1900.] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 4138 
city authorities in guarding against pestilence, was sustained as 
within the power granted by the legislature and as being competent 
for the legislature to grant. And in the same year, in ‘Meeker vs. 
Van Rensselaer, it was held that where the character of a build- 
ing as being a nuisance clearly appeared, and it was plain that no 
remedy short of its demolition would renovate, no action would lie 
against a citizen for destroying it, much less against an alderman, 
and that no special authority for its destruction need be proved. 
Whenever the legislative power was extended to new objects, 
where it had not in its favor the aid of long prescriptive use, more 
difficulty was experienced. So in ?People vs. Jenkins, in 1841, a 
statute forbidding the running of steamers on the Hudson river at 
a greater rate of speed than fourteen miles an hour was strenuously 
assailed, but the manifest public need proved a sufficient vindica- 
tion of public authority in this matter. 
In Louisiana, however, as early as 1832, an ‘ordinance of the city 
of New Orleans providing for the summary sale of articles left on 
the levee without notice to the owner was held unreasonable as not 
being necessary for the maintenance of good order on the levee, and 
so an unwarrantable invasion of property rights and forbidden by 
the constitution. In New York, on the other hand, in the same 
year of 1832, the right of the city authorities of Albany* to destroy 
summarily a floating ‘‘ark’’ built opposite to certain piers in 
‘‘ The Basin” at that city which might inconvenience canal traffic 
was upheld almost wholly on grounds of necessity and English pre- 
cedents. Constitutional arguments are merely touched upon by 
either court or counsel, and the case is a striking example of the 
force of common law precedent as against constitutional doctrine. 
Indeed, the noticeable thing in all these earlier cases and the vast 
number of others from various parts of the country that might be 
cited is the comparatively slight hold that constitutional doctrines 
limiting the powers of legislatures have in this line of cases. It is 
true that they are, for the most part, merely additional examples of 
powers long habitually exercised ; and the attitude taken toward 
the constitutional provisions is generally that when they were 
adopted these uses of power were common and are to be presumed 
to have been known, and if they are not interfered with in express 
1 Wend., 397. 3 Laufear vs. Mayor, 4 La., 97. 
27 Hill, 469. 4 Hart vs. Albany, 9 Wend., 571. 
