500 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
could be recovered for all stock injured on the right of way by 
passing trains. ‘This was claimed by the company to be a denial of 
the equal protection of the laws and to deprive it of property with- 
out due process. 
The court by Judge Field promptly held that there was no founda- 
tion for such a claim ; that the act was a valid police requirement, 
and that having killed the mule the company must pay for two like 
him. In this decision the Supreme Court of the United States, 
while following the prevailing ruling of the state courts, is not by 
any means supported by all of them. 
In ‘New Orleans Gas Light Company vs. Louisiana Light Com- 
pany, the Louisville Gas Company vs. Citizens’ Gas Light Com- 
pany and New Orleans Water Works Company vs. Rivers, the old 
struggle between the police power and the doctrines of the Dart- 
mouth College case came back once more, and it is noticeable that 
decisions of the lower courts were reversed in all three cases. The 
Dartmouth College case still had more of vitality in it than the 
lower courts had believed. The latter had relied too strongly on 
the declarations in Beer Company vs. Massachusetts, Fertilizing 
Company vs. Hyde Park, Stone vs. Mississippi and Butchers’ Union 
Company vs. The Crescent City Live Stock Landing Company, 
and had too hastily concluded that there was nothing left of the 
doctrine of the Dartmouth College case. 
The New Orleans Gas Light Company, because of holding a 
charter from the state giving it an exclusive franchise for a number 
of years, was held to be entitled to enjoin another company, 
authorized thereto by the legislature, from laying gas mains and 
pipes and furnishing gas in the city. A similar right was allowed 
to the Louisville Gas Company in Louisville, and in New Orleans 
Water Works Company vs. Rivers, the lessee of the St. Charles 
Hotel, seven blocks from the Mississippi river, was prevented from 
supplying his house with water by pipes laid to that stream because 
the water works company had an exclusive franchise for fifty years 
to do that. The Supreme Court of the United States granted the 
water works company its injunction in an opinion by Judge Harlan, 
closing with: 
“Under its averment, plaintiff was entitled to a decree perpetually re- 
straining the defendant from laying pipes or mains in the public ways of 
1715 U. S., 650 (1885). 
