The line of distinction between an inter ference with commerce and a mere police regulation is sometimes exceedingly dim and shadowy. Undoubtedly, congress may go be yond the general regulations of commerce which comprise its exclusive jurisdiction and descend to minute directions which will ex clude the exercise of state power as to mat ters covered by them. It may establish po lice regulations, as well as the states, as to matters of which it is given control by the constitution, but generally the police power being better exercised by the local authori ties, and the power to arrest collision resid ing in the national courts, the regulations of congress seldom exclude the establishment of others by the state covering many particu lars; Cooley, Const. Lim. 731. See Robbins v. Taxing Dist., 120 U. S. 489, 7 Sup. Ct. 592, 30 L. Ed. 694 ; Philadelphia & S. Mail S. S. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 122 U. S. 326, 7 Sup. Ct. 1118, 30 L. Ed. 1200.
It was said by Strong, J., in Hannibal & St. J. R. Co. v. Husen, 95 U. S. 465, 473, 24 L. Ed. 527, that "the police power of a state cannot obstruct foreign commerce or inter state commerce beyond the necessity for its exercise; and, under color of it, objects not within its scope cannot be secured at the ex pense of the protection afforded by the fed eral constitution, it is the duty of the courts to guard vigilantly against any needless in trusion." This language was quoted with ap proval by Matthews, J., in Bowman v. R. Co., 125 U. S. 465, 492, 8 Sup. Ct. 689, 1062, 31 L. Ed. 700.
The doing of interstate business by one en gaged also in local commerce is not a bar to state regulation or taxation ; Osborne v.
State, 33 Fla. 162, 14 South. 588, 25 L. R. A. 120, 39 Am. St. Rep. 99.
The commerce clause is not violated by a state statute prohibiting the manufacture and sale of adulterated goods ; Grossman v. Lurman, 192 U. S. 189, 24 Sup. Ct. 234, 48 L. Ed. 401; nor by a state tax on cab service ; New York v. Knight, 192 U. S. 21, 24 Sup. Ct. 202, 48 L. Ed. 325 ; nor by a tax on non resident managers of meat packing houses, construed by the highest state court to apply only to selling to local customers from stock of original packages not as a mere incident of interstate commerce ; Kehrer v. Stewart, 197 U. S. 60, 25 Sup. Ct. 403, 49 L. Ed. 663 ; nor a tax on foreign corporations engaged in carrying passengers or merchandise upon their gross receipts outside of the state ; State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. (U. S.) 284, 21 L. Ed. 164 ; Indiana v. Exp. Co., 7 Biss. 227, Fed. Cas. No. 7,021; nor by a shipment of buggies (by a foreign man ufacturer) either complete or in packages of parts put together and peddled about the state by an agent who was held liable to an occupation tax ; Saulsbury v. State, 43 Tex. Cr. R. 90, 63, S. W. 568, 96 Am. St. Rep. 837. A state may, in the absence of federal legis lation on the subject, reasonably regulate the hours of labor of employ& on interstate rail roads ; State v. R. Co., 36 Mont. 582, 93 Pac. 945, 15 L. R. A. (N. S.) 134, 13 Ann. Cas. 144. It may adopt regulations to prevent the spread of diseases among plants ; Ex parte Hawley, 22 S. D. 23, 115 N. W. 93, 15 L. R. A. (N. S.) 138.
The constitutional proVision does not apply to regulations as to life-preservers, boiler in spections, etc., on steamboats which confine their business to ports wholly within a state ; The Thomas Swan, 6 Ben. 42, Fed. Cas. No.
13,931; nor to any commerce entirely within a state ; The Daniel Ball v. U. S., 10 Wall. (U. S.) 557, 19 L. Ed. 999; Lehigh Val. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 145 U. S. 192, 12 Sup. Ct. 806, 36 L. Ed. 672 ; Louisville, N. 0. & T. R. Co. v. Mississippi, 133 U. S. 587, 10 Sup. Ct. 348, 33 L. Ed. 784 ; nor to a condition in a railroad charter granted by a state that the company shall pay a part of its earnings to the state, from time to time, as a bonus ; Baltimore & 0. R. Co. v. Maryland, 21 Wall. (U. S.) 456, 22 L. Ed. 678 ; nor to a state law prescribing regulations for warehouses, car rying on business within the state exclusive ly, notwithstanding they are used as instru ments of interstate traffic ; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 24 L. Ed. 77; nor to a law of Virginia by which only such persons as are not citizens of that state are prohibited from planting oysters in a soil covered by her tide waters. Subject to the paramount right of navigation, each state owns the beds of all tide-waters within its jurisdiction, and may appropriate them to be used by its own citi zens ; McCready v. Virginia, 94 U. S. 391, 24 L. Ed. 248. It does not forbid a state from enacting, as a police regulation, a law pro hibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxi cating liquors ; Boston Beer Co. v. Massachu setts, 97 U. S. 25, 24 L. Ed. 989 ; nor the sale of oleomargarine brought from another state ; Com. v. Paul, 148 Pa. 559, 24 Atl. 78 ; Corn. v. Schollenberger, 156 Pa. 201, 27 Atl. 30, 22 L. R. A. 155, 36 Am. St. Rep. 32 ; Corn. v. Huntley, 156 Mass. 236, 30 N. E. 1127, 15 L. R. A. 839; though in original packages ; In re Scheitlin, 99 Fed. 272 ; or imposing a li cense tax upon travelling salesmen selling liquor in quantities of less than five gallons, the statute having been held by the highest court of the state to be a police regulation and not a taxing act ; D.elamater v. South Dakota, 205 U. S. 93, 27 Sup. Ct. 447, 51 L. Ed. 724 (where it was said that such an act is within the purview of, and not in conflict with, the Wilson Act); or a state act pre scribing maximum rates of transportation within the state ; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155, 24 L. Ed. 94 ; and see Peik v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 94 U. S. 164, 24 L. Ed. 97; Cooley, Const. L. 75. Nor is a city ordinance, exacting a license fee, for the maintenance of its office In the city, from an express company doing business beyond the limits of a state, invalid ; Osborne v. Mobile, 16 Wall. (U. S.) 479, 21 L. Ed. 470 ; nor a tax on telegraph poles erected within a city ; St. Louis v. Telegraph Co., 148 U. S. 92, 13 Sup. Ct. 485, 37 L. Ed. 380 ; Philadelphia v. Cable Co., 67 Hun 21, 21 N. Y. Supp. 556 ; nor a statute requiring locomotive engineers to be licensed after examination, it being a valid exercise of the police power ; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465, 8 Sup. Ct. 564, 31 L. Ed. 508 ; see Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Alabama, 128 U. S. 96, 9 Sup. Ct. 28, 32 L. Ed. 352 ; nor one forbidding dealing in fu tures on margins ; State v. Beatty (Miss.) 60 South. 1016; nor prohibiting shipment or sale of unripe fruits ; Sligh v. Kirkwood (Fla.) 61 South. 185; nor prescribing the ef fect of domestic indorsements on foreign bills of lading ; Roland M. Baker Co. v. Brown, 214 Mass. 196, 100 N. E. 1025.