premises, at his own expense, and forbidden to keep them or allow them to be kept in such condition as to create disease. He may, therefore, have been required, at his own expense, to make, from time to time, such disposition of obnoxious substances originating on premises occupied by him as would be necessary in order to guard the public health. If the householder himself removed them from his premises, it must have been at his own expense; and the scavenger who took to the crematory the material from the premises of origin, under some arrangement with the householder, was, in effect, the representative, in that matter, of the householder, and was performing a duty resting upon the householder. So that, if the requirement that the person conveying the material should pay a given price for having it cremated or destroyed, in effect, put some expense on the householder, that gave him no ground for complaint; for it was his duty to see to the removal of garbage and house refuse, having its origin on his premises. Still less has the licensed scavenger a right to complain; for his right to convey garbage and refuse through the public streets, in covered wagons, was derived from the public, and he was subject to such regulations as the constituted authorities, in their exercise of the police power, might adopt. The whole arrangement may be fairly regarded as one in the interest and for the convenience of the householder. He gets his proportionate benefit of any revenue derived by the city, and at the same time shares the protection given to him by the community. Nor did the destruction of garbage and refuse, at an approved crematory, amount, in itself, and under the circumstances disclosed, to a taking of private property for public use without compensation, even if some of the substances destroyed at the crematory had a value for certain purposes. The authorities were not bound, prior to the removal of such substances from the premises on which they were found, to separate those that were confessedly worthless from those which might be utilized. The garbage and refuse matter were all together, on the same premises, and as a

whole or in the mass they constituted a nuisance which the public could abate or require to be abated, and to the continuance of which the community was not bound to submit. And when the obnoxious garbage and refuse were removed from the place of their origin and put in covered wagons to be carried away, the municipal authorities might well have doubted whether the substances that were per se dangerous or worthless would be separated from such as could be utilized and whether the former would be deposited by the scavenger at some place that would not endanger the public health. They might well have thought that the safety of the community could not be assured unless the entire mass of garbage and refuse, constituting the nuisance, from which the danger came, was carried to a crematory where it could be promptly destroyed by fire; and thus minimize the danger to the public health.

Be all this as it may, the cremation and destruction of garbage and house refuse, under the authority of the municipal authorities, proceeding upon reasonable grounds, and at a place designated by law, as a means for the protection of the public health, cannot be properly regarded, within the meaning of the Constitution, as a taking of private property for public use, without compensation, simply because such garbage and house refuse may have had, at the time of its destruction, some element of value for certain purposes. With the knowledge of the householder the scavenger receives the garbage and refuse matter, that which, if separated, might have value being mingled with that which is, in itself, noxious and worthless. The entire mass goes into the same covered wagon, and the authorities are not bound, before its destruction at the crematory, to cause the good to be separated from the bad, but could require, as the ordinances in question did, that the substances be promptly conveyed to the designated crematory and destroyed by fire. Such a disposition of the contents cannot be regarded as a taking of private property for public use without compensation.

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