1900. ] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 4.1 
to in the argument. In Commonwealth vs. Alger he now holds 
that besides the obligation to refrain from injuring others there 
is an obligation to obey authority gwva authority, even if it 
affects injuriously the use and control of property by the owner. 
His declaration that all property is held subject to such reasonable 
regulations as the legislature, in providing for the general welfare, 
may enact is given above. 
Later on, in the same opinion, instancing a powder magazine or 
a slaughter-house, he asks who will fix the degree of proximity that 
shall make it a nuisance: 
“Every one might agree that two hundred feet would be too near, 
and two thousand feet would not be, and within this margin who shall 
say, who can know, what distance shall be too near or otherwise? An 
authoritated rule, carrying with it the character of certainty and precision, 
is needed. The tradesman needs to know before incurring expense how 
near he may build his works without violating the law or committing a 
nuisance. Builders of houses need to know to what distance they must 
keep from the obnoxious works already erected in order to be sure of 
the protection of the law for their habitation. This requisite certainty 
and precision can be obtained only by a positive enactment fixing the 
distance within which the use shall be prohibited as obnoxious and be- 
yond which it will be allowed, and enforcing the rule thus fixed by 
penalties.” 
The chief justice continues his argument as to the frequent 
necessity of a fixed boundary, and finally applies it to the 
harbor, in which he finds that evidently there must be a place 
where further extension of wharves cannot be tolerated by the pub- 
lic interest. That being so, some one must fix a line, and the 
proper method is for the legislature to make a law on the subject : 
“It is for them, under a high sense of duty to the public and indi- 
viduals, with a sacred regard to the right of property and to all other 
private rights, to make such reasonable regulations as they may judge 
necessary to protect public and private rights, and to impose no larger 
restraints upon the use and enjoyment of private property than are 
in their judgment strictly necessary to protect and preserve the rights 
of others.” 
Evidently he includes among such rights of others a provision for 
the public welfare by compelling the observance of regulations assuch. 
The chief justice finds involved in this case a common-law right 
to free and safe navigation which, he says, all the shore-line proprie- 
