inconsistent with the essential rights granted by plaintiff's charter, which may be necessary for the protection of the public against injury whether arising from the want of due care in the conduct of its business, or from any improper use of the streets in laying gas pipes, or from the failure of the grantee to furnish gas of the required quality and amount. The constitutional prohibition upon state laws impairing the obligation of contracts does not restrict the power of the State to protect the public health, the public morals, or the public safety, as the one or the other may be involved in the execution of such contracts. Rights and privileges arising from contracts with a State are subject to regulations for the protection of the public health, the public morals, and the public safety, in the same sense, and to the same extent, as are all contracts and all property, whether owned by natural persons or corporations."

The drainage of a city in the interest of the public health and welfare is one of the most important purposes for which the police power can be exercised. The Drainage Commission, in carrying out this important work, it has been held by the Supreme Court of the State, is engaged in the execution of the police power of the State. State v. Flower, 49 La. Ann. 1199, 1203.

It is admitted that in the exercise of this power there has been no more interference with the property of the gas company than has been necessary to the carrying out of the drainage plan. There is no showing that the value of the property of the gas company has been depreciated nor that it has suffered any deprivation further than the expense which was rendered necessary by the changing of the location of the pipes to accommodate the work of the Drainage Commission. The police power, in so far as its exercise is essential to the health of the community, it has been held cannot be contracted away. N. Y. & N. E. Railroad Co. v. Bristol, 151 U. S. 556, 567; Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746, 751; Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814, 816. In a large city

like New Orleans, situated as it is, and the entrepôt of an extensive commerce coming from many foreign countries, it is of the highest importance that the public health shall be safeguarded by all proper means. It would be unreasonable to suppose that in the grant to the gas company of the right to use the streets in the laying of its pipes it was ever intended to surrender or impair the public right to discharge the duty of conserving the public health. The gas company did not acquire any specific location in the streets; it was content with the general right to use them, and when it located its pipes it was at the risk that they might be, at some future time, disturbed, when the State might require for a necessary public use that changes in location be made.

This right of control seems to be conceded by the learned counsel for the plaintiff in error, in so far as it relates to the right to regulate the use of the surface of the streets, and it is recognized that the users of such surface may be required to adapt themselves to regulations made in the exercise of the police power. We see no reason why the same principle should not apply to the sub-surface of the streets, which, no less than the surface, is primarily under public control. The need of occupation of the soil beneath the streets in cities is constantly increasing, for the supply of water and light and the construction of systems of sewerage and drainage, and every reason of public policy requires that grants of rights in such sub-surface shall be held subject to such reasonable regulation as the public health and safety may require. There is nothing in the grant to the gas company, even if it could legally be done, undertaking to limit the right of the State to establish a system of drainage in the streets. We think whatever right the gas company acquired was subject in so far as the location of its pipes was concerned, to such future regulations as might be required in the interest of the public health and welfare. These views are amply sustained by the authorities. National Water Works...Co. v. City of Kansas, 28 Fed. Rep. 921, in which the opinion was delivered by Mr. Justice Brewer,

then Circuit Judge; Gas Light & Coke Co. v. Columbus, 50 Ohio St. 65; Jamaica Pond Aqueduct Co. v. Brookline, 121 Massachusetts, 5; In re Deering, 93 N. Y. 361; Chicago, Burlington &c. R. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226, 254. In the latter case it was held that uncompensated obedience to a regulation enacted for the public safety under the police power of the State was not taking property without due compensation. In our view, that is all there is to this case. The gas company, by its grant from the city, acquired no exclusive right to the location of its pipes in the streets, as chosen by it, under a general grant of authority to use the streets. The city made no contract that the gas company should not be disturbed in the location chosen. In the exercise of the police power of the State, for a purpose highly necessary in the promotion of the public health, it has become necessary to change the location of the pipes of the gas company so as to accommodate them to the new public work. In complying with this requirement at its own expense none of the property of the gas company has been taken, and the injury sustained is damnum absque injuria.

We find no error in the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana and the same is

Affirmed.

197 U. S.

Statement of the Case.

IRON CLIFFS COMPANY v. NEGAUNEE IRON COM

PANY.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN.

No. 173. Argued March 9, 10, 1905.-Decided April 3, 1905.

No person can be deprived of property rights by any decree in a case wherein he is not a party.

Where a corporation is not itself made a party to the suit, complainant alleging that its corporate existence had ended, its rights cannot be adjudged even though certain persons are made defendants on the ground that they are using the name of the corporation as a cover for their alleged wrongful acts and they answer, denying any personal interest, and claiming that the corporation is a going concern and justify their acts as its agent; and a decree of a state court in such an action cannot be reviewed in this court at the instance of one of such defendants on the ground that the corporation has been deprived of its property without due process of law.

THIS case was begun in the Circuit Court of the State of Michigan by the defendants in error, The Negaunee Iron Company, Edward N. Breitung and Mary Kaufman, against The Iron Cliffs Company, The Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, William G. Mather and Murray M. Duncan. The defendants in error, plaintiffs in the court below, claimed to be the owners of certain premises upon which there was an outstanding lease purported to run for a term of ninety-nine years from its date, September 17, 1857, made by Charles Harvey to the Pioneer Iron Company. As the controversy in this court centers about this lease the allegations of the bill in respect thereto may be noticed. It is alleged that the interest conveyed by Harvey on the seventeenth day of September, 1857, to the Pioneer Iron Company was for the sole purpose of mining and quarrying at its own expense such ores and marble as might be found on the premises, subject to the qualification that the said company should not quarry, mine or remove any ore from said

lands, except such as it could actually convert into merchantable iron in its own furnaces and forges, being the furnaces and forges then being constructed or about to be constructed by the said company at Negaunee. Complainants allege that at the time of the filing of the bill they were, and for more than fifteen years theretofore, had been in the actual and exclusive possession of all the lands described in the bill, and the ore and marble thereon, claiming to be the exclusive owners thereof. That said Pioneer Iron Company, in the month of September, 1859, erected two certain ore furnaces at Negaunee instead of one furnace, as contemplated at the time of the execution of the grant or lease by Harvey to the Pioneer Iron Company.

That said Pioneer Iron Company carried on the business of manufacturing iron at its said furnaces from the time they were constructed until about the first day of January, 1866. That said Pioneer Iron Company, in carrying on its said business, procured no iron from the premises, or any portion of the premises described in said lease executed by the said Charles T. Harvey to the said Pioneer Iron Company, but procured all of its ore for the manufacturing of iron from other lands.

Complainant alleges that on the first day of January, 1866, the Pioneer Iron Company ceased to do business, and has not since that time manufactured or operated under the lease, but, on the contrary, at and from the date aforesaid abandoned the same. On the tenth day of March, 1866, the Pioneer Iron Company entered into an agreement with and leased to the Iron Cliffs Company for the period of ten years its entire real and personal property situated in the county of Marquette, Michigan, consisting of all its iron works, buildings, lands and property rights. That after making said lease and agreement with the Iron Cliffs Company the said Pioneer Iron Company has made and filed no reports as required by the laws of the State of Michigan.

"That at some time prior to the first day of January, 1873, the said Iron Cliffs Company became the owner of all the capital stock of said Pioneer Iron Company, and said stock has