74 COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



none the less efficiently called into play, because by doing so interstate 

 commerce may be remotely and indirectly affected. Kidd v. Pearson, 

 128 U. S. 1; Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. S. 485; Sherlock v. Ailing, 93 

 U. S. 99, 103; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1. Indeed, the source of 

 the police power as to game birds (like those covered by the statute 

 here called in question) flows from the duty of the State to preserve 

 for its people a valuable food supply. Phelps v. Racey, 60 N. Y. 10; 

 Ex parte Maier, ubi sup.; Magner v. The People, ubi sup., and cases 

 there cited. The exercise by the State of such power therefore comes 

 directly within the principle of Plumley v. Massachusetts, 155 U. S. 

 461, 473. The power of a State to protect by adequate police regu- 

 lations its people against the adulteration of articles of food (which 

 was in that case maintained), although in doing so commerce might 

 be remotely affected, necessarily carries with it the existence of a like 

 power to preserve a food supply which belongs in common to all the 

 people of the State, which can only become the subject of ownership 

 in a qualified way, and which can never be the object of commerce 

 except with the consent of the State and subject to the conditions 

 which it may deem best to impose for the public good." 



The entire subject is therefore one clearly within the police power 

 of the State and the power of the General Assembly in the premises 

 is not abridged by the provisions of Article 1, section 17 of the Con- 

 stitution. As we said in the case of Payne & Butler v. Providence Gas 

 Co., 31 R. I. 295-326: "No greater privileges were reserved to the 

 people than they already had and no powers or rights of the General 

 Assembly were thereby abridged. Therefore, the whole subject of 

 fisheries, floating and shell-fish, and all kinds of shell-fish, whether 

 oysters, clams, quahaugs, mussels, scallops, lobsters, crabs or fiddlers, 

 or however they may be known and designated and wherever situate 

 within the public domain of the State of Rhode Island, are under the 

 fostering care of the General Assembly. It is for the legislature to 

 make such laws and regulations, governing the subject of lobster- 

 culture, oyster-culture, clam-culture, or any other kind of pisciculture, 

 as they may deem expedient. They may regulate the public or private 



