touching the legality of the estimate as a basis for an assessment are submitted to and determined by the court, and are not for the jury; the only question submitted to the jury being the amount of benefits and damages and the proportionate share of cost. When lands are annexed to a district under section 58 of the act, they may be assessed for benefits, and when the work has been completed, as in this case, they may be assessed to pay their proportionate share of the original cost of the work, and the amount collected is to be rebated proportionately to the lands originally assessed. Schafer v. Gerbers, 234 Ill. 468, 84 N. E. 1064. The assessment is made without reference to any former assessment, and the purpose of the assessment is to require the annexed lands to contribute their just proportion of the original cost which has been fixed and determined. Kickapoo Drainage District v. Jackson, 255 Ill. 504, 99 N. E. 596. It is for the court to determine the cost of the work as a foundation for the assessment and submit the same to the jury, so that the proportionate share of that amount which the annexed lands should contribute according to benefits may be determined by the jury. The court recognized the fact that evidence of the amounts of the assessments was not evidence of the cost of the work by giving the fifth instruction, as follows: "The court instructs you that evidence of the amount of any assessment levied by the drainage district is not evidence of the cost of the work done by it." [5] By another instruction the jury were advised that it was necessary for them to be able to determine from the evidence the cost and expense of the drainage work done by the district, and this instruction not only submitted to the jury a question with which they had no concern, but there was no evidence from which they could find, as a fact, the actual cost of the work. The evidence on the question whether the lands of the appellant were benefited to the amount of the assessment was conflicting. Witnesses testifying for the commissoners gave opinions that they were benefited to that amount, and witnesses for the appellant testified that they were not benefited or not to the amount of the sums claimed by the commissioners in the assessment roll. The assess ed in excess of the cost. The verdict of the jury recited that after hearing the testimony of witnesses they examined the lands to ascertain the benefits and damages that had accrued to the same from the work of the district, and their verdict was based solely on their judgment as to the benefits received. There was no proper basis for a determination of the proportionate share of the cost of the work which should be contributed by the appellant's lands. The assessment roll had columns numbered for each of the nine assessments, all of which were blank except the seventh, eighth, and ninth, and in those columns amounts were set down as the share chargeable to appellant's lands, but the bill of particulars contained all of the nine assessments, and evidence was given of the amount of each and the aggregate of all. According to the roll, the lands were only chargeable with a proportionate share of the last three. The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded. Reversed and remanded. 1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 321 — MASTER AND SERVANT 347-WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACTS. Workmen's Compensation Act (Laws 1913, p. 354) § 29, under which, when employer, employé, and third person are under the act, the employer is subrogated to the employé's right of action against the third person for injuries from the latter's negligence, does not violate Bill of Rights, § 19, providing that every person ought to find a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries, because the law provides certain remedies, and gives to all parties concerned an election which remedy they will avail themselves of. 2. MASTER AND SERVANT 362-WORKMEN'S MENT." Where plaintiff's contract with his employer was for a fixed rate of wages and was to continue so long and for all work that the employer had to do, the employment was not casual. 3. MASTER AND SERVANT 358-WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION-FAILURE TO REJECT ACT. Where an employer was engaged in conducting a plumbing business, and in that occupation was engaged in work in building and maintaining and repairing structures, and plaintiff was an employé of such employer, and neither of them had rejected the Workmen's Compensation Act, both were subject to its provisions. COMPENSATION-EXTRAHAZARDOUS OCCUPA TION. ment made by the jury, which was identical with that of the commissioners except as to two tracts and the two cents, as above noted, | 4. MASTER AND SERVANT 361-WORKMEN'S was within the range of the testimony, and the jury personally examined the lands. If the benefits were equal to the assessment, that fact was only one of the conditions to a valid assessment. While an assessment could not exceed benefits, it was also further limited to the proportionate share of the cost of the work done. The benefits may, and generally do, very largely exceed the cost of drainage work, which furnishes a reason for landowners organizing drainage districts by which the value of their lands will be enhanc Where defendant's business was that of maintaining a large building, let out and used for income, part of it occupied as a lodgeroom, dance hall, and offices in connection, defendant Act, such business being declared to be extrawas subject to the Workmen's Compensation hazardous by section 3, par. (b), cls. 1, 8. 5. APPEAL AND ERROR 1071(6)—HARMLESS ERROR-DIRECTION OF VERDICT. In action of trespass on the case for personal injuries, where the court directed a verdict of not guilty, on the ground that the rights of the parties were governed by Workmen's Com For other cases see same topic aud KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes pensation Act, § 29, so that plaintiff, an em- offices. In connection with the lodgeroom, ployé, could not maintain the action, defendant where there was a dance floor, there was a not being his employer, defendant was not prej-cloakroom 12 by 14 feet, which had no outudiced by failure to direct such verdict on the further ground that plaintiff's negligence, as a matter of law, contributed to his injury. side windows nor artificial light. There was Rose ried on the business of plumbing, and she advertised for a plumber with a master plumber's license. She was doing business under the name of the Wixted Plumbing Company, and the plaintiff answered the advertisement and entered the employment, agreeing to do her work for 50 cents an hour. He was to go and look at jobs, find out what was necessary to be done, estimate on some work, and do her work with the privilege of tending to any work of his own. The employment was not for any length of time, but was to continue as long as there was work for a man to do. The work he did was repairing pipes, closets, and waste pipes and general plumbing work. In the third week of his employment Patrick Condon, an employé of the Wixted Plumbing Company, went to the building of the defendant in the forenoon with the janitor to ascertain where the stoppage was and remove it, and they went into the dark cloakroom, Condon using a candle for light. There was a trapdoor in the floor, and Condon opened it with a chisel and file handle, and he and the janitor went down in the opening in a space 5 or 6 feet deep under the floor, and found there was no stoppage there. After lunch the plaintiff and Condon came back to the cloakroom with some tools and material. Soil pipes came down the wall at the farther side of the cloakroom, and, the trapdoor having been left open, as the plaintiff and Condon went into the doorway toward the soil pipes the plaintiff fell through the trapdoor. CARTWRIGHT, J. Frederick A. Johnson, plaintiff in error, sued Adeline Choate, defendant in error, in the superior court of Cook county, in an action of trespass on the case to recover damages for a personal injury | sustained by falling through a trapdoor in a dark room of the building of the defendant. The declaration contained two counts, the first of which averred that the defendant owned and operated the building used for divers purposes, containing a certain lodge hall and cloakroom, and had arranged with Rose Wixted, doing business as the Wixted Plumbing Company, for the repair and alteration of the building by remodeling the plumbing therein; that the plaintiff was engaged in his duties, as an employé of the Wixted Plumbing Company, in and about the lodge hall and cloakroom; that it was the duty of the defendant to use ordinary care and caution in the maintenance of the building in a reasonably safe condition for the completion of the plumbing, but she did not regard her duty in that behalf, and negligently permitted and allowed a dangerous opening to be and remain in the floor of the building, which was not known or discoverable to the plaintiff in the exercise of care and caution for his own safety, and that he fell It was stipulated that neither the defenddown and into the opening, and was serious-ant nor Rose Wixted had filed notice with the ly and permanently injured. The second | Industrial Board of an intention to pay comcount was the same, except that it alleged a pensation under the Workmen's Compensaduty of the defendant to warn the plaintiff tion Act, and neither of them had rejected of the dangerous condition, and that the duty the act. was neglected. There were three other defendants, who were dismissed out of the case. The defendant filed a plea of not guilty and two special pleas, averring that the Wixted Plumbing Company, the plaintiff, and the defendant were all subject to and operating under the Workmen's Compensation Act, and therefore the court was without jurisdiction of the subject-matter of the suit. The special pleas were demurred to, but the demurrer was withdrawn, with an agreement that the plaintiff could make any defense to the pleas that he could have made by replication. The facts were not disputed, and are as follows: The defendant owned and operated a large building in Chicago, on the third floor of which there was a hall, lodgeroom, and After the evidence was heard the plaintiff asked leave to file an additional count, which was the same as the original counts, except that the word "agent" was substituted for the word "employé," and the court refused to allow it to be filed. The defendant then moved the court to direct a verdict of not guilty, on the ground that the rights of the parties were governed by section 29 of the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1913 (Laws 1913, p. 354), and that the suit against the defendant could not be maintained. To this motion plaintiff made objection, specifying.· many particulars, in which it was alleged that section 29 contravenes various provisions of the Constitution of this state and the Constitution of the United States. The court sustained the defendant's motion, and directed a verdict of not guilty, which was returned, | process of law, but was a valid exercise of and judgment was entered accordingly. The the police power. plaintiff sued out a writ of error from this court for a review of the judgment. The errors assigned question the validity of section 29 of the Workmen's Compensation Act upon the grounds specified in the objection to defendant's motion, together with propositions that the court erred in denying leave to file the additional count; that the work was casual, and the relation between the plaintiff and Rose Wixted was not that of employer and employé, and that defendant was not subject to the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act. [2, 3] There is no basis in the evidence for the argument that the employment was casual. The plaintiff testified that his contract with Rose Wixted, under the name of the Wixted Plumbing Company, was for a fixed rate of wages, and was to continue so long and for all work that the Wixted Plumbing Company had to do. Rose Wixted, as the Wixted Plumbing Company, was engaged in conducting a plumbing business, and in that occupation was engaged in work in building and maintaining and repairing structures, and the plaintiff was her employé, and, neither of them having rejected the Workmen's Compensation Act both were subject to its provisions. [1] It is conceded that most of the objections to the validity of section 29 specified in the objections to the defendant's motion and repeated in the assignment of errors [4] The defendant by her pleas and by the were disposed of in Friebel v. Chicago City motion for a directed verdict alleged that Railway Co., 280 Ill. 76, 117 N. E. 467, and she was subject to the provisions of the the questions there specifically decided are Workmen's Compensation Act, and, so far not argued or relied upon. It is argued, how- as she is concerned, nothing further need be ever, that section 29 is void because it does said; but it is argued that maintaining the not provide a certain remedy to a person in-building and causing the repairs to be made jured by the negligence of another, and for that reason violates section 19 of the Bill of Rights, which provides that every person ought to find a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries and wrongs which he may receive in his person, property, or reputation, and that it also violates article 6 of the Constitution, vesting all judicial power in courts, by giving the Industrial Board power to pass upon the rights of one injured by the act of a third party. The first objection is fully answered by the principles declared in Keeran v. Peoria, Bloomington & Champaign Traction Co., 277 Ill. 413, 115 N. E. 636, where the elective nature of the Workmen's Compensation Act, both as to employer and employé, was made the basis of the decision. The law provides certain remedies, and gives to all parties concerned an election which remedy they will avail themselves of. In Deibeikis v. Link-Belt Co., 261 Ill. 454, 104 N. E. 211, Ann. Cas. 1915A, 241, it was held that the act does not contravene article 6 of the Constitution, as delegating judicial power to arbitrators, for the reason that it is competent for parties to settle their differences by arbitration independently of the courts, and, the act being elective, an employé, by electing to come under it, agrees that his rights may be settled by it. did not bring her within the terms of the act. Paragraph (b) of section 3 brings within the act every employer engaged in any of the occupations, enterprises, or businesses therein mentioned, and the first occupation, enterprise, or business specified is the building, maintaining, repairing, or demolishing of any structure. The employer must be engaged in the occupation, enterprise, or business, and therefore the building, maintaining, or repairing of a dwelling house, which is neither the occupation, enterprise, or business of the owner, does not bring him within the act, nor does the building of a shed or other similar structure by or for a farmer come within the terms of the statute or the legislative intention. Uphoff v. Industrial Board, 271 Ill. 312, 111 N. E. 128, L. R. A. 1916E, 329, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 1. The defendant in this case maintained a large building let out and used for income, part of it occupied as a lodgeroom, dance hall, and offices in connection, and the maintaining of the building was the business or occupation of the defendant. Such occupation, enterprise, or business is declared by clause 8 of paragraph (b) of section 3 to be extrahazardous. If the business of repairing such structures carried on by the Wixted Plumbing Company is extrahazardous, as it certainly is, the business of maintaining the structure and It is further argued that section 29 violates causing its repair was necessarily of the the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal same character, and, that being the occupaConstitution, but the argument is answered tion, enterprise, and business of the defendby the decision in New York Central Rail-ant, she was under the act. road Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188, 37 Sup. Ct. 188, 61 L. Ed. 667, L. R. A. 1917D, 1, Ann. Cas. 1917D, 629, where it was held that a workmen's compensation act similar to our Own did not contravene the Fourteenth Amendment, as taking property without due [5] Cross-errors have been assigned on the ground that the court failed to direct a verdict of not guilty on the further ground that the plaintiff was guilty of negligence, as a matter of law, contributing to his injury. The verdict of not guilty having been directed (Supreme Court of Illinois. June 20, 1918.) 1. CRIMINAL LAW 308 PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE-KEEPING HOUSE OF ILL FAME. The presumption of innocence, in a prosecution for keeping a house of ill fame, must continue the same as in any other case until guilt is shown, either by direct evidence, or by circumstances from which, according to the laws of reason and experience, guilt is clearly inferable. 2. CRIMINAL LAW 407(2) — ADMISSIONS -SILENCE-KEEPING HOUSE OF ILL FAME. In a prosecution for keeping a house of ill fame, evidence of police officers who raided defendant's hotel as to what men and women found therein stated in defendant's presence, he not having denied their statements, and that defendant stated that it did not make any difference whether the couples were man and wife, if they were registered as such, was admissible. 3. DISORDERLY HOUSE 17 KEEPING HOUSE OF ILL FAME-CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVI DENCE. In a prosecution for keeping a house of ill fame, conviction is justified not only on direct but on circumstantial evidence. 4. CRIMINAL LAW IMPLICATION. 407(2) - CONFESSION An admission or confession may be implied from the conduct of the party when charged with the crime or with complicity therein, or when statements are made in his presence affecting him, when the circumstances afford him an opportunity to act or speak in reply, and men similarly situated would naturally deny the implied guilt or make explanations or state ments. 5. CRIMINAL LAW 1169(12) HARMLESS ERROR. APPEAL In a prosecution for keeping a house of ill fame, where defendant must have known that his rooms were being occupied by people who desired to use them for illicit purposes, the admission of testimony of the policemen who raided the place as to what men and women found therein said in defendant's presence, which he lid not deny, was not error harmful to defendant. 6. DISORDERLY HOUSE 13 HOUSE OF ILL FAME-EVIDENCE. KEEPING In a prosecution for keeping a house of ill fame, or letting rooms for illicit purposes, the evidence need not be confined to letting rooms on the night of the raid, but the practice of prostitution in the house or rooms at other times may be shown, so long as having a reasonable tendency to prove defendant's guilt. 7. CRIMINAL LAW 699 — APPEAL - HARMLESS ERROR REFUSAL TO PERMIT ARGU MENT. In a prosecution for keeping a house of ill fame, trial being to the court, where the evidence was subject to but one interpretation, adverse to defendant, and defendant's counsel did not ask permission to argue the case until the trial judge had stated what his conclusions were to be, the court's refusal to permit the argument was not reversible error. Error to Appellate Court, First District, on Error to Municipal Court of Chicago; Rufus F. Robinson, Judge. Isaac Berger was convicted of keeping a house of ill fame, etc., and he appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed, and he brings error. Judgment of the Appellate Court affirmed. Charles Horgan, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error. Edward J. Brundage, Atty. Gen., and Maclay Hoyne, State's Atty., and Edward C. Fitch, both of Chicago (Edward E. Wilson, of Chicago, of counsel), for the People. CARTER, J. Plaintiff in error was found guilty of a violation of section 57 of chapter 38 of the Revised Statutes of this state, providing against keeping or maintaining a house of ill fame or place for the practice of prostitution or lewdness, or letting a house, rooms, or other premises for such purpose. Hurd's Stat. 1917, p. 960. The particular charge under the provision upon which the information was based was that plaintiff in error rented or let a room or rooms for the purpose of prostitution, fornication, and lewdness. A jury was waived, and on a hearing before the judge in the municipal court of Chicago plaintiff in error was found guilty and fined $200 and costs. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment, and the case has been brought here on writ of error for further consideration. Plaintiff in error was the proprietor of the New Douglas Hotel, at 3502 Vincennes avenue, Chicago, in August, 1917. About 1:30 o'clock on Sunday morning, August 26, 1917, six police officers of Chicago entered plaintiff in error's hotel and arrested him, and also arrested three couples, men and women, who were occupying rooms in the hotel at that hour. They also arrested another man and woman who, as the evidence tends to show, attempted to enter the building together while the officers were talking with the people already arrested. None of these four couples were married, but the three couples who were in the rooms had registered as man and wife. The evidence tends to show that the couple who were just entering the building were warned away by the colored maid employed in the hotel. These four couples were all questioned, in a general way, by the police in the presence of plaintiff in error, in or just outside of the hotel office, on the second floor. Each of them stated, in answer to the questions of the police, that they were not man and wife. Plaintiff in error said at the time the police officer was questioning these witnesses that he had no knowledge as to whether these couples were married or whether they were unmarried; that he did not receive them; that they were received For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes Crim. Evidence (10th Ed.) § 261, and cases cited. While the testimony of these couples when under arrest, as told by the police officers, may not be held conclusive as to plaintiff in error's knowledge of the purpose for which the rooms in his hotel were being rented, it would certainly have a bearing on that and registered by one of his employés. Ac- view, competent evidence. 1 Wharton on cording to the testimony of the police, he also stated, after one of the couples had said they were not married, that "he did not care whether they were man and wife just as long as they were registered," apparently meaning that he did not care whether they were man and wife so long as they registered as man and wife. It appears from Berger's tes-question. Without question, the presumptimony that the rooming house contained 65 rooms on three floors, and that he had about 18 permanent roomers at the time of the raid. He denied that he had heard certain statements testified to by the officers as having been made in his presence by the various people who were under arrest, one to the effect that that person had been there before and occupied a room, leaving at 2 o'clock in the morning; also the statement of one of the women that she had occupied a room there before. It appears, also, that one of the police officers testified that one of these women, who was arrested while occupying one of the rooms, was known to the police as a lewd woman who had frequently solicited men on the streets of Chicago and had been put out of other public rooming houses or hotels by the police because of this. Plaintiff in error denied that he knew these facts as to this woman. Some of the women involved also testified, and their testimony tended more to support plaintiff in error's testimony than it did to contradict him, as to his guilty knowledge of the character of the women in question. De Forest v. United tion of innocence in a case of this kind must continue, the same as in any other case, until guilt is shown, "but guilt may be shown either by direct evidence, which probably in the greatest number of cases is wholly impracticable, or by circumstances from which, according to the usual laws of reason and common experience, guilt is clearly inferable. When these circumstances are shown, the presumption of guilt displaces the presumption of innocence." States, 11 App. Cas. (D. C.) 458. None of these couples had any baggage with them when they came to the hotel or when arrested. While it is true, as argued by counsel for plaintiff in error, that a man and wife might come to a hotel without any baggage and the proprietor could not be expected to turn them away on that account, still it is a circumstance that necessarily has weight as to the guilty knowledge of the proprietor it several unmarried couples, all of them withhis house. No fixed and arbitrary rules can out baggage, are found occupying rooms in be laid down governing the duties of propri etors of hotels in a great city like Chicago in deciding whether or not to accept as guests [1, 2] Counsel for plaintiff in error argues men and women who come in couples, with earnestly and at length that the evidence of or without baggage. In matters of this kind, the policemen as to what these men and womas in other matters involving violations of en said was not admissible even though it the criminal law, each case must in some was said in Berger's presence and he did not measure be decided by its own special facts. deny it. We think the testimony on this The proprietor of a hotel or public rooming question is of such a nature that the con- house is presumed to have a general knowlclusion is inevitable that what the police-edge that will guide him, in a large degree, men swore to as to the statements of these men and women was stated in Berger's presence, as testified by them. We think, also, it is clear that he did state that it did not make any difference whether these couples were man and wife if they were registered as man and wife. This evidence of the police as to this last statement of plaintiff in error does not appear to have been denied by him. Neither can there be any question from this record that plaintiff in error was where he could have seen and heard the colored maid when she was trying to warn away the couple who came in while the police were there. Most authorities agree that on a prosecution for keeping such a house as this the state may prove the character of the inmates and frequenters of the house, and many courts hold it can prove the reputation of the house. 9 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law (2d Ed.) 533; 9 R. C. L. 225, and cases cited. The bad reputation of those who visit such a house is also generally held to be, in any on matters of this kind. It has been held that the proprietor of an establishment of a quasi public character is presumed by 'aw to know what takes place in his own establishment, to the extent, at least, of throwing upon him the burden of showing, if the law is violated in the conduct of the place, that it is not his fault. Sanders v. State, 74 Ga. 82. In this last case the court in so holding held that such a rule was in accordance with justice and common sense. In some jurisdictions the conversations of those in the house, even out of the presence of the accused, are competent to show the character of the house. State v. Toombs, 79 Iowa, 741, 45 N. W. 300; Herzinger v. State, 70 Md. 278, 17 Atl. 81. Under the holding of this court in People v. Newbold, 260 Ill. 196, 103 N. E. 69, such conversations out of the presence of the accused would not be admissible. We think, however, that under the circumstances of this case these conversations, having, as we have held, taken place in the presence of plaintiff in error, were admissible on the trial. |