PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOLL WEEVIL CONVENTION. 31 



and is left with them, under the federal constitution, and may always be 

 exerted by the State legislatures directly, or in the absence of any consti- 

 tutional restriction upon the subject, be delegated to the various munici- 

 palities throughout the State, to be exercised within the corporate limits. 

 The legislature may also authorize a particular board of officers who have 

 charge of a portion of the affairs of the State, or a city, such as the 

 State Board of Health, of police, or other body, to make reasonable police 

 rules and regulations on the subjects committed to their care and super- 

 vision. 



So the State Legislature has provided a State Board of Health with full 

 and plenary power to make all rules and regulations to prevent the intro- 

 duction and spread of infectious and contagious diseases, and 

 in the exercise of this power, quarantine regulations may be 

 enacted, when deemed necessary, and persons and property forbid 

 a landing in this State when, in the opinion of the authori- 

 ties, the same would be detrimental to the health, comfort 

 and safety of our people. Under authority of such legislation, the State 

 may exclude from its limits, convicts, paupers, idiots and lunatics, and 

 persons likely to become a public charge, as well as persons afflicted with 

 contagious diseases a right founded in the sacred law of self-defence. 

 The same principle will justify the exclusion of property from the State 

 dangerous to the property of citizens of this State; for example, animals 

 having contagious or infectious diseases, or property affected with a con- 

 tagious disease, the transportation of which into our State is liable to 

 cause a spread of the contagion to the property of our citizens. 



So the Courts have sustained the legislation of various States prohibit- 

 ing the transportation of cattle into a State affected with what is commonly 

 known as Texas or Spanish fever, and have uniformly held that although 

 a State has no power to prohibit the transportation of infected property 

 through it by common carriers, it has the right to restrict the manner 

 and mode of such transportation to railroads and steamboats, if necessary 

 to prevent the spread of contagion and disease. So the State, as a police 

 regulation, clearly has the right to prescribe the kind of cars in which such 

 property is to be transported, and such precautionary measures as may be 

 reasonably necessary to prevent the contagious or infectious disease from 

 being communicated to property within the State. All exertions of power 

 along these lines by the State authorities are in the immediate connection 

 with the protection of persons and property against noxious acts of other 

 persons, or such a use of property as is injurious to the property of others. 

 The exercise of such power is self-defensive. 



The passage of any law by the State for the protection of the property 

 of its citizens is but the legitimate exercise of its police power, and upon 

 that ground any legislation that has for its object the prevention of the 

 introduction into our State, or spread of any insect or disease deterimental 



