License Fees . 
161 
gon, requiring salmon to be inspected j 1 the inspection of lumber; 2 
and that of tobacco, in the tobacco growing states; 3 and so on. 
Usually such inspections are confined to the important staple of 
some locality, which it is imagined requires state intervention 
or regulation. 
A great many cities and municipalities have power to pass 
ordinances for inspecting various articles; but, as a rule, these 
are purely for police regulations, and fees are rarely collected 
for the service of the official performing the inspection. The 
most common example is the inspection of milk, which is re¬ 
quired in many of the most progressive municipalities. An¬ 
other example is the inspection of steamboats and steam boilers, 4 
which has become largely a municipal regulation. The larger 
the city, the more numerous do these activities become, and 
the more marked is the tendency for municipalities to take over 
gradually many of the old state functions. 
CHAPTER II. 
LICENSE REGULATIONS AND FEES. 
A. MARRIAGE LICENSES. 
The oldest and most common form of license regulations which 
has existed, and which exists to-day in some form or other in 
every state or territory in the Union, is that of the marriage 
license. This is one of the first, and perhaps the most impor¬ 
tant, of the regulations affecting that fundamental institution of 
human society — the family; and upon the character of this reg¬ 
ulation, depends the success or failure of the only direct interfer- 
1 Regulation prescribed by the county boards. 
2 Oregon, 1880, p. 17, par. 6. 
3 Missouri, 1879, Rev. Stat., par. 5868; Maryland, 1872, Ch. 36, Sec. 21. 
4 Philadelphia, Statutes , Pa., 1864, Sec. 880, p. 8. 
