Opinion of the Court. fest that it was designed to provide for the most useful and beneficial occupation and enjoyment of natural streams and watercourses, where the absolute right of each proprietor to use his own land and water privileges, at his own pleasure, cannot be fully enjoyed, and one must of necessity, in some degree, yield to the other." Fiske v. Framingham Manufacturing Co., 12 Pick. 68, 70–72. In another case, decided almost twenty years later, he said: "The relative rights of land-owners and mill-owners are founded on the established rule of the common law, that every proprietor, through whose territory a current of water flows, in its course towards the sea, has an equal right to the use of it, for all reasonable and beneficial purposes, including the power of such stream for driving mills, subject to a like reasonable and beneficial use, by the proprietors above him and below him, on the same stream. Consequently, no one can deprive another of his equal right and beneficial use, by corrupting the stream, by wholly diverting it, or stopping it from the proprietor below him, or raise it artificially, so as to cause it to flow back on the land of the proprietor above. This rule, in this Commonwealth, is slightly modified by the mill acts, by the well-known provision, that when a proprietor erects a dam on his own land, and the effect is, by the necessary operation of natural laws, that the water sets back upon some land of the proprietor above, a consequence which he may not propose as a distinct purpose, but cannot prevent, he shall not thereby be regarded as committing a tort, and obliged to prostrate his dam, but may keep up his dam, paying annual or gross damages, the equitable assessment of which is provided for by the acts. It is not a right to take and use the land of the proprietor above, against his will, but it is an authority to use his own land and water privilege to his own advantage and for the benefit of the community. It is a provision by law, for regulating the rights of proprietors, on one and the same stream, from its rise to its outlet, in a manner best calculated, on the whole, to promote and secure their common rights in it." Bates v. Weymouth Iron Co., 8 Cush. 548, 552, 553. Other opinions of Chief Justice Shaw illustrate the same view. Opinion of the Court. Williams v. Nelson, 23 Pick. 141, 143; French v. Braintree Manufacturing Co., 23 Pick. 216, 218-221; Cary v. Daniels, 8 Met. 466, 476, 477; Murdock v. Stickney, 8 Cush. 113, 116; Gould v. Boston Duck Co., 13 Gray, 442, 450. It finds more or less distinct expression in other authorities. Lowell v. Boston, 111 Mass. 464-466; United States v. Ames, 1 Woodb. & Min. 76, 88; Waddy v. Johnson, 5 Iredell, 333, 339; Jones v. Skinner, 61 Maine, 25, 28; Olmstead v. Camp, 33 Conn. 547, 550; Chief Justice Redfield, in 12 Am. Law Reg. (N. S.) 498500. And no case has been cited in which it has been considered and rejected. Upon principle and authority, therefore, independently of any weight due to the opinions of the courts of New Hampshire and other States, maintaining the validity of general mill acts as taking private property for public use, in the strict constitutional meaning of that phrase, the statute under which the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company has flowed the land in question is clearly valid as a just and reasonable exercise of the power of the legislature, having regard to the public good, in a more general sense, as well as to the rights of the riparian proprietors, to regulate the use of the water power of running streams, which without some such regulation could not be beneficially used. The statute does not authorize new mills to be erected to the detriment of existing mills and mill privileges. And by providing for an assessment of full compensation to the owners of lands flowed, it avoids the difficulty which arose in the case of Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co., 13 Wall. 166. Being a constitutional exercise of legislative power, and providing a suitable remedy, by trial in the regular course of justice, to recover compensation for the injury to the land of the plaintiff in error, it has not deprived him of his property without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97; Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516; Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701. Judgment affirmed. MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD did not sit in this case, or take any part in its decision. Statement of Facts. BARBIER v. CONNOLLY. IN ERROR TO THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA. Submitted November 25, 1884.-Decided January 5, 1885. A municipal ordinance prohibiting from washing and ironing in public laundries and wash-houses within defined territorial limits, from ten o'clock at night to six in the morning, is a purely police regulation, within the competency of a municipality possessed of the ordinary powers. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution does not impair the police power of a State. In error to a State court, this court cannot pass upon the question of the conformity of a municipal ordinance with the requirements of the Constitution of the State. On the 8th of April, 1884, the Board of Supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco, the legislative authority of that municipality, passed an ordinance reciting that the indiscriminate establishment of public laundries and wash-houses, where clothes and other articles were cleansed for hire, endangered the public health and the public safety, prejudiced the well-being and comfort of the community, and depreciated the value of property in their neighborhood; and then ordaining, pursuant to authority alleged to be vested in the Board under provisions of the State Constitution, and of the act of April 19, 1856, consolidating the government of the city and county, that after, its passage it should be unlawful for any person to establish, maintain or carry on the business of a public laundry or of a public wash-house within certain designated limits of the city and county, without first having obtained a certificate, signed by the health officer of the municipality, that the premises were properly and sufficiently drained, and that all proper arrangements were made to carry on the business without injury to the sanitary condition of the neighborhood; also a certificate signed by the Board of Fire Wardens of the municipality, that the stoves, washing and drying apparatus, and the appliances for heating smoothing-irons, were in good condition, and that their use was not dangerous to the sur Statement of Facts. rounding property from fire, and that all proper precautions were taken to comply with the provisions of the ordinance defining the fire limits of the city and county, and making regulations concerning the erection and use of buildings therein. The ordinance required the health officer and Board of Fire Wardens, upon application of any one to open or conduct the business of a public laundry, to inspect the premises in which it was proposed to carry on the business, in order to ascertain whether they are provided with proper drainage and sanitary appliances, and whether the provisions of the fire ordinance have been complied with; and, if found satisfactory in all respects, to issue to the applicant the required certificates without charge for the services rendered. Its fourth section declared that no person owning or employed in a public laundry or a public wash-house within the prescribed limits shall wash or iron clothes between the hours of ten in the evening and six in the morning or upon any portion of Sunday; and its fifth section, that no person engaged in the laundry business within those limits should permit any one suffering from an infectious or contagious disease to lodge, sleep, or remain upon the premises. The violation of any of these several provisions was declared to be a misdemeanor, and penalties were prescribed differing in degree according to the nature of the offence. The establishing, maintaining, or carrying on the business, without obtaining the certificates, was punishable by fine of not more than $1,000, or by imprisonment of not more than six months, or by both. Carrying on the business outside of the hours prescribed, or permitting persons with contagious diseases on the premises, was punishable by fine of not less than $5 or more than $50, or by imprisonment of not more than one month, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The petitioner in the court below, the plaintiff in error here, was convicted in the Police Judge's Court of the City and County of San Francisco, under the fourth section of the ordinance, of washing and ironing clothes in a public laundry, within the prescribed limits, between the hours of ten o'clock in the evening of May 1, 1884, and six o'clock in the morning of the following day, and was sentenced to imprisonment in Opinion of the Court. the county jail for five days, and was accordingly committed, in execution of the sentence, to the custody of the sheriff of the city and county, who was keeper of the county jail. That court had jurisdiction to try him for the alleged offence, if the ordinance was valid and binding. But, alleging that his arrest and imprisonment were illegal, he obtained from the Superior Court of the city and county a writ of habeas corpus, in obedience to which his body was brought before the court by the sheriff, who returned that he was held under the commitment of the police judge upon a conviction of a misdemeanor, the commitment and sentence being produced. The petitioner thereupon moved for his discharge on the ground that the fourth section of the ordinance violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and certain sections of the Constitution of the State. The particulars stated in which such alleged violations consist were substantially these―omitting the repetition of the same position-that the section discriminated between the class of laborers engaged in the laundry business and those engaged in other kinds of business; that it discriminated between laborers beyond the designated limits and those within them; that it deprived the petitioner of the right to labor, and, as a necessary consequence, of the right to acquire property; that it was not within the power of the Board of Supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco; and that it was unreasonable in its requirements. The Superior Court overruled the positions and dismissed the writ, and the petitioner brought this writ of error. Mr. A. C. Searle, Mr. H. G. Sieberst and Mr. Alfred Clarke for plaintiff in error. No appearance for defendant in error. MR. JUSTICE FIELD delivered the opinion of the court. He recited the facts as above stated, and continued: In this case we can only consider whether the fourth section of the ordinance of the city and county of San Francisco is in con |