are within the power of classification which the legislature possesses. Chicago Dock & Canal Co. v. Fraley, 228 U. S. 680.

§ 529. Regulating entries in coal mines. The Indiana statute singling out bituminous coal mines and omitting block coal mines when requiring entries to be made of not less than a prescribed width does not deny the equal protection of the laws. The equal protection of the laws requires laws of like application to all similarly situated; but in selecting some classes and leaving out others the legislature, while it keeps within this principle, is, and may be, allowed wide discretion. It is the province of the legislature to make the laws, and of the courts to enforce them. The legislature is permitted to make a reasonable classification, and before a court can interfere with the exercise of its judgment, it must be able to say "that there is no fair reason for the law that would not require with equal force its extension to others whom it leaves untouched." There is a great difference in the production and number of mines between what are called the block veins of coal and the bituminous veins of coal existing in the state, and also the different depths at which coal is mined in the strata of block and bituminous coal. Reviewing all these differences, with the relative output, relative number of mines and persons employed, the courts were unable to say that the application of the law to bituminous coal mines and the omission of block coal mines was such arbitrary discrimination as to render the act unconstitutional. The supreme court of the state said, "to doubt its constitutionality is to resolve in favor of its constitutionality." Barrett v. Indiana, 229 U. S. 26.

§ 530. Municipal water supply. A charter amendment dealing with the municipal construction, acquisition, maintenance, and operation of a water plant, with special reference to the acquisition of the existing privately owned waterworks system, does not deny the equal

protection of the laws to the waterworks company whose franchise has expired, because it leaves all other public utilities to be dealt with under general charter provisions and cuts off all opportunity to obtain future franchises to occupy and use the city streets for the purpose of supplying water to the city and its inhabitants, while leaving full opportunity to obtain such franchises for other purposes, such as supplying light, heat, power, transportation, or telephone service. The equal protection clause is directed against arbitrary discrimination; that is, such as is without any reasonable basis. It does not prevent a city from applying the scheme of municipal ownership and maintenance to one public utility without applying it to all; nor does it prevent a city, owning and maintaining a municipal water plant, from refusing to grant franchises which will bring privately owned plants into competition with its own. There is nothing unequal in this in the sense of that clause. Denver v. New York Trust Co., 229 U. S. 123.

§ 531. Employment of minors in hazardous occupations. The Illinois statute prohibiting the employment of children under the age of sixteen years in hazardous occupations, does not contravene the guaranty in the Fourteenth Amendment of the equal protection of the laws. The classification established by the statute was clearly within the legislative power. Sturges & Burn Mfg. Co. v. Beauchamp, 231 U. S. 320.

§ 532. Prohibiting possession of firearms by alien. The legislative assumption that unnaturalized foreign-born residents are peculiarly a source of danger to wild life cannot be said to be so unwarranted as to invalidate, as denying the equal protection of the laws, the provisions of Pennsylvania Laws 1909, No. 261, p. 466, prohibiting the killing of any wild bird or animal by any such foreignborn person except in defense of person or property, and "to that end" making it unlawful for any such person to

own or be possessed of a shotgun or rifle. If the lawful object of the statute, the protection of wild life, warrants the discrimination against the alien, the means adopted for making it effective also might be adopted. The possession of rifles and shotguns is not necessary for other purposes not within the statute. It is so peculiarly appropriated to the forbidden use that if such a use may be denied to this class, the possession of the instruments desired chiefly for that end also may be. The prohibition does not extend to weapons such as pistols that may be supposed to be needed occasionally for self-defense. The discrimination undoubtedly presents a more difficult question. A state may classify with reference to the evil to be prevented, and if the class discriminated against is or reasonably might be considered to define those from whom the evil mainly is to be feared, it properly may be picked out. A lack of abstract symmetry does not matter. The question is a practical one, dependent upon experience. It is not enough to invalidate the law that others may do the same thing and go unpunished, if, as a matter of fact, it is found that the danger is characteristic of the class named. That is a question of local experience, and a reviewing court should be very slow to declare that the state legislature was wrong in its facts. The Supreme Court declared it had no such knowledge of local conditions as to be able to say that it was manifestly wrong. Patsone v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 134.

§ 533. Prohibiting sales by itinerant vendors. The Louisiana statute prohibiting the sale by itinerant vendors of "any drug, nostrum, ointment, or application of any kind intended for the treatment of disease or injury," does not violate the equal protection or due process of law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, although the. sale of such articles by other persons is permitted. That the state had authority to pass such statute is made manifest by the previous ruling in Emert v. Missouri, 156 U. S. 296, and the authorities there cited. The power which the

state government possessed to classify and regulate itinerant vendors or peddlers, exerted in the statute here considered, is cumulatively sustained and made, if possible, more obviously lawful by the fact that the regulation in question deals with the selling by itinerant vendors or peddlers of drugs or medicinal compounds,-objects plainly within the power of government to regulate. Baccus v. Louisiana, 232 U. S. 334.

§ 534. Prescription. The equal protection of the laws is not denied by confining to Spanish and Mexican grants the provisions of New Mexico Comp. Laws, 1865, chap. 73, § 1 Comp. Laws, 1897, § 2937, under which ten years' possession of land under a deed purporting to convey a fee simple gives title in fee to the quantity of land specified in the deed if, during the ten years, no claim by suit in law or equity, effectually prosecuted, shall have been set up. There very well may have been grounds for the discrimination in favor of Spanish and Mexican grants in the history of those grants and the greater probability of an attempt to revive stale claims, as is explained by the supreme court of New Mexico. Montoya v. Gonzales, 232 U. S. 375.

§ 535. Regulation of livery stables. A municipal ordinance passed under authority delegated by the legislature is a state law within the meaning of the Federal Constitution; and any enactment, from whatever source originating, to which the state gives the force of law, is a statute of the state within the meaning of the Judicial Code, § 237, which confers jurisdiction upon the Supreme Court. It is clearly within the police power of the state to regulate livery stables, and to that end to declare that in particular circumstances and in particular localities a livery stable shall be deemed a nuisance in fact and in law, provided this power is not exerted arbitrarily, or with unjust discrimination, so as to infringe upon rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The general

subject of the regulation of livery stables, with respect to their location and the manner in which they are to be conducted in a thickly populated city, is well within the range of the power of the state to legislate for the health and general welfare of the people. While such regulations are subject to judicial scrutiny, yet a considerable latitude of discretion must be accorded to the lawmaking power; and so long as the regulation in question is not shown to be clearly unreasonable and arbitrary, and operates uniformly upon all persons similarly situated in the particular district, the district itself not appearing to have been arbitrarily selected, it cannot be judicially declared that there is a deprivation of property without due process of law, or a denial of the equal protection of the laws, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171.

§ 536. Workmen's compensation law. Employers having five or more employees are not denied the equal protection of the laws because their failure to comply with the terms of the Ohio workmen's compensation act (1 Page & Adams Anno. Gen. Code (Ohio) §§ 1464 et seq.) by paying into a state insurance fund, thereby created, the premiums required by that act, deprives them in negligence suits of the defenses of contributory negligence, assumed risk, and the negligence of fellow servants, while those employing four or less employees are still privileged to make either or all of these defenses. The main argument against the law was based on the alleged discrimination between establishments employing five and those employing a less number of employees. The Supreme Court has many times affirmed the general proposition that it is not the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment in the equal protection clause to take from the state the right and power to classify the subjects of legislation. It is only when such attempted classification is arbitrary and unreasonable that the court can declare it beyond the legislative authority. Lindsley v. Natural