Matter of Application of Martin

This case was submitted upon the same briefs and at the same time as the two cases with the same title, numbered, respectively, 1539 and 1540, ante, pp. 51, 59, [ 106 Pac. 235, 238 ]. The only point wherein it differs from the other two cases is that in this ease the petitioner was charged with having commanded a workman to work more than eight hours in one day, upon a mill in control of the petitioner and then in operation crushing and pulverizing quartz for the purpose of extracting precious metals therefrom, in other words, in an ordinary stamp-mill.

The only arguments in favor of the writ, not answered in the opinions in the other two cases, are,—1. That the mill in question is working free milling ore and the metal is extracted solely by the process of pulverizing and washing, which, it is claimed, is not embraced within the phrase “smelters and other institutions for the reduction or refining of ores or metals,” contained in the act; and, 2. That the occupation of laboring in a quartz-mill of this kind is not sufficiently injurious to health to bring it within the scope of the ,police power.

As applied to mining, the word “reduce” means to bring to a specified form or…