502 HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. [June 19, 
Louisiana T. R. & S. Company vs. Board of Health, the plaintiff 
steamship company obtained an injunction against defendant’s col- 
lecting from its ships the fee allowed by a Louisiana law for each 
vessel examined and passing the quarantine station. The Supreme 
Court of the state dissolved the injunction. On error, that of the 
United States affirmed such action. The steamship company 
claimed that since the law graded the inspection fee by the size of 
vessels, it was a tonnage duty and forbidden in the federal consti- 
tution. 
Judge Miller for the court says, ‘‘ Ifthere is a city in the United 
States that needs quarantining, it is New Orleans.’’ He declines to 
say that the city must bear all the expense of inspection, and sees 
no objection to proportioning fees to the size of the vessel. He 
admits that the law might be said to be in some sense a regulation 
of commerce, because it certainly affected commerce, and as such 
doubtless came within the scope of federal authority, but it was 
also an exercise of police power, and good till Congress should 
abrogate it. : 
At the session of 1886-7, the right of gas and water companies 
to enjoy their franchise against any exercise of police power, even 
by the people in adopting a new constitution, was decided again in 
*St. Tammany Water Works Company vs. New Orleans Water 
Works Company. Over so much of the police power the triumph 
of the constitutional principle as to the impairment of contracts may 
be considered settled. 
In ?City of New Orleans vs. Houston the same constitutional pro- 
vision prevailed again. ‘The legislature of Louisiana had in 1868 
chartered a lottery company for twenty-five years, and in the 
charter provided that it should pay the state $40,000 a year and not 
be subject to any other taxes. In 1879 a new constitution had 
been adopted establishing uniformity of taxation. In 1880 it was 
enacted that the city should have power to levy taxes which it was 
claimed covered the lottery company also. 
The company procured the taxes enjoined as impairing the obli- 
gation of the state’s contract. The Circuit Court sustained the in- 
junction and the city authorities appealed to Washington. ‘The 
Supreme Court upheld the injunction and the contract. It was with 
a lottery company, but related to taxation and not to the continu- 
ance of the business, and it was within the power of the state to sell 
1120 UV. S., 64. BT IO Si 205s 
