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the mere fact that there may have been an omission to extend the power of taxing mortgages will not invalidate the provision for a deduction from mortgaged lands, any more than the adjudged omission to provide for the taxation of paid up life insurance policies will avoid the entire legislative scheme of taxation.

We have now reached the question whether the act violates $22 of art. 4 of the State Constitution. That section provides that: "The General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say: * For the assessment and collection of taxes for State, county, township or road purposes." It cannot be claimed that the act is local, but the question whether it is special challenges our consideration. This court, in Indianapolis St. R. Co. v. Robinson, 157 Ind. 232, quoted the following statements, found in the case of State v. Parsons, 40 N. J. L., 1: "Interdicted, local and special laws are all those that rest on a false or deficient classification; their vice is that they do not embrace all the class to which they are naturally related; they create preference and establish inequalities; they apply to persons, things or places possessed of certain qualities or situations, and exclude from their effect other persons, things or places which are not dissimilar in these respects." Granting, but not deciding, that §1 of art. 10 of our Constitution and §22 of art. 4 of that instrument overlap in the effort to put checks upon the otherwise supreme and peremptory power of taxation, we feel that this opinion. has already vindicated the act from the claim that it is discriminative as between taxpayers.

The first words in the body of the act are: "Any person desiring to avail himself, or herself, of the provisions of this act, shall", etc. The words import universality. They are broad enough to include all persons. In Gilson v. Board, etc., 128 Ind. 65, we find the following: "It is held that a statute which is of general and uniform operation through

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out the State, and operates alike upon all persons, under the same circumstances, is not subject to the objection that it is special or local legislation. State, ex rel., v. Reitz, 62 Ind. 159; McLaughlin v. Citizens, etc., Assn., 62 Ind. 264; Heanley v. State, 74 Ind. 99; Elder v. State, 96 Ind. 162." Again, it was said by Frazer, J., in Hingle v. State, 24 Ind. 28, 31: "What is a special act? It is such as at common law the courts would not notice, unless it were pleaded and proved like any other fact." Mr. Sutherland, in his work on Statutory Construction, collects a large number of cases relative to prohibited special legislation, and his text enunciates opinions in accord with those expressed in State v. Parsons, supra. This act does not, however, amount to a special law, if we accept the view of that learned author as to what constitutes special legislation, for he says (§129): "The prohibition is in the way of legislation for individual cases. It is equally fatal to such legislation though it be general in form. If a statute is plainly intended for a particular case, and looks to no broader application in the future, it is special or local, and, if such laws are prohibited on the subject to which it relates, is unconstitutional. The lineaments by which such cases are to be distinguished are usually so special that a law confined thereto would be anticipated to have no effect from the antecedent improbability of such a case arising. When, therefore, it is found to fit such a special case, it is deemed to have been enacted solely for it." Even if we were inclined to commit this court to the doctrine of State v. Parsons, supra, we should nevertheless be compelled to hold that the act we have been considering does not thereby stand condemned.

It has been suggested that this act is invalid by reason of the provision of the fourteenth amendment to the federal Constitution relative to the right to the equal protection of the laws; but as a discussion of this subject upon our part would require a reiteration, to some extent, of what has been said heretofore, we are not inclined to give further ex

State, ex rel., v. Smith.

pression of our views upon this subject. As particularly applicable, however, to this question, as well as to some of the other questions that we have discussed heretofore, we quote the following statements from the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Magoun v. Saving Bank, 170 U. S. 283, 292, 18 Sup. Ct. 594, 42 L. Ed. 1037: "Is the act open to this criticism? The clause of the fourteenth amendment especially invoked is that which prohibits a state denying to any citizen the equal protection of the laws. What satisfies this equality has not been and probably never can be precisely defined. Generally it has been said that it 'only requires the same means and methods to be applied impartially to all the constituents of a class, so that the law shall operate equally and uniformly upon all persons in similar circumstances'. Kentucky Railroad Tax Cases, 115 U. S. 321, 6 Sup. Ct. 57, 29 L. Ed. 414. It does not prohibit legislation which is limited, either in the objects to which it is directed or by the territory within which it is to operate. It merely requires that all persons subjected to such legislation shall be treated alike under like circumstances and conditions, both in the privilege conferred and the liabilities imposed. Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 68, 7 Sup. Ct. 350, 30 L. Ed. 578. Similar citations could be multiplied. But what is the test of likeness and unlikeness, of circumstances and conditions? These expressions have almost the generality of the principle they are used to expound, and yet they are definite steps to precision and usefulness of definition, when connected with the facts of the cases in which they are employed. With these for illustration it may be safely said that the rule prescribes no rigid equality and permits to the discretion and wisdom of the state a wide latitude as far as interference by this court is concerned. Nor with the impolicy of a law has it concern. Mr. Justice Field said in Mobile County v. Kimball, 102 •U. S. 691, 26 L. Ed. 238, that this court is not a harbor in which can be found a refuge from ill-advised, unequal, and

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oppressive state legislation. And he observed in another case: 'It is hardly necessary to say that hardship, impolicy or injustice of state laws is not necessarily an objection to their constitutional validity'. * * * Of taxation, and the case at bar is of taxation, Mr. Justice Bradley said, in Bell's Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 134 U. S. 232, 10 Sup. Ct. 533, 33 L. Ed. 892, and Mr. Chief Justice Fuller in Giozza v. Tiernan, 148 U. S. 657, 13 Sup. Ct. 721, 37 L. Ed. 599, 'that the fourteenth amendment was not intended to compel the state to adopt an iron rule of equal taxation.' The range of the state's power was expressed by Mr. Justice Bradley, as follows: 'It may, if it chooses, exempt certain classes of property from any taxation at all, such as churches, libraries, and the property of charitable institutions. It may impose different specific taxes upon different trades and professions, and vary the rates of excise upon various products; it may tax real estate and personal property in a different manner; it may tax visible property only, and not tax securities for payment of money; it may allow deductions for indebtedness, or not allow them. [Our italics.] All such regulations, and those of like character, so long as they proceed within reasonable limits and general usage, are within the discretion of the state legislature, or the people of the state framing their constitution'. And so Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for the court in Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 24 L. Ed. 616, said: "The federal Constitution imposes no restraints on the state in regard to unequal taxation'. The court, through Mr. Justice Lamar, in Pacific Express Co. v. Seibert, 142 U. S. 339, 12 Sup. Ct. 250, 35 L. Ed. 1035, was equally emphatic. He said on page 351: 'This court has repeatedly laid down the doctrine that diversity of taxation, both with respect to the amount imposed and the various species of property selected either for bearing its burdens or from being exempt from them, is not inconsistent with a perfect uniformity and equality of taxation in the proper sense of

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those terms; and that a system which imposes the same tax upon every species of property, irrespective of its nature or condition or class, will be destructive of the principles of uniformity and equality in taxation and of a just adaptation of property to its burdens'. And it was said in Merchants Bank v. Pennsylvania, 167 U. S. 461, 17 Sup. Ct. 829, 42 L. Ed. 236: 'Indeed, this whole argument of a right under the federal Constitution to challenge a tax law on the ground of inequality in the burdens resulting from the operation of the law is put at rest by the decision on Bell's Gap R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, supra.'" See, also, as bearing on the question as to the application of the fourteenth amendment, Cass Farm Co. v. City of Detroit, 181 U. S. 396, 21 Sup. Ct. 644, 45 L. Ed. 914; City of Detroit v. Parker, 181 U. S. 399, 21 Sup. Ct. 624, 45 L. Ed. 917; Cleveland, etc., R. Co. v. Backus, 133 Ind. 513; Pittsburgh, etc., R. Co. v. Backus, 133 Ind. 625.

It may be a matter of grave doubt whether public policy is conserved by an enactment that substitutes net values for gross values, upon a species of property upon which the State must largely depend for its maintenance, but we cannot run a race of opinion with the legislature upon this subject.

Counsel for appellee dwell at some length upon some of the crudities of the act in question. We do not deem it necessary to consider such matters. What we affirm is that the act is valid. It follows, therefore, that the court below erred in sustaining appellee's demurrer to the application and alternative writ.

Judgment reversed, with instructions to the court below to overrule the demurrer to the application and alternative writ, and for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Dowling and Monks, JJ., dissent.