and should that prove insufficient to pay such cost then the second parcel and other parcels, in their order, to the rear parcel of said one hundred and fifty feet, shall be liable in their order."

This statute, as to abutting property owners, was sustained by this court, following the decisions of the Supreme Court of Indiana. Schaffer v. Werling, 188 U. S. 516; Hibben v. Smith, 191 U. S. 310. It was sustained as to "back-lying" property owners in Voris v. Pittsburg Plate Glass Co., 163 Indiana, 599, and upon that case, as we have seen, the judgment in the case at bar is based.

It will be observed by referring to the statute that property owners are given notice of the proposed improvement and opportunity to object to its necessity, and when the improvement is completed they are also given notice of the filing of the report of the engineer and an opportunity to be heard upon it before a committee, which the statute requires shall be appointed to consider it. The latter notice, the Supreme Court in Voris v. Pittsburg Glass Company, decided, gives the common council complete jurisdiction over the person of every landowner in the taxing district of the improvement, whether the same abuts on the improvement or not, and that they are required to take notice that their real estate in the taxing district will be subject to the lien of special benefits assessed against it. And the court further decided that all such owners of real estate within the taxing district, "whether back lying or abutting," have the right "to a hearing on the question of special benefits, which the law requires said common council or board of trustees to adjust so as to conform to the special benefits accruing to said abutting real estate." The contention, however, of the railway company is that in no stage of the proceeding has the back-lying owner a hearing, or an opportunity to be heard, as to the amount to be assessed against his property. As we have seen, the opportunity to be heard is given to back-lying owners as to other owners, and the amount of the assessment against the latter is the amount of the assessment against the former. This amount is definitely fixed, and

measures the lien upon the back-lying real estate and the burden to which it may be subjected if the abutting property fails to satisfy the assessment.

It may be, however, that the railway company means by its contention that the back-lying owner is given no opportunity to be heard by the statute on the amount of the assessment against him, that he is given no opportunity to be heard on special benefits to him from the improvement. This was one of the questions presented in Voris v. Pittsburg Glass Company. Certain cases were cited as sustaining an affirmative answer. The court, however, replied that the question was not involved in those cases, and what was said in one of them (Adams v. City of Shelbyville, 154 Indiana, 467), to the effect that a law which makes no provision for a hearing on the question of special benefits was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, was clearly obiter dicta. And the court decided, following French v. Barber Asphalt Paving Co., 181 U. S. 324, and the cases immediately succeeding it, and, quoting from Tonawanda v. Lyon, 181 U. S. 389, "That it is within the power of the legislature of the State to create special taxing districts, and to charge the cost of local improvement, in whole or in part, upon the property in said district, either according to valuation or superficial area or average. Other cases were also cited sustaining the conclusion.

It will be observed, therefore, that the Supreme Court of the State decided that a taxing district is created by the legislature of the property along the line of the improvement and extending back therefrom one hundred and fifty feet, and that back-lying property-that is, property fifty. feet distant from the street and within one hundred and fifty feet-is so far benefited that it shall be made liable if the abutting fifty feet "prove insufficient" to pay the cost of the improvement. In other words, that lands within one hundred and fifty feet of the improvement are so far benefited by the improvement that they may be made a taxing district, and subject to the cost of

the improvement. We think, under the cited cases, this was within the power of the legislature to provide.

The railway company also contends that the statute is unconstitutional, for the reason that it does not give the backlying property owner the equal protection of the laws. The ground of this contention is as the one just disposed of, that the abutting owner is, and the back-lying owner is not, given an opportunity to be heard. To express it differently, and as the counsel express it, that a specific assessment is made against the abutting owner, and he is given an opportunity to challenge the assessment, but the back-lying owner has an assessment made against him years afterwards, and is given no opportunity whatever to challenge it. This, as we have seen, is a misapprehension of the statute. The amount of the assessment is fixed for both owners at the same time. The abutting owner is made primarily liable for it; the back-lying owner contingently so. He may never be called upon to pay. Implied in this contention, however, though not expressed, there may be the element of a hearing upon benefits, but, if so, it is disposed of by what has been said. If it was in the power of the legislature to make the taxing district, as we have decided that it was, it was within its power to classify the property owners, and there is certainly no discrimination between the members of the classes.

Judgment affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE HOLMES took no part in the decision.

MOBILE, JACKSON AND KANSAS CITY RAILROAD COMPANY v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI.

No. 218. Argued April 29, 1908.-Decided May 18, 1908.

The creation of a board of railroad commissioners and the extent of its powers; what the route of railroad companies created by the State may be; and whether parallel and competing lines may consolidate, are all matters which a State may regulate by its statutes and the state courts are the absolute interpreters of such statutes. Where the contention of plaintiff in error that a charter right has been impaired by subsequent state action was disposed of by the state court on the non-Federal ground that if any such right ever existed plaintiff in error was estopped by its own conduct from asserting it, this court cannot review the judgment on the alleged Federal ground of impairment of the contract.

A decree of a state court requiring a railroad company which does an interstate business to construct its lines within the State in accordance with the provisions of its charter and the directions of the state railroad commission is not an interference with interstate commerce because compliance therewith entails expense or requires the exercise of eminent domain.

How a state statute should be construed, whether a contract is created thereby, and whether the statute is constitutional under the state constitution, are not, in the absence of any claim that the contract, if any, has been impaired by subsequent state action, Federal questions. 89 Mississippi, 724, affirmed.

THIS is a bill in equity, brought by the State of Mississippi and the Railroad Commission of that State, to require the railroad companies to construct their railroad through the county seat of Pontotoc County, State of Mississippi, and to restrain them from abandoning a portion of the narrow gauge railroad formerly operated by the Gulf and Chicago Railroad Company, which ran to the town of Pontotoc.

The following is a summary of the bill: The Railroad Commission exists under the laws of the State of Mississippi, and is, under the laws, charged with the duty of supervising railroads and other common carriers, and also with the duty of

enforcing the observance of the laws by such companies and other carriers. The Gulf and Chicago Railway Company was organized in 1903, under the laws of Mississippi, with authority to construct a railroad from the town of Decatur, Miss., in a general northerly direction, through the county of Pontotoc, and through the State of Mississippi to the Tennessee line. At the time of the organization of such railway company there was in existence from the town of Pontotoc, Miss., to the town of Middleton, Tenn., a narrow gauge road, which was operated by the Gulf and Chicago Railroad Company, a corporation under the laws of Mississippi. The railroad company was bound to continue and preserve intact throughout its entire length the narrow gauge road, and the Gulf and Chicago Railway Company and its lessee, the Mobile, Jackson and Kansas City Railroad Company, hereafter called the Mobile Company, were in turn bound to so continue and preserve intact the said line, "broadened and standardized as was stipulated in the articles of consolidation hereinafter set forth." Prior to the sixth of July, 1903, the Gulf and Chicago Railway Company and the Gulf and Chicago Railroad Company, with other railroad companies, were consolidated under the name of the Gulf and Chicago Railway Company, and on that day a petition was presented to the Railroad Commission, praying the approval of the consolidation. It was stipulated in the petition, and by the granting of it by the Commission it was agreed, that the consolidated corporation should broaden and standardize the narrow gauge road running from the town of Pontotoc, "as it then existed and was being operated," and that when broadened and standardized it should be a part of the main line of the Gulf and Chicago Railway Company extending from Decatur, Miss., to Jackson, Tenn. The petition and order were made part of the bill. On or about the time of the consolidation, approved as aforesaid, the Gulf and Chicago Railway Company leased to the Mobile Company all of its railroad property then constructed and operated, and that thereafter to be constructed, including the narrow gauge road from Pon