of all school buildings shall be washed with an antiseptic solution vided for that purpose, at least once each week. pro RULE 9. All practicing physicians shall be requested to notify the principal of the school which is attended by any person, or member of a family of any person, suffering with any contagious disease. RULE 10. The board of health is requested to send daily to the several schools, and to the board of education, a list of houses in which any case of contagious disease has been reported during the previous twenty-four hours, with the names, ages and diseases of the persons reported. RULE 11. A circular of information embodying the foregoing rules, and whatever additional information may be required for the carrying out of the same and for preventing the spread of contagious and infectious diseases, prepared by the board of health, shall be printed, framed, and hung in every school room. Plainfield.—The annual report for 1898 of Mr. Henry M. Maxson, superintendent of public schools, contains the following record: "In January the board of education appointed two school physicians, on a regular salary, to visit the schools systematically, and to inspect the buildings and the pupils, and who could be summoned by telephone by any principal that found a pupil in school that showed symptoms of disease. These physicians have examined all the pupils in the city in the matter of eyesight, hearing, vaccination and throat. This examination discovered over one hundred cases of defective eyesight and fifty or more cases of defective hearing, which were duly reported to the parents with recommendations to consult a specialist. In many cases the action has resulted in improvement, not only of the local defect, but of the general physicial condition of the child. "While these are, in brief, the results that can be tabulated, I believe the appointment of school physicians is of very great benefit to our children in ways that cannot be thus shown. By their appointment, each school has the trained eye of a physician constantly on the watch to discover and remove anything that may encourage or spread disease, and the hygienic condition of the schools was never so good as it is to-day. In case of any symptoms of contagion in any section, these physicians visit the school in that section, examine the buildings and yards, note the physical condition of the children, and take such measures as seem wise to prevent any possibility of the disease spreading through association of the children. "If a child comes to school with flushed face, sore throat or other physical disturbance that would indicate disease, the teacher separates him from the rest, and at once summons the physician to pass judgment upon the case, and the rest of the class is not exposed, so that no parent need feel anxiety as to contagion in school." In his annual report for 1899 the city superintendent of schools of Plainfield writes as follows: "The plan inaugurated last year of employing two school physicians has been continued with increasing satisfaction. It ensures the frequent examination of our schools by the trained eye of an expert; it also affords the teacher the means of securing prompt medical advice in suspected cases of disease or physical defect, and thereby avoids unnecessarily alarming parents, and also often prevents parental neglect. When several cases of any contagious disease develop in one school, the school physician makes a special inspection of the children, and provides for disinfection of the building, and whatever precautions are necessary to prevent the spread of the diseaseamong the children. "In place of the old tin cup, loaded with microbes, the pupils now drink from a running stream of water. Instead of sixty or more pupils in a room, we now try to have forty or less. In the December vacation, all the floors and wainscotings of each building were washed with a disinfectant, and the operation will be repeated as frequently as circumstances require. Finally, each school is under the constant care of a physician, who has already examined all the children as to eyesight, hearing, throat and skin, discovering many cases of defective or diseased condition that were unsuspected by the parents. These phy-sicians carefully examine each child showing symptoms of disease, and whenever there are several cases of contagious disease among children from the same school, a special examination of the whole school is made." Trenton.-B. C. Gregory, supervising principal of public schools, says: "We have no medical inspectors in our schools, but I am about introducing the subject; indeed, shall bring it before the board within a month. I have discussed the subject in my annual reports for several years, and I hope we are on the line of action." Public Water-Supplies.-The inspection of streams from which water for municipal supplies is obtained has proceeded during the past year, and action has been taken in the case of persons found to be responsible for the pollutions which have been discovered. In a suit brought in the Court of Chancery to prevent the discharge of waste fluids from the Diamond paper-mill, Milburn, into the Rahway river, questions are involved, including the constitutionality of the act under which the State Board of Health is operating in its efforts to prevent contamination of water used for potable purposes, which underlie all actions for the enforcement of the act referred to, and therefore new prosecutions under this statute are being withheld until a decision is reached in this case. The following statement by the attorney for the State Board of Health shows the scope of the questions presented to the court: BRIEF ON FINAL HEARING BY W. M. LANNING, FOR COMPLAINANT. The essential allegations of the bill are that Rahway city obtains its public water-supply for domestic use from the Rahway river, and that the defendant discharges into that river, above the city's intake, factory refuse which tends to corrupt and impair, and in fact does corrupt and impair, the quality of the water of the river. The complainant has not alleged, nor has it attempted to prove, that the waters of the river are at any point so polluted by the refuse from the defendant's factory as to be a public nuisance. Neither has the complainant attempted to prove (though there is an allegation in the bill to that effect) that the waters of the river are at any point now made injurious to health by the defendant's factory refuse. Assuming, for the present, that the essential allegations above mentioned are proven, are we entitled to the injunction prayed for? * * * * * * This proceeding has no precedent in this State. It is a new proceeding. Its supposed authority is found solely in chapter 41 of the Laws of 1899. That act, in its first section, declares that: "No * factory refuse * * which, either by itself or in connection with other matter, will corrupt or impair, or tend to corrupt or impair, the quality of the water of any river from which is taken, or may be taken, any public supply of water for domestic use, in any city, shall be discharged into the * * above the point shall or may obtain its supply of A penalty of $100 is prescribed * * * * * * waters * * The second section provides the machinery for recovering the penalty in a summary proceeding. The third section imposes upon the State Board of Health the obligation of supervising, as to their purity, all public water-supplies for domestic use within the State, and makes it the duty of all local boards of health, municipalities and persons to answer such inquiries concerning the pollution of water-supplies as the State Board may address to them. * * * corporation * * * Then comes the fourth section, which declares that: "If any shall violate any of the provisions of the first section of this act, it shall be lawful for the said State Board of Health, instead of proceeding in a summary way to recover the penalty prescribed in said section, to file a bill in the Court of Chancery, in the name of the State, on the relation of such Board, for an injunction to prohibit the further violation of the said section." * * * In determining whether the provisions of the above-mentioned act are sufficient authority for issuing the injunction prayed for in this cause, it is necessary to consider, first, the object of the act, and, second, the means by which that object is sought to be secured. I. The Object of the Act. Its object is expressed in its title. It is "to secure the purity of the public supplies of potable waters in this State." Such an object calls for the exercise of the police power of the State, and in the exercise of that power the State has declared that no factory refuse which will corrupt or impair, or tend to corrupt or impair, the quality of the water of any river used by any municipality for do mestic purposes, shall be discharged into the river above the intake of such municipality. That prohibition is the law of this State. The Legislature has declared it, and the will of the Legislature, within constitutional limits, is supreme. The object is clear. The prohibitions of the act are not merely against doing those things that make public water-supplies injurious to health; they are also against those things that in any way corrupt or impair, or tend to corrupt or impair, the quality of the water of any river at any point, though it be miles above the intake of any municipality. It is not for the courts to decide whether such legislation is necessary or unnecessary, wise or unwise. They can only decide whether it is constitutional or unconstitutional. Whether it is a necessary or wise exercise of police power is a question for the Legislature, and for it alone, to decide. The legislative object being clear, and the legislative act being constitutional, the courts, when their aid is sought in accordance with the prescribed legislative plan, are bound to give effect to the legislative object. I refer to some of the authorities on this point: "In virtue of its right and duty to provide for the public welfare, the legislative branch of the government possesses a vast and indefinable power and a large discretion as to the manner in which it should be exercised. It may determine primarily upon the necessity or expediency of legislation in respect of any particular matter, and as to the legislative means which should be adopted to accomplish any legislative object." Parker & Worthington's Public Health and Safety, p. 5. * * * any In State v. Wheeler, 15 Vr. 88, the validity of the act contained in General Statutes p. 1107, § 311, was passed upon by the Supreme Court, the opinion being rendered by Justice Magie. That act provides "that if any person or persons shall throw, cause, or permit to be thrown, into any reservoir, or into the waters of any creek, pond or brook of this State, * * * the waters of which are used to supply any aqueduct or reservoir for distribution for public use, offal or offensive matter whatsoever calculated to render such waters impure, * * * such person or persons shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both." The defendants were indicted under the above The offer was made in the trial court to prove that the waters of the brook in which offensive matters were charged to have been put by the defendants became purified and inoffensive before reaching the reservoir, of which its waters formed part of the supply. Such evidence was rejected and the rejection excepted to. The defendants also requested the Court to charge the jury that "unless their acts were calculated to render the water as supplied to such reservoir impure or offensive, they could not be convicted." The act. |