78 Ninth Annual Report of the 



servatives, but to prohibit the use and sale of preservatives of 

 every character and description. 



Second.— That even if the Legislature, under the guise of a 

 health law, attempts to interfere with personal liberty and 

 the exercise of a lawful calling, the act b} T which it attempts 

 to do so cannot be sustained as constitutional unless it is ap- 

 parent on the face thereof that it has relation to the public 

 health, and that the provisions of the act are appropriate and 

 adapted to that end. Even if it were claimed in the case at 

 bar that the act under consideration was intended as a health 

 measure, it is very clear that its provisions are not appropriate 

 and adapted to that end, and that the act under question does 

 not actually aim at benefiting the public health. The prohibi- 

 tion of the sale of beneficial preservatives which have been in 

 use for many vears in this State, cannot in anv wav benefit the- 

 public health. On the contrary, such prohibition is apt to be a 

 detriment to the public. 



Aside from the common knowledge that most, if not all, pre- 

 servatives are harmless (the statute itself enumerates sugar and 

 salt), the term " preservative," itself, signifies something having 

 a preserving quality and beneficial effect; preservation is the 

 antithesis of decay. 



The Centur}' Dictionary defines " preservative " as follows : 



"That which preserves; anything which tends to keep safe 

 and sound, or free from injury, corruption or decay; a preventive 

 of damage, decomposition or waste." 



The Standard Dictionary gives this definition: 



"That which keeps safe or tends to preserve; that which has 

 power to keep safe or sound; a safeguard." 



Bouvier's Law Dictionary (1897 edition) defines " preserva- 

 tion" as follows (vol. 2, p. 733): 



" Keeping safe from harm; avoiding injury. This term always 

 presupposes a real or existing danger." 



In the best literature the term ''preservative" has always 

 been given the same meaning. 



In the " House of the Seven Gables," IX, Hawthorne says: 



