98, 1 N. E. Rep. 439, and the distinction above indicated is made apparent with great clearness and force in the opinion rendered by the present chief justice.” Without further quotation from opinions, we cite, as sustaining the same view, the following cases: State v. Boyd, 19 Nev. 43, 5 Pac. Rep. 735; Morrison v. Bachert, 112 Pa. St. 322, 5 Atl. Rep. 739; Ohio v. Covington, 29 Ohio St. 102; Devine v. Commissioners, 84 Ill. 592; State v. Herman, 75 Mo. 340; State v. Mitchell, 31 Ohio St. 607; State v. Hunter, 38 Kan. 578, 17 Pac. Rep. 177; Zeigler v. Gaddis, 44 N. J. Law 365; State v. Hammer, 42 N. J. Law 440.
It was urged that the mere fact that those counties in which there were such expensive buildings could never come within the law was insufficient to render the act void; that they, under ordinary circumstances, would never descend into that class; and that the fact that destruction of such expensive improvements might possibly in the future bring them within the description of the class having inexpensive public buildings should not be considered, it being only a remote contingency. But the difficulty with this reasoning is that it ignores the fact that the counties having inexpensive buildings at the date of the passage of the act can never, by the erection of expensive buildings or in any other manner, ascend into the expensive building class. They are kept forever within the particular class in which the act finds them, notwithstanding the fact that in the future change of condition may bring them within the description of the other class. The boundary between these two classes was as permanently fixed when the act was passed as if the counties had by name been placed within these two classes respectively. The line drawn by the legislature is therefore purely arbitrary. It is one thing to assert that all except a single object will be forever kept from the class by circumstances, and another and entirely different thing to attempt to exclude all others by the very terms of the law. A law applicable to all the cities of the state of New York having not less than a million population may never embrace any other city. But, the classification being reasonable, it ought not to be prohibited because no other city may ever enter the class. But, when the act in express terms
