for the purposes contemplated in its organization. It appears that its official reports are distributed each year to the public for information.

It has in its employ a large number of clerks and employes, whose business it is to prepare in tabulated form and furnish daily for publication throughout the country the statistics of over 160 classes of produce, and that this information is the principal basis of the mercantile and trade calculations with respect to this produce in the United States. It also appears that since its organization and the act of exemption (the fact being alleged) by an act of the legislature it has the supervision of and is made the inspector and register of all grain that passes through the public warehouses of the city. It is also made the inspector of flour and other provisions, and furnishes for public information the statistics of all the movement of freights on the railroads leading to and from the city. This seems to be the sole business of this organization, and the expenditures made and services performed by the corporation (unlike other private corporations) must have had primarily in view the commercial prosperity of the city and State, realizing only those incidental advantages that all business men have from the results of the gratuitous labor and expense of the association. An investment has been made by a private corporation for a public purpose, to which they have pledged their money and credit without receiving any greater consideration than the mere rise in value of the property and the income from some store rooms under the main building that is applied to the expenses of the enterprise and the payment of the bonded debt. Since the purchase of the property, as was conceded at the hearing and shown by exhibits filed, the property has risen in value and an income derived from stores under the main building that has caused a large increase in the value of the stock, still a large portion of the bonded debt remains unpaid, and if satisfied in full the chancellor has no power for that reason to sanction the act of the sheriff in

seizing the corporate property in the face of this legislative exemption.

While the legislature has neither the unlimited power to tax nor the unlimited power to exempt property from taxation, that department of the State government is the sole judge of that which is necessary for the public good, and the courts should not attempt to control it.

It is insisted that by the terms of the charter there is no obligation on the appellee to discharge any public duty, and that such a grant is in violation of section 1 of the Bill of Rights, declaring "that all freemen when they form a social compact are equal, and that no man or set of men are entitled to exclusive, separate public emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services."

It was held in the case of Williams v. Cammack, 27 Mississippi, 209, that a similar clause in the constitution of that State "was directed against superiority of personal and political rights, and a denial of all title to individual privileges, honors and distinctions from the community, but for public services."

This court has differed as to the meaning of this provision. of the Bill of Rights in determining the constitutionality of State legislation, but we all doubtless concur that sound policy requires uniformity and equality in taxation as near as may be practicable, and that those desiring the protection to person and property from the State government must bear their proportion of the burden. This doctrine is fundamental, as has been held by the courts of every State in the Union.

The purposes of this corporation are clearly set forth in its charter, and the exemption based on the consideration that the object in view will be attained, "and so long as the property is occupied by the board of trade for the purposes contemplated in its organization the property is exempt from State taxation." It is distinctly alleged that these public duties. have been performed and were being discharged when this levy was made upon the corporate property.

It can not be maintained from the provisions of the charter, or the legislation in reference to it that the primary object of the organization was to advance the private interests of those connected with it. A few public-spirited citizens have devoted the use of this private property to the public good, reaping only the incidental benefits that must necessarily accrue to the entire commercial world.

The corporation can engage in no business or traffic, and the legislature seeing, as this court must presume, the public benefits resulting from the organization, has, since the date of the exemption by special enactments accepted by the corporation, imposed upon it the discharge of public duties that otherwise belonged to the municipal government of the city in which this property is located. The legislature and the general council of the city of Louisville have each made this exemption in consideration of the public benefits derived from the organization, and while the mere incidental advantage arising to the public from the promotion of private interests will not authorize this character of legislation, when private property or its use is devoted to the public in the manner alleged in the petition of the appellee and evidenced by its charter, an exemption from taxation based on such a consideration should be upheld.

Mr. Cooley, in his work on Constitutional Limitations, says: "But what is for the public good, and what are public purposes, and what does properly constitute a burden, are questions which the legislature must decide on its own judg ment, and in respect to which it is vested with a large discretion which can not be controlled by the courts, except, perhaps, where its action is clearly evasive, and where under a pretense of a lawful authority it has assumed to exercise one that is unlawful." (Cooley's Cons. Limitations, page 155, 5th edition.)

The cases cited by counsel for the appellant have but little, if any, analogy to the case before us. In the case of Lowell v. City of Boston, 111 Mass., 454, a tax was levied to rebuild the houses of citizens that had been destroyed by fire, and the

court very properly held that the tax was not levied for a public purpose, but was taking, by means of taxation, the money of A to rebuild the property of B.

In the case of the Brewer Brick Co. v. Brewer, 62 Maine, 62, the plaintiffs, citizens of the town of Brewer, claimed that its property was exempt from taxation by reason of the by-laws of the town exempting manufacturing establishments from such burdens. It was held that neither the town nor the legislature was vested with such a power. That was a case of the exemption of private property from its share of the burden, and if the legislature of this State had exempted from taxation the large business house of one of the merchants connected with the present corporation, by reason of the incidental benefits the city of Louisville received from his individual enterprise, it would be analogous to the cases cited by counsel and open to constitutional objection.

In the case of Gordon v. The Winchester Building Association, 12 Bush, 110, the corporation was invested with the power to loan its money at a greater rate of interest than the other banks of the State or the private citizen, and than was allowed by the general law. There was no consideration expressed or given for this privilege, and such partial legislation in favor of one to the exclusion of others who are necessarily to be affected by it can not be sustained.

In that case a special privilege was granted the association with no other consideration than its purpose to loan money and compel the borrower to pay a rate of interest that would have been usurious if borrowed from any other corporation or individual.

It was a discrimination in favor of one to the exclusion of all others.

Taxation may be imposed for other than mere governmental purposes, and where the sovereign power can impose the tax it certainly has the right, by contract based upon a consideration for the public good, to relieve property from a burden for which it would otherwise be liable, and the fact that the con

tract is with a private corporation can make no difference, and the presumption is always in favor of the validity of the grant. (State Bank of Ohio v. Knoop, 16 Howard, 369.)

Mr. Justice Black, in the case of Sharpless v. The Mayor of Philadelphia, 21 Penn., 147, delivering the opinion of the court, said: "It is a grave error to suppose that the duty of a State stops with the establishment of those institutions which are necessary to the existence of government, such as those for the administration of justice, the preservation of peace, and the protection of the country from foreign enemies. Schools, colleges and institutions for the promotion of the arts and sciences which are not absolutely necessary, but highly useful, are also entitled to a public patronage enforced by law. To aid, encourage and stimulate commerce, domestic and foreign, is a duty of the sovereign as plain and as universally recognized as any other." We think it can not be doubted (if such was the true test, which I deny) but that the legislature could have empowered the city of Louisville to have imposed a tax for the purchase of a building to be devoted to the same use and conducted at the expense of the city.

It was on the faith of the grant that the individual members of this corporation invested their money in the property sought to be taxed, based upon a contract with the State, as binding as if made between two of its citizens.

Nor is the State now complaining. The act exempting this property remains on the statute book unrepealed, and the tax is now attempted to be coerced upon no other ground than that, in the opinion of the collecting officer, the exemption is in violation of the Constitution.

The right to repeal or modify the charter is expressly reserved by the terms of the grant, and still neither a legislative repeal nor a modification of the act of exemption has, so far as appears from the record, ever been attempted, but, on the contrary, the legislative branch of the State government, inJune, 1885-3