lawful discrimination against the railroad corporations, and of their not receiving the equal protection of the laws. But there is nothing of this nature in the tax in question. The railroad commissioners are charged with a variety of duties in connection with railroads, the performance of which is of great importance in the regulation of those instruments of transportation.

It is evident, from these and many other provisions that might be stated, that the duties of the railroad commissioners, when properly discharged, must be in the highest degree beneficial to the public, securing faithful service on the part of the railroad companies, and safety, convenience, and comfort in the operation of their roads. That the State has the power to prescribe the regulations mentioned there can be no question. Though railroad corporations are private corporations as distinguished from those created for municipal and governmental purposes, their uses are public. They are formed for the convenience of the public in the transportation of persons and merchandise, and are invested for that purpose with special privileges. They are allowed to exercise the State's right of eminent domain that they may appropriate for their uses the necessary property of others upon paying just compensation therefor, a right which can only be exercised for public purposes. And they assume, by the acceptance of their charters, the obligations to transport all persons and merchandise upon like conditions and at reasonable rates; and they are authorized to charge reasonable compensation for the services they thus perform. Being the recipients of special privileges from the State, to be exercised in the interest of the public, and assuming the obligations thus mentioned, their business is deemed affected with a public use, and to the extent of that use is subject to legislative regulation. Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. v. Smith, 128 U. S. 174, 179. That regulation may extend to all measures deemed essential not merely to secure the safety of passengers and freight, but to promote the convenience of the public in the transaction of business with them, and to prevent abuses by extortionate charges and unjust discrimination. It may embrace a general supervision of the operation of their roads, which may be exercised by direct legislation commanding or forbidding, under severe penalties, the doing or omission of particular acts, or it may be exercised through commissioners specially appointed for that purpose. The mode or manner of regulation is a matter of legislative discretion. When exercised through commissioners, their services are for the benefit of the railroad corporations as well as of the public. Both are served by the required supervision over the roads and means of transportation, and there would seem to be no sound reason why the compensation of the commissioners in such case should not be met by the corporations, the operation of whose roads and the exercise of whose franchises are supervised. In exacting this there is no encroachment upon the Fourteenth Amendment. Requiring that the burden of a service deemed essential to the public, in consequence of the existence of the corporations and the ex

ercise of privileges obtained at their request, should be borne by the corporations in relation to whom the service is rendered, and to whom it is useful, is neither denying to the corporations the equal protection of the laws or making any unjust discrimination against them. All railroad corporations in the State are treated alike in this respect. The necessity of supervision extends to them all, and for that supervision the like proportional charge is made against all. There is no occasion for similar regulations for the government of other than railroad corporations, and therefore no charge is made against them for the expenses and salaries of the commissioners. The rule of equality is not invaded where all corporations of the same kind are subjected to like charges for similar services, though no charge at all is made against other corporations. There is no charge where there is no service rendered. The legislative and constitutional provision of the State, that taxation of property shall be equal and uniform and in proportion to its value, is not violated by exacting a contribution according to their gross income in proportion to the number of miles of railroad operated in the State to meet the special service required. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27; Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703; Missouri Pacific Railway, v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512.

There are many instances where parties are compelled to perform certain acts and to bear certain expenses when the public is interested in the acts which are performed as much as the parties themselves. Thus in opening, widening, or improving streets the owners of adjoining property are often compelled to bear the expenses, or at least a portion of them, notwithstanding the work done is chiefly for the benefit of the public. So, also, in the draining of marsh lands, the public is directly interested in removing the causes of malaria, and yet the expense of such labor is usually thrown upon the owners of the property. Quarantine regulations are adopted for the protection of the public against the spread of disease, yet the requirement that the vessel examined shall pay for the examination is a part of all quarantine systems. More gan v. Louisiana, 118 U. S. 455, 466. So, the expense of a compulsory examination of a railroad engineer, to ascertain whether he is free from color blindness, has been held to be properly chargeable against the railroad company. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway v. Alabama, 128 U. S. 96, 101. So, where work is done in a particular county for the benefit of the public, the cost is oftentimes cast upon the county itself instead of upon the whole State. Thus, in County of Mobile v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691, it was held that a provision for the issuing of bonds by a county in Alabama could not be declared invalid, although it imposed upon one county the expense of an improvement in which the whole State was interested. In such instances, where the interests of the public and of individuals are blended in any work or service imposed by law, whether the cost shall be thrown entirely upon the individuals, or upon the State, or be apportioned between them, is matter of legislative direction.

We see no error in the ruling of the court below upon the Federal question presented, and the conclusion we have reached renders it unnecessary to consider how far the obligation of the corporation was affected by the alleged amendment made to its charter.

Judgment affirmed.

JUSTICES BRADLEY and GRAY did not sit in this case nor take part in its decision.

NEW YORK, ETC., RAILROAD COMPANY v. BRISTOL ET AL. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1894.

[14 Sup. Court Rep. 437.]1

IN error to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut. In pursuance of an Act of the Legislature of Connecticut approved June 19, 1889, relating to the grade crossings of railroads, the railroadcommissioners of that State, on September 2, 1890, made an order reciting that whereas the directors of the New York & New England railroad company had failed to remove, or apply for the removal, during the year ending August 1, 1890, of any grade crossing of a highway which crossed or was crossed by their railroad, and whereas, in their opinion, said directors should have applied for the removal of the grade crossing of their road and the highway known as "Main Street," in the town of Bristol, and directing a hearing upon the matter, with notice to the railroad company, the town, and the owners of land adjoining that portion of the highway. The hearing was had on several days, from September 24, 1890, to February 11, 1891; and the commissioners, being of opinion that the financial condition of the company warranted the order, and that public safety required it, ordered the crossing removed, and determined and directed the alterations, changes, and removals to be made and done, and that they be executed by the railroad company at its sole expense, including damages occasioned thereby. The company appealed from this order to the Superior Court of the County of Hartford, the petition for appeal setting forth various grounds therefor. That court, upon hearing the parties and their evidence, found as facts that the railroad company was financially able to execute the commissioners' order, and that the safety of the public required the removal of the grade crossing; and affirmed the order. The company appealed to the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, which decided that there was no error in the judgment appealed from (62 Conn. 527, 26 Atl. 122); and thereupon a writ of error was allowed to this court, and errors assigned, as follows: "(1) The said court erred in holding that the statute under which

1 The statement of facts is shortened. This case will appear in 151 U. S. 556.-ED

were had the proceedings as set forth in the order of the railroad commissioners exemplified in the record of the case justified said order, and in affirming the judgment of the Superior Court in and for Hartford County, affirming said order, and in overruling plaintiff's claim that said statute was void as violating the Constitution of the United States, in that it impaired the obligation of the contracts made by said company with the holders of its bonds and preferred stock, by making it impossible for said company to pay the interest on its bonds and dividends on its preferred stock, as agreed between them and said company, and yet maintain and operate its railroad efficiently; and, further, in that it took the property of the company without due process of law, and denied to it the equal protection of the law.

"(2) The said court erred in overruling the claim of the plaintiff in error in the twelfth paragraph of its petition of appeal from the railroad commissioners to the Supreme Court, as set forth in the record, that said statute was void, and was no justification of said order, under the Constitution of the United States and the Fourteenth Amendment thereof."

Chas. E. Perkins, for plaintiff; John J. Jennings and H. C. Robinson, for defendants.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.

...

It must be admitted that the Act of June 19, 1889, is directed to the く extinction of grade crossings, as a menace to public safety, and that it is therefore within the exercise of the police power of the State. And, as before stated, the constitutionality of similar prior statutes, as well as of that in question, tested by the provisions of the State and Federal Constitutions, has been repeatedly sustained by the courts of Connecticut. Woodruff v. Catlin, 54 Conn. 277, 6 Atl. 849; Westbrook's Appeal, 57 Conn. 95, 17 Atl. 368; New York & N. E R. Co.'s Appeal, 58 Conn. 532, 20 Atl. 670; Woodruff v. Railroad Co., 59 Conn. 63, 20 Atl. 17; State's Attorney v. Selectmen of Branford, 59 Conn. 402, 22 Atl. 336; New York & N. E. R. Co. v. City of Waterbury, 60 Conn. 1, 22 Atl. 439; City of Middletown v. New York, etc., R. Co., 62 Conn. 492, 27 Atl. 119.

In Woodruff v. Catlin, the court, speaking through Pardee, J., said, in reference to a similar statute: "The Act, in scope and purpose, concerns protection of life. Neither in intent nor fact does it increase or diminish the assets either of the city or of the railroad corporations. It is the exercise of the governmental power and duty to secure a safe highway. The legislature, having determined that the intersection of two railways with a highway in the city of Hartford at grade is a nuisance dangerous to life, in the absence of action on the part either of the city or of the railroads, may compel them, severally, to become the owners of the right to lay out new highways and new railways over such land, and in such manner as will separate the grade of the railways from that of the highway at intersection; may compel them to use the right for the ac

complishment of the desired end; may determine that the expense shall be paid by either corporation alone, or in part by both; and may enforce obedience to its judgment. That the legislature of this State has the power to do all this, for the specified purpose, and to do it through the instrumentality of a commission, it is now only necessary to state, not to argue."

And as to this Act the court, in 58 Conn. 532, 20 Atl. 670, on this Company's appeal, held that grade crossings were in the nature of nuisances, which it was competent for the legislature to cause to be abated, and that it could, in its discretion, require any party responsible for the creation of the evil, in the discharge of what were in a sense governernmental duties, to pay any part, or all, of the expense of such abatement.

It is likewise thoroughly established in this court that the inhibitions of the Constitution of the United States upon the impairment of the obligation of contracts, or the deprivation of property without due process, or of the equal protection of the laws, by the States, are not violated by the legitimate exercise of legislative power in securing the public safety, health, and morals. The governmental power of selfprotection cannot be contracted away, nor can the exercise of rights granted, nor the use of property, be withdrawn from the implied liability to governmental regulation in particulars essential to the preservation of the community from injury. Beer Co. v. Massachusetts, 97 U. S. 25; Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde Park, 97 U. S. 659; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 5 Sup. Ct. 357; New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S. 650, 6 Sup. Ct. 252; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 8 Sup. Ct. 273; Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 517, 12 Sup. Ct. 468. And also that "a power reserved to the legislature to alter, amend, or repeal a charter authorizes it to make any alteration or amendment of a charter granted subject to it, which will not defeat or substantially impair the object of the grant, or any rights vested under it, and which the legislature may deem necessary to secure either that object or any public right." Close v. Glenwood Cemetery, 107 U. S. 466, 476, 2 Sup. Ct. 267; Waterworks v. Schottler, 110 U. S. 347, 4 Sup. Ct. 48; Pennsylvania College Cases, 13 Wall. 190; Tomlinson v. Jessup, 15 Wall. 454.

The charter of this company was subject to the legislative power over it of amendment, alteration, or repeal, specifically and under general law. 5 Priv. Laws Conn. pp. 543, 547; 7 Sp. Laws Conn. p. 466; 8 Sp. Laws Conn. p. 353; Sp. Laws Conn. 1881, p. 64; Gen. St. 1875, p. 278; Gen. St. 1888, § 1909; New York, etc., R. Co. v. City of Waterbury, 60 Conn. 1, 22 Atl. 439.

The contention seems to be, however, that the legislature, in discharg ing the duty of the State to protect its citizens, has authorized by the enactment in question that to be done which is, in certain particulars, so unreasonable, and so obviously unjustified by the necessity invoked, as to bring the Act within constitutional prohibitions.