This court has said that "the possession and enjoyment of all rights are subject to such reasonable conditions as may be deemed by the governing authority of the country essential to the safety, health, peace, good order and morals of the community. Even liberty itself, the greatest of all rights, is not an unrestricted license to act according to one's own will." Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86, 89. In Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 669, it appeared that certain distillery property in Kansas was purchased, at a time when it was lawful in that State to manufacture and sell spirituous liquors, but which property, by reason of the subsequent prohibition of such manufacture and sale, had become of no value, or had materially diminished in value. The owner insisted that by the necessary operation of the prohibitory statute, his property was in whole or in part taken for public use without compensation. But this court said: "The power which the States have of prohibiting such use by individuals of their property as will be prejudicial to the health, the morals, or the safety of the public, is not-and, consistently with the existence and safety of organized society, cannot be-burdened with the condition that the State must compensate such individual owners for pecuniary losses they may sustain, by reason of their not being permitted, by a noxious use of their property, to inflict injury upon the community. The exercise of the police power by the destruction of property which is itself a public nuisance, or the prohibition of its use in a particular way, whereby its value becomes depreciated, is very different from taking property for public use, or from depriving a person of his property without due process of law. In the one case, a nuisance only is abated; in the other, unoffending property is taken away from an innocent owner." In Sedgwick's Treatise on Statutory and Constitutional Law the author says that "the clause prohibiting the taking of private property without compensation is not intended as a limitation of those police powers which are necessary to the tranquillity of any well-ordered community, nor of that general

power over private property which is necessary for the orderly exercise of all governments. It has always been held that the legislature may make police regulations, although they may interfere with the full enjoyment of private property, and though no compensation is made." pp. 434, 435.

Without further discussion, we hold, for the reasons stated, that the Circuit Court and Circuit Court of Appeals properly refused to adjudge that these ordinances were invalid.

Other questions have been discussed by counsel, but they do not require special notice at our hands. We are content with the disposition made of them in the courts below. The decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER and MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM dissented.

GARDNER v. MICHIGAN.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN.

No. 62. Submitted November 9, 1905.-Decided November 27, 1905.

Reduction Co., v. Sanitary Works, ante, p. 306, followed as to the power of municipal authorities to make suitable regulations for the disposition of garbage, and that such regulations do not amount to a taking of private property for public use without compensation within the meaning of the Federal Constitution.

Property rights of individuals must be subordinated to the general good and if the owner of garbage suffers any loss by its destruction he is compensated therefor in the common benefit secured by the regulation requiring all garbage to be destroyed.

Courts may take judicial notice of the effect of garbage on the public health. The fact that a law relating to jury trials applicable to a particular county in a State is different from the general law on that subject applicable to all other counties is not necessarily a discrimination against the people

of the county affected and a denial of the equal protection of the law, and so held, in this case, it appearing that every person within the county affected was accorded equal protection of the law prevailing there.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Fred A. Baker for plaintiff in error.

Mr. T. E. Tarsney and Mr. John B. Corliss for defendant in error.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court.

This appeal raises for consideration the question whether a certain ordinance of the city of Detroit, relating to the collection and disposition of garbage within that city, is repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

By the ordinance in question it was made the duty of the occupant or occupants of every dwelling house or other building in the city of Detroit to provide a suitable and watertight box, or other vessel of a convenient size, to be handled by the garbage collector, in which such occupant or occupants should cause to be placed or deposited "all offal, garbage and refuse animal and vegetable matter of the premises." Such occupants were required to keep the box or other vessel in the alley in rear of their premises, or at a place on the premises most accessible to the person collecting the garbage and offal; and it was made unlawful to put anything but refuse animal and vegetable matter in the vessel used for garbage and offal. If the vessel was placed in the alley it must be provided with a tight cover, properly hinged, and located next to the lot line, from which it should not project more than two feet into the alley. Section 1.

The remaining sections of the ordinance are in these words: "§ 2. The word 'garbage' shall be held to include every refuse accumulation of animal, fruit or vegetable matter that

attends the preparation, use, cooking, dealing in or storing of meat, fish, fowl, food, fruit or vegetables, including dead animals and condemned foods found within the city limits. All garbage shall be collected in watertight closed metal boxes, and such boxes shall be purified as often as the health officer may direct, and shall have painted thereon the word 'Garbage.' "§3. It is hereby made the duty of the contractor with the city of Detroit for the collection and removal of garbage and dead animals to collect and remove, in accordance with the ordinances and contract of the city, all garbage, dead animals, fish and refuse animal and vegetable matter found within the city limits. No other person or party except the city contractor or its agents shall carry, convey or transport through the streets, alleys or public places of the city of Detroit such materials, and it shall be unlawful for any person to interfere in any manner with the collection and disposal of such materials by the city contractor.

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"§ 4. It shall be unlawful for any person to deposit, throw or place any garbage, fish, dead animals or refuse animal or vegetable matter in any avenue, alley, street or other public place within the city of Detroit; nor shall any person place such materials upon any private property, whether owned by such person or not, unless the same shall be enclosed in proper vessels or boxes, as provided in section 1.

"§5. The collection and removal of garbage shall be under the supervision of the board of health and it shall be the duty of the board of health and police department, through their proper officials and agents, to enforce the provisions of this ordinance." Revised Ordinances of 1895 as amended in 1901.

The city of Detroit rests the authority of its council to pass this ordinance upon its charter, which contains the following provisions: "The council shall have power to provide for the preservation of the general health of the inhabitants of the city, and to make regulations to secure the same; to abate

or remove any nuisance;

to prohibit and prevent

any person from having on his premises any substance or thing

that is unwholesome or nauseous; and to authorize the removal thereof; .. The common council is also empowered to enact and provide, by appropriate ordinance, for the manner of collecting, transporting, conveying and handling of garbage, and all animal and vegetable matter and refuse in said city;

and to require all persons in said city to dispose of the same in the manner provided by said common council in said ordinance for the removal and destruction thereof, and to impose and enforce appropriate penalties for any violation of said ordinance." Sec. 43, chap. 7, par. 130, Charter of the City.

By additional legislation in 1889 the Common Council was , given the power "to advertise for proposals and contract for the removal, disposition and destruction of garbage and all animal and vegetable refuse for a term of years."

In 1901 the city and the Detroit Sanitary Works, a corporation of Michigan, entered into a written agreement, by which the latter undertook to collect, remove and dispose of all garbage and dead animals within the limits of the city of Detroit for the term of ten consecutive fiscal years, beginning July 1, 1901. In consideration of the faithful performance of the conditions and specifications specified in the agreement the city agreed to pay to the Sanitary Company the sum of $515,000, in equal monthly instalments of $4,291.66 during the continuance of the contract.

The agreement between the city and the Sanitary Works contained, among others, the following provisions: “1. Garbage shall be understood to consist of all refuse animal or vegetable matter, including dead animals, found within the city limits, coming from private or public premises within the city. 2. The time for making the collection of garbage and dead animals shall be as follows, to wit: (a) Within and upon the public markets daily. (b) Within the two-mile circle as shown from the maps of the city, and from all hotels, restaurants, hospitals, slaughterhouses, and all other places where animals, game or fowl are killed within the said city of Detroit,