1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 411 
valid police regulation, or the still earlier and more noticeable ‘Re- 
publica vs. Duquet in Pennsylvania in 1799, upholding the right of 
the city of Philadelphia to forbid wooden buildings in. certain dis- 
tricts under a charter authorizing it to regulate its own police—all 
to be determined upon mere English precedent. It had been wont 
to be so, therefore it should continue to be so was the ruling. Of 
course there was some discussion of public policy and of the rela- 
tion of the laws in question to the constitutions. 
The same thing is true of the discussion of the Massachusetts 
license provisions, as in ?Nightingale’s case in 1831, holding a con- 
viction good against him for selling without license, such as was re- 
quired by the Boston civil authorities, produce not grown by him- 
self. It is also true of the numerous cases in that state and else- 
where following this one, just as it was true of * Van Dine’s case in 
1828 in the same state, where a law prohibiting unlicensed persons 
carrying offal through the streets was held valid upon English pre- 
cedents. So far as Massachusetts is concerned, it seems clear that 
the results in these cases are simply a victory of solid English pre- 
cedents over the theories embodied in her constitution. 
Her commanding position among the Northern states assured a 
general prevalence of such practical results among them. 
In New York the same influence prevails. In 1827 the case of 
‘Vanderbilt vs. Adams held that lawful possession of a wharf was 
no defense to an action for a penalty incurred by refusing to comply 
with an order of a harbor-master, made in pursuance of his author- 
ity from the city, that room be made at the wharf for an incoming 
steamer. ‘The ownership of the wharf was not allowed to interfere 
with that control of the harbor which was necessary in order to 
maintain the standing of the port, and the combined weight of pre- 
cedent, usage and public interest were held to outweigh the theoreti- 
cal rights of property supposed by many to be declared in the state 
constitution. 
In *Stuyvesant vs. Mayor in the same year the plea of ownership 
and of a hundred years’ usage of Trinity Churchyard as a burial- 
place was not sufficient to avoid a conviction for interring a body 
there contrary toan ordinance of the city. Eloquence and learning 
appealed in vain to the new constitutional doctrines to aid vested 
12 Yates, 493. SIGE Pecee Lon: 
2 11 Pick., 168, 47 Cow., 349. 
5 Td., 588. 
