Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/636

 TS BE WONQ YUNG QUT. 629 �require that the corpses should not be disinterred or transported from place to place, except under extreme circumstances of exigeney." 18 Alb. Law Jour. 488; 31 Legal Int. 268. The exposnre of imbnried human remains, or neglect to iater the same by the person on whom the duty is cast, is a misde- meanor at common law. See Rex v. Stewart, 12 Ad. & E. 773; Chapple v. Cooper, 13 Mes. &'Wels. 252; Anibrose v. Kerrison, 10 Com. B. 776; Jenkins v. Tucker, 1 H. Black. 394 ; Willes, 536. And this is doubtless so, in part, at least, upon sanitary considerations generally recognized among en- lightened nations. �We see nothing in the language of the act, in the sur- rounding circumstances, or in the nature of the subject-mat- ter upon which the statute operates, to justify us in holding that the object of the legislature was to impose burdens on the commerce or intercourse between this country and China, rather than to provide wholesome sanitary regulations for the protection of our people. The statute is general, and oper- ates wholly upon matters within the territoral jurisdiction of the state, and without discrimination as to remains to be removed to any considerable distance, whether within or without the state, arid is within the principle of the case In re Rudolph, recently decided in the United States circuit court for Nevada, upon drummers' licenses. 10 Cent. Law Jour. 224; 2 Fbd. Eep. 65. The exhumation and removal of the dead is not a matter of public indifference, harmless in itself, like the style of wearing the hair, as in the Qticue Case ; but it afifects the public health, and its regulation is, like the regulation of slaughter-houses and other noxious piir- suits, strictly within the police powers of the state. See Ex parte Simuler, 33 Cal. 286; Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36. �In Gibbons VB. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 203, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall says: "Bat the inspection laws are said to be reg- ulations of commerce, and are certainly recognized in the' constitution as being passed in the exercise of a power re- maining with the states. * * • T^e object of inspection laws is to improve the quality of articles produced by the ����