trade or profession than B, it may. And in matters not of taxation, if A be a different kind of corporation than B, it may subject A to a different rule of responsibility to servants than B. In the case at bar the distinction is between tracts of agricultural lands in a certain relation to cities and lands used for other purposes in such relation. The distinction is justified by the principle of the cases decided. That principle leaves to the state the adaptation of its laws to its conditions. Within the latitude which local government must be allowed the distinction here made is not arbitrary, and infringes no provision of the Constitution of the United States. Clark v. Kansas City, 176 U. S. 114.

§ 459. Registration law discriminating between citizens. A registration law applicable to cities having more than 300,000 inhabitants being held valid by the highest court of the state of Missouri, under the state constitution, does not deny to citizens residing in the only city of the state which has a population of 300,000 the equal protection of the laws, although it may be thought to be less effectual in protecting the right of voting than the statute applicable to other cities. The law in question was applicable only to the city of St. Louis, and the contention that it denied to the citizens of that city the equal protection of the laws must in the last analysis rest upon the assumption that under the constitution of Missouri but one registration law can be enacted applicable to cities having a population in excess of 100,000 inhabitants, whatever the maximum number of inhabitants may be, and, that as a natural consequence the citizens of St. Louis cannot be classified separately. The answer is that the law in question has been declared to be valid under the constitution of the state. The general right to vote in the state of Missouri is primarily derived from the state, and the elective franchise, if one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of the citizens of St. Louis, as citizens of Missouri and of the United States,

is clearly such franchise "as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the state in which it is to be exercised." The power to classify cities with reference to their population having been exercised in conformity with the constitution of the state, the circumstance that the registration law in force in the city of St. Louis was made to differ in essential particulars from that which regulates the conduct of elections in other cities in the state of Missouri does not in itself deny to the citizens of St. Louis the equal protection of the laws. Nor did the exercise by the general assembly of Missouri of the discretion vested in it by law give rise to a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Mason v. Missouri ex rel. McCaffery, 179 U. S. 328.

§ 460. Classification of elevators and warehouses. The classification of elevators and warehouses on a railroad right of way or depot ground and other lands used in connection with the railway at stations and sidings other than at terminal points, as required by the Minnesota laws requiring a license for such elevators and warehouses, does not deny to the proprietors the equal protection of the laws because a license is not required for elevators and warehouses differently situated. As the statute applies to all of the class defined in the 1st section, it is not invalid by reason of its nonapplication to those who own or operate elevators not situated on the right of way of a railroad. The right of way of a railroad is so closely connected with the operation of the railroad company that its use may be so regulated by the state as to promote the ends for which the corporation was created, and thus subserve the interests of the general public without interfering unreasonably with the company's management of its property. If in the judgment of the state it was necessary for the public interests, or beneficial to the public, that elevators and warehouses of the kinds described should be operated only under a license and under such

regulations as may be rightfully prescribed, it would be going very far to hold that such a classification was so unreasonable as to justify the court in adjudging that the requirement of a license was void as denying the equal protection of the laws. No such judgment could be properly rendered unless the classification was merely arbitrary or was devoid of those elements that are inherent in the distinction implied in classification. It does not appear that the requirement of a license was not based upon some reasonable ground,-some difference that bears a proper relation to the classification made by the statute. The statute is not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. W. W. Cargill Co. v. Minnesota ex rel. Railroad & W. Com., 180. U. S. 452.

§ 461. Classification of merchants. An ordinance imposing a license tax upon the merchants of a city, by which they are divided into classes according to the amount of their sales, each class including all whose sales range between a certain minimum and maximum amount, does not violate the equality clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, although the result is to make persons in different classes pay different rates, and to make persons in the same class pay at a different ratio if the amounts of their sales differ. Classification by amount came up for consideration in Magoun v. Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, 170 U. S. 283, and was sustained. That case involved the power of a state to tax inheritances, and to grade the taxes by the amount of the legacy. The law of Illinois was charged with inequality of operation because of the classes it created. It was asserted, as in the case at bar, that the classes were formed upon arbitrary differences, and the provisions which fixed the tax upon legacies to strangers to the blood of the intestate were vigorously assailed. Manifestly, there was inequality between the members of different classes, and that was conceded in the opinion, but as manifestly there was equality between the members of each class, and that

equality was held to satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States; and the reasoning by which that conclusion was supported is applicable to the case at bar. Plaintiff in error contended that the tax in the case at bar was a tax on property, not on the privilege to do business, because the final incidence of the tax is on the merchant, and is paid by him. But every tax has its final incidence on some individual. That effect, therefore, cannot be urged to destroy well-recognized distinctions. The tax is a tax on the privilege of doing business, regulated by the amount of the sales, and is not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. Clark v. Titusville, 184 U. S. 329.

§ 462. Discrimination against nonproducing vendors of milk. Nonproducing vendors of milk are not denied the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment because they are not given the privilege accorded to producing vendors of exempting themselves from actions or penalties for violations of the provisions of the New York agricultural law to prevent the sale of adulterated milk by showing that the milk sold or offered for sale by them is in the same condition as when it left the herd of the producer. It has been decided many times that a state may classify persons and objects for the purposes of legislation. The purpose of the law is to secure to the population, adult and infant, milk attaining a certain standard of purity and strength. All other milk is declared to be "unclean, impure, unhealthy, adulterated, or unwholesome." Not only the final purpose of the law must be considered, but the means of its administration, the ways it may be defeated. . Legislation to be practical and efficient, must regard this special purpose as well as the ultimate purpose. ultimate purpose is that wholesome milk shall reach the consumer, and it is the conception of the law that milk below a certain strength is not wholesome, but a difference is made between milk naturally deficient and milk

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made so by dilution. To prevent tampering between the producer and consumer the law is framed and its penalties adjusted. As the standard established can be proved in the hands of a producing vendor, he is exempt from the penalty; as it cannot certainly be proved in the hands of other vendors so as to prevent evasions of the law, such vendors are not exempt. In the one case the source of the milk can be known and the tests of the statute applied; in the other case this would be impossible, except in few instances. It does not appear that any particular hardship results. St. John v. New York, 201 U. S. 633.

§ 463. Requiring labels on mixed paints to show ingredients. The equal protection of the laws is not denied to manufacturers and sellers of mixed paints containing other ingredients than pure linseed oil, pure carbonate of lead, oxid of zinc, turpentine, Japan dryer, and pure colors, by a state statute which makes the manufacture and sale of such paints a misdemeanor unless the label shows the constituent ingredients and the quantity, and amount of each, because the manufacture and sale of mixed paints containing only the ingredients specified in the statute, and, possibly, of all paste paints, are free from such consequence of condition. The statute was passed to prevent the adulteration of articles or to provide for the publication of their ingredients. That both purposes are within the competency of the state can hardly be denied. The Supreme Court has declared many times, and illustrated the declaration, that classification must have relation to the purpose of the legislature. But logical appropriateness of the inclusion or exclusion of objects or persons is not required. A classification may not be merely arbitrary, but necessarily there must be great freedom of discretion, even though it result in "illadvised, unequal, and oppressive legislation." Mobile Co. v. Kimball, 102 U. S. 691. And this necessarily on account of the complex problems which are presented to