out any consolidation or merger. This device was the erection of a central committee or board, composed, perhaps, of the presidents or general managers of the different corporations, and the transfer to them of a majority of the stock in each of the corporations, to be held “in trust” for the seyeral stockholders so assigning their holdings. These stockholders received in return “trust certificates” showing that they were entitled to receive the dividends on thelr assigned stock, though the voting power of it had passed to the trustees. This last feature enabled the trustees or committee to elect all the directors of all the corporations, and through them the officers, and thereby to exercise an absolutely controlling influence over the policy and operations of each constituent company, to the ends and with the purposes above mentioned. Though the “trust,” in this sense, is now seldom if ever resorted to as a form of corporate organization, having given place to the “holding corporation” and other devices, the word has become current in statute laws as well as popular speech, to designate almost any form of combination of a monopolistic character or tendency See Black, Const. Law (8d Ed.) p. 428; Northern Securities Co. v. U, 8., 198 U. S. 197, 24 Sup. Ct. 436, 48 L. Ed. 679;