64 Ninth Annual Report of the 



gerous to the public health. Must the Legislature wait for the experi- 

 ment and until some number of people are made sick or die of it? In 

 so serious a matter as the absolute purity of food, we ought not to 

 sag that a general law which simply compels that absolute purity is 

 beyond the power of the Legislature. This is by no means the first 

 Plane that the Legislature has acted by a general law in seeking to 

 protect the public health and safety. Every general law may work 

 harshly in a few particular instances. Adding a foreign or artificial 

 ingredient to a food product, even for purposes of color merely, is in 

 effect an adulteration, and whether it be so described or forbidden by 

 more specific terms is not material. 



The Legislature may and does legislate to prevent foreign 

 substances being put into the feed of cows and into the milk 

 drawn from the cows; to prevent animal fats, vegetable oils 

 and coloring matter to be put into butter, cheese and milk. 

 What distinction will the defendant urge in favor of his pre- 

 servaline that makes it beyond the power of the Legislature 

 to prevent his foreign substances being put into all dairy prod- 

 ucts. Is it because he selects as a name for his foreign sub- 

 stance a word which ordinarilv means harmlessness and 

 preservation. 



" In so serious a matter as the absolute purity of food we 



ought not to say that a general law which simply compels that 



absolute purity is beyond the power of the Legislature.'' — People 



v. Girard (supra). 



POINT IV. 



Cases Involving Police Power Distinguished and AprLiED to 



the Statute in This Case. 



1. Illustrations of legislation beyond police power: 

 In re Jacobs, 98 N. Y., 98. The law prohibiting the making 

 of cigars in certain houses was unconstitutional because the 

 law on its face showed that it was not intended to promote the 

 public health, and would have no such result. It was class 

 legislation to favor some in a given business over their com- 

 petitors. The subject in this case is entirely and solely of food. 

 It prefers no one food above another. It does not prohibit one 



