agreement, introduce a general covenant to restrain the use of the secret for twenty years, and a limited covenant, in point of locality, as to carrying on the ordinary business of a dyer, both parties being willing, that the agreement should be so modified." Three years afterwards, in Homer v. Ashford, 3 Bing. 822, the same general principle and limitations were recognized. Wickens v. Evans, 3 Young & J. 318 (1829), recognizes the same general principles. And this was followed in the same court in Young v. Timmins, 1 Cromp. & J. 331 (1881), where an agreement in partial restraint of trade was declared void for want of consideration. And in the same year was decided in the Common Pleas the important case of Horner v. Graves, 7 Bing. 735 (1881). It was there held, after mature deliberation, that an agreement that defendant, a moderately skilful dentist, would abstain from practising over a district 200 miles in diameter, in consideration of receiving instructions and a salary from the plaintiff, determinable at three months' notice, was unreasonable and void. See further, Hitchcock v. Coker, 1 Nev. & P. 796 (1886); Archer v. Marsh, 6 A. & E. 959 (1887); Wallis v. Day, 2 M. & W. 273 (1837); Leighton v. Wales, 3 M. & W. 545; Ward v. Byrne, 6 M. & W. 548 (1839); Hinde v. Gray, 1 Man. & G. 195; Proctor v. Sargent, 2 Man. & G. 20 (1840); Mallan v. May, 11 M. & W. 653 (1843); Rannie v. Irvine, 7 Man. & G. 969 (1844); Green v. Price, 18 M. & W. 695 (1845); 16 M. & W. 346; Pilkington v. Scott, 15 M. & W. 657 (1846); Nicholls v. Stretton, 10 Q. B. 346 (1847); Pemberton v. Vaughan, 11 Jur. 411; Hartley v. Cummings, 5 C. B. 247 (1847); Sainter v. Ferguson, 7 C. B. 716 (1849); Hastings v. Whitley, 2 Exch. 611 (1848); Hilton v. Eckersley (1855), 6 Ellis & B. 47. 32 Eng. L. & Eq. 198. Where the agreement is not to keep a shop or practise a trade within a certain number of miles of a certain place, the shortest and nearest mode of access is to be the standard of estimate. Leigh v. Hind, 9 B. & C. 774; Woods v. Dennett, 2 Stark. 89. The distance is to be measured by a straight line upon a horizontal plane. Duignan v. Walker,

Johns. Rep. (Eng.) 446. The principal American cases on this subject seem to be the following: Pierce v. Fuller, 8 Mass. 228 (1811), where an obligation not to run a stage between Boston and Providence, a distance of about forty miles, in opposition to the plaintiff's stage, was held to be valid, having been made for a reasonable and good consideration. This was followed by Perkins v. Lyman, 9 Mass. 522 (1813). Four years after, the general principle, as stated in the text, was recognized and adopted in Pyke v. Thomas, 4 Bibb, 486. In 1823, the question came again before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in Stearns v. Barrett, 1 Pick. 443, and the cases in the 8th & 9th Mass. above cited were confirmed. The same court held, in 1825 (Palmer v. Stebbins, 8 Pick. 188), that a bond conditioned that the obligor shall give the obligee all the freighting of the obligor's goods up and down the Connecticut, at the customary price, to be paid in goods at the usual price; and that he shall not encourage any other boatman to compete with the obligee in the business of boating, is not void, as being in restraint of trade, and is founded on a sufficient consideration. The case of Nobles v. Bates, 7 Cowen, 307 (1827), seems to have been the next touching this question. There the agreement was, not to carry on a certain trade "within twenty miles of a certain stand." The agreement was held binding, the court observing: "A bond or promise, upon good consideration, not to exercise a trade for a limited time, at a particular place, or within a particular parish, is good. But where it is general not to exercise a trade, throughout the kingdom, it is bad, though founded on good consideration, as being a too unlimited restraint of trade; and operating oppressively upon one party, without being of any benefit to either." Again, in Pierce v. Woodward, 6 Pick. 206 (1828), the defendant sold the plaintiff a grocery store, and verbally agreed not to carry on the same kind of business within a "certain limited distance in the city of Boston." It was held, that it was a sufficient consideration for such agreement, if the plaintiff was thereby induced to make the purchase, and that this might be shown by parol, although the deed was silent about any such consideration. The next case in point of time was Alger v. Thacher, 19 Pick. 51 (1837). for which see next note. And see Vickery v. Welch, which we have already referred. By this * law, in its origi nal severity, no person could exercise any regular trade or handicraft except after a long apprenticeship, and, generally, a formal admission to the proper guild or company. If he had a trade, he must continue in that trade, or have none. To relinquish it, therefore, was to throw himself out of employment; to fall as a burden upon the community; to become a pauper. And it is not surprising, that a judge in the reign of Henry V. should speak of a promise to do this, in language which would now be, because indecorous, impossible. But this ancient severity of the law of apprenticeship abated; and as this severity gradually relaxed, it will be seen, that contracts "in restraint of trade" were treated with less and less of disfavor, until the present rule became established.