Some time must be fixed when the law shall begin to operate, and the time when the road is finished is a natural and proper time. There may be unavoidable and exceptional dangers before the track is finished and while cars are being run over it for construction purposes, and the legislature might think it proper that the servant should take the risk of these even if the negligence of a fellow servant co-operated, just as he takes the risk of the known peculiar dangers when he sets about repairing the effects of an accident. The fact that there may also be dangers like those on the finished road does not prevent the legislature from considering the situation as a whole and keeping the old rule on practical grounds until the exceptional risks come to an end. There is no objection to legislation being confined to a peculiar and well-defined class of perils, and it is not necessary that they should be perils which are shared by the public, if they concern the body of citizens engaged in a particular work. In concluding the opinion of the court, Mr. Justice Holmes said: "The whole case is put on the proviso, and the argument with regard to that is merely one of the many attempts to impart an overmathematical nicety to the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment." Minnesota Iron Co. v. Kline, 199 U. S. 593.

§ 408. Imposing expense on railway company for draining private lands. The equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Federal Constitution is not denied to a railway company by requiring it to stand the entire expense of removing and rebuilding its bridge and culvert, made necessary by the proposed widening and deepening of the channel of a creek by drainage commissioners acting under the authority of the Illinois farm drainage act, to effect the drainage of low lands. The case is this: A public corporation, charged by law with the duty of causing a large body of lands, principally swamp and slough lands, to be drained and made capable of cultivation, has, under direct legislative authority, adopted

a reasonable and suitable plan to accomplish that object. That plan requires the enlarging and deepening of the channel of a natural water course running through the district, which is the only natural outlet or way of drainage of the lands of the district,—the best and only practical mode by which the lands can be made tillable. But that plan cannot be carried out unless the timbers and stones in the creek-placed there by the railway company, when it constructed the foundation for its present bridge -are removed. The timber and stone referred to cannot, however, be removed without destroying the foundations of the present bridge and rendering it necessary to construct another bridge with an opening underneath wide enough to permit a channel sufficient to carry off the waters of the creek as increased in volume under the drainage system adopted by the commissioners. The object of the statute is to drain large bodies of land so as to make them fit for human habitation and cultivation. The regulations adopted by the drainage commissioners have a real, direct, and obvious relation to the public. objects sought to be accomplished by them; and in no sense are they arbitrary or unreasonable. The rights acquired by the railway are subordinate to the rights of the public. The duty of the company was to maintain an opening under the bridge that would be adequate and effectual for such an increase in the volume of water as might result from lawful, reasonable regulations established by appropriate public authority from time to time for the drainage on either side of the creek. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Illinois ex rel. Grimwood, 200 U. S. 561.

§ 409. Classifying railway mail clerks with railway employees. Restricting railway mail clerks and others whose employment in and about a railroad subjects them to greater peril than passengers in the strict sense, to such right of action against the railway company for injuries received in the course of their employment as a railway employee would have under like circumstances,

is a reasonable classification which sustains the provision of the Pennsylvania statute making such classification, as against the objection that such statute denies the equal protection of the laws. The court declared that the proposition that the statute denied the equal protection of the laws because it "capriciously, arbitrarily, and unnaturally," by the classification made, deprived railway mail clerks of the rights of passengers, which they might have enjoyed if the statute had not been enacted, is without merit. The classification made by the statute does not alone embrace railway mail clerks, but places in a class by themselves such clerks and others whose employment in and about a railroad subjects them to greater peril than passengers in the strictest sense. This general difference makes it impossible to say, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, that the legislature of Pennsylvania, in classifying passengers in the strict sense in one class and those who are subject to greater risks, including railway mail clerks, in another, acted so arbitrarily as to violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Martin v. Pittsburg & Lake Erie R. Co., 203 U. S. 284.

§ 410. Excessive penalties for violation of the provisions of a statute. A statute providing for the establishment of rates for railroad transportation without giving the corporation an opportunity to be heard, which fixes penalties for disobedience of its provisions by fines so enormous and imprisonment so severe as to intimidate the corporations and their officers from resorting to the courts to test the validity of the rates, is unconstitutional, as depriving the corporations of the equal protection of the laws. The company is only allowed a hearing upon the claim of the unconstitutionality of the acts and orders in question, at the risk, if mistaken, of being subjected to such enormous penalties, resulting in the possible confiscation of its whole property, that rather than take such risks the company would obey the laws, although such

obedience might also result in the end (though by a slower process) in such confiscation. It would be difficult, if not impossible for the company to obtain officers, agents or employees willing to carry on its affairs except in obedience to the acts and orders in question. The company itself would also, in case of disobedience, be liable to the immense fines provided for in violating orders of the commission. The company, in order to test the validity of the acts, must find some agent or employee to disobey them at the risk stated. The necessary effect and result of such legislation must be to preclude a resort to the courts (either state or Federal) for the purpose of testing its validity. The officers and employees could not be expected to disobey any of the provisions of the acts or orders at the risk of such fines and penalties being imposed upon them, in case the court should decide that the law was valid. The result would be a denial of any hearing to the company. In the case of the establishment of certain rates without any hearing, the validity of such rates necessarily depends upon whether they are high enough to permit some return upon the investment, and an inquiry as to that fact is a proper subject of judicial investigation. If it turns out that the rates are too low for that purpose, then they are illegal. To impose upon a party interested the burden of obtaining a judicial decision of such a question (no prior hearing having ever been given) only upon the condition that, if unsuccessful, he must suffer imprisonment and pay fines, as provided in these acts, is, in effect, to close up all approaches to the courts, and thus prevent any hearing upon the question whether the rates as provided by the acts are not too low, and therefore invalid. Laws imposing enormous fines and possible imprisonment as a result of an unsuccessful effort to test the validity of the laws themselves, are unconstitutional on their face, without regard to the question of the insufficiency of such rates. Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123.

§ 411. Classification of railway employees. The Indiana statute modifying the fellow servant rule as to railway employees, does not offend against the equal protection of the laws clause of the Federal Constitution because construed as applying to all employees doing work essential to enable the carrying on of railway operations, and not as limited to those engaged in or about the movement of trains, but such general classification of railway employees is a proper exercise of the police power. The Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to and does not strip the states of the power to exercise their lawful police authority. The equal protection of the law clause does not restrain the normal exercise of governmental power, but only abuse in the exertion of such authority, therefore that clause is not offended against simply because, as the result of the exercise of the power to classify, some inequality may be occasioned. A wide scope of legislative discretion may be exerted in classifying without conflicting with the constitutional provision. It was competent for the law-making power of a state, without offending against the equal protection clause, to classify railroad employees because of the hazard attached to their vocation, and a statute doing this need not be confined to employees who were engaged in and about the mere movement of trains, but could also validly include other employees doing work essential to be done to enable the carrying on of railroad operations. Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Melton, 218 U. S. 36.

§ 412. Statute creating presumption of negligence. The Mississippi Code abrogating the fellow servant rule as to railway employees does not offend against the equal protection of the laws clause of the Federal Constitution because construed as applying to the foreman of a section crew charged with keeping the track in repair. Neither the equal protection of the laws nor due process of law is denied by the provision of the same law under which, in actions against railway companies for damages done