passenger's criminal negligence, or by his violation of some express rule of the company, actually brought to his attention. This statute was upheld against a challenge on the ground that it violated the due process of law clauses of the State and Federal constitutions, by the State court, in Chicago, R. I., etc., R. Co. v. Zernecke, 59 Nebr. 689, 82 N. W. 26, 55 L. R. A. 610, and by the Supreme Court of the United States in Chicago, R. I., etc., R. Co. v. Zernecke, 183 U. S. 582. The Supreme Court of the United States, vindicating the statute against the attack made upon it, used the following language:

"In Omaha & R. V. R. Co. v. Chollette, 33 Nebr. 143, the words of the statute exempting railroad companies from liability, 'where the injury done 'arose from the criminal negligence of the persons injured,' were defined to mean 'gross negligence,' 'such negligence as would amount to a flagrant and reckless disregard' by the passenger of his own safety, and amount to a 'willful indifference to the injury liable to follow.' This definition was approved in subsequent cases. It was also approved in the case at bar, and the plaintiff in error, it was in effect declared, was precluded from any defense but that of negligence as defined, or that the injury resulted from the violation of some rule of the company by the passenger brought to his actual notice, and the company, as we have said, was not permitted to introduce evidence that the derailment of its train was caused by the felonious act of a third person. The statute, thus interpreted and enforced, it is asserted, impairs the constitutional rights of plaintiff in error. The specific contention is that the company is deprived of its defense, and not only declared guilty of negligence and wrongdoing without a hearing, but, adjudged to suffer without wrongdoing, indeed even for the crimes of others, which the company could not have foreseen or have prevented.

"Thus described, the statute seems objectionable.

Regarded as extending the rule of liability for injury to persons which the common law makes for the loss of or injury to things, the statute seems defensible. And it was upon this ground that the Supreme Court of the State defended and vindicated the statute. The court said:

""The legislation is justifiable under the police power of the State, so it has been held. It was enacted to make railroad companies insurers of the safe transportation of their passengers as they were of baggage and freight; and no good reason is suggested why a railroad company should be released from liability for injuries received by a passenger while being transported over its line, while the corporation must respond for any damages to his baggage or freight.'

"Our jurisprudence affords examples of legal liability without fault, and the deprivation of property without fault being attributable to its owner. The law of deodands was such an example. The personification of the ship in admiralty law is another. Other examples are afforded in the liability of the husband for the torts of the wife-the liability of a master for the acts of his servants.

"In Missouri Railway Co. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205, a statute of Kansas abrogating the common law rule exempting a master from liability to a servant for the negligence of a fellow-servant, was sustained against the contention that such statute violated the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States. And in Minneapolis, etc., Railway Co. v. Herrick, 127 U. S. 210, a statute of Iowa which extended liability for the 'willful wrongs, whether of commission or omission,' of the agents, engineers or other employés' of railroad companies, was vindicated against the double attack of being an unjust discrimination against railroad corporations and the deprivation of property without due process of law."

The latest illustration of such a statute is found in the

Oklahoma depositors guaranty law, which authorizes the assessment and collection of a certain per centum on the daily average deposit of each and every bank organized under the laws of the State as a fund to pay the losses caused depositors by failing and insolvent banks. This act was challenged in the State court on the ground that it violated the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the due process of law clause of the State constitution; but was upheld by the State court, and on writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, the judgment of the State court was affirmed. (Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 22 Okl. 48, 97 Pac. 590; Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104.) Answering the objection that the act takes private property for a private use, and creates a liability without fault, the Supreme Court of the United States said:

"The substance of the plaintiff's argument is that the assessment takes private property for private use without compensation. And while we should assume that the plaintiff would retain a reversionary interest in its contribution to the fund so as to be entitled to a return of what remained of it if the purpose were given up (see Receiver of Danby Bank v. State Treasurer, 39 Vt. 92, 98), still there is no denying that by this law a portion of its property might be taken without return to pay debts of a failing rival in business. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the logical form of the objection, there are more powerful considerations on the other side. In the first place it is established by a series of cases that an ulterior public advantage may justify a comparatively insignificant taking of private property for what, in its immediate purpose, is a private use. (Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361; Strickley v. Highland Boy Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527, 361; Offield v. New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. Co., 203 U. S. 372; Bacon v. Walker, 204 U. S. 311, 315.) And in the next, it would seem that

there may be other cases besides the every day one of taxation, in which the share of each party in the benefit of a scheme of mutual protection is sufficient compensation for the correlative burden that it is compelled to assume. (See Ohio Oil Co. v. Indiana, 177 U. S. 190.) At least, if we have a case within the reasonable exercise of the police power as above explained, no more need be said."

Illustrations of the nature and all-pervading extent of the police power are shown somewhat in the cases already cited. Other illustrations abound almost without number in the decisions of the State and Federal courts. It will be sufficient for our purposes, however, to call attention to a few of those which most clearly, as we believe, illustrate the doctrine. In Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, the court used this language:

"The extent and limits of what is known as the police power have been a fruitful subject of discussion in the appellate courts of nearly every State in the Union. It is universally conceded to include everything essential to the public safety, health, and morals, and to justify the destruction or abatement, by summary proceedings, of whatever may be regarded as a public nuisance. Under this power it has been held that the State may order the destruction of a house falling to decay or otherwise endangering the lives of passersby; the demolition of such as are in the path of a conflagration; the slaughter of diseased cattle; the destruction of decayed or unwholesome food; the prohibition of wooden buildings in cities; the regulation of railways and other means of public conveyance, and of interments in burial grounds; the restriction of objectionable trades to certain localities; the compulsory vaccination of children; the confinement of the insane or those afflicted with contagious diseases; the restraint of vagrants, beggars, and habitual drunkards; the suppression of obscene publications and houses of ill fame; and the prohibition of

gambling houses and places where intoxicating liquors are sold. Beyond this, however, the State may interfere wherever the public interests demand it, and in this particular a large discretion is necessarily vested in the legislature to determine, not only what the interests of the public require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests."

Again, in Holden v. Hardy, 169 U. S. 366, it was said: "An examination of both these classes of cases under the fourteenth amendment will demonstrate that, in passing upon the validity of State legislation under that amendment, this court has not failed to recognize the fact that the law is, to a certain extent, a progressive science; that in some of the States methods of procedure, which at the time the constitution was adopted were deemed essential to the protection and safety of the people, or to the liberty of the citizen, have been found to be no longer necessary; that restrictions which had formerly been laid upon the conduct of individuals, or of classes of individuals, had proved detrimental to their interests; while, upon the other hand, certain other classes of persons, particularly those engaged in dangerous or unhealthful employments, have been found to be in need of additional protection. Even before the adoption of the constitution, much had been done toward mitigating the severity of the common law, particularly in the administration of its criminal branch. The number of capital crimes, in this country at least, had been largely decreased. Trial by ordeal and by battle had never existed here, and had fallen into disuse in England. The earlier practice of the common law, which denied the benefit of witnesses to a person accused of felony, had been abolished by statute, though so far as it deprived him of the assistance of counsel and compulsory process for the attendance of his witnesses, it had not been changed in England. But to the credit of