a host of individual instances exhibiting very wide differences; it is impossible to deny to the legislature the authority to take account of these differences and to do this according to practical groupings in which, while certain individual distinctions may still exist, the group selected will as a whole fairly present a class in itself. Frequently such groupings may be made with respect to the general nature of the business in which the work is performed; and, where a distinction based on the nature of the business is not an unreasonable one considered in its general application, the classification is not to be condemned. See Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Melton, 218 U. S. 36, 53, 54. Hotels, as a class, are distinct establishments not only in their relative size but in the fact that they maintain a special organization to supply a distinct and exacting service. They are adapted to the needs of strangers and travelers who are served indiscriminately. As the state court pointed out, the women employés in hotels are for the most part chambermaids and waitresses; and it cannot be said that the conditions of work are identical with those which obtain in establishments of a different character, or that it was beyond the legislative power to recognize the differences that exist.

If the conclusion be reached, as we think it must be, that the legislature could properly include hotels in its classification, the question whether the act must be deemed to be invalid because of its omission of women employed in certain other lines of business is substantially the same as that presented in Hawley v. Walker, supra. There, the statute excepted 'canneries or establishments engaged in preparing for use perishable goods'; and it was asked in that case on behalf of the owner of a millinery establishment why the act should omit mercantile establishments and hotels. The contention as to the various omissions which are noted in the objections here urged ignores the well-established principle that the legislature is not bound,

in order to support the constitutional validity of its regulation, to extend it to all cases which it might possibly reach. Dealing with practical exigencies, the legislature may be guided by experience. Patsone v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 138, 144. It is free to recognize degrees of harm, and it may confine its restrictions to those classes of cases where the need is deemed to be clearest. As has been said, it may 'proceed cautiously, step by step,' and 'if an evil is specially experienced in a particular branch of business' it is not necessary that the prohibition 'should be couched in all-embracing terms.' Carroll v. Greenwich Insurance Co., 199 U. S. 401, 411. If the law presumably hits the evil where it is most felt, it is not to be overthrown because there are other instances to which it might have been applied. Keokee Coke Co. v. Taylor, 234 U. S. 224, 227. Upon this principle, which has had abundant illustration in the decisions cited below, it cannot be concluded that the failure to extend the act to other and distinct lines of business, having their own circumstances and conditions, or to domestic service, created an arbitrary discrimination as against the proprietors of hotels. Ozan Lumber Co. v. Union County Bank, 207 U. S. 251, 256; Heath & Milligan v. Worst, 207 U. S. 338, 354; Engel v. O'Malley, 219 U. S. 128, 138; Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 78; Mutual Loan Co. v. Martell, 222 U. S. 225, 235; Central Lumber Co. v. South Dakota, 226 U. S. 157, 160; Rosenthal v. New York, 226 U. S. 260, 270; Barrett v. Indiana, 229 U. S. 26, 29; Sturges & Burn v. Beauchamp, 231 U. S. 320, 326; German Alliance Insurance Co. v. Kansas, 233 U. S. 389, 418; International Harvester Co. v. Missouri, 234 U. S. 199, 213; Atlantic Coast Line R. R. v. Georgia, 234 U. S. 280, 289.

For these reasons the judgment must be affirmed. Judgment affirmed.

BOSLEY v. MCLAUGHLIN, LABOR COMMISSIONER OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

SAME v. SAME.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA.

Nos. 362, 363. Argued January 12, 1915. Decided February 23, 1915. The nature of the work of pharmacists and student nurses in hospitals and the importance to the public that it should not be performed by those overfatigued, make it a proper subject for legislative control as to hours of labor of women so employed.

Whether there is necessity for limiting the hours of labor of women pharmacists and nurses in hospitals is a matter for legislative and not judicial control, and the legislature is not prevented by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from limiting such labor to eight hours a day or a maximum of forty-eight hours a week. Such a restriction is not so palpably arbitrary as to be an unconstitutional invasion of the liberty of contract.

Miller v. Wilson, ante, p. 373, followed in regard to the right of the legislature to limit the hours of labor of women other than pharmacists and student nurses employed in hospitals in California. An exception of graduate nurses from the operation of a statute limiting the hours of labor of women is not so arbitrary, either as to female pharmacists or student nurses in hospitals, as to make the statute unconstitutional as denying equal protection of the law. The distinction in their employment is one of which the legislature may take notice.

Enforcement of a state police statute will not be enjoined on the ground that it violates the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment where the bill fails to show as to the persons attacking the statute any such injury, actual or threatened, as warrants resort to a court of equity.

The California Statute of 1911 as amended in 1913 limiting the hours of labor of women in certain employments including those in hospitals to eight hours in any one day or a maximum of forty-eight hours a week is not unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment either as unduly abridging the liberty of contract, or as denying equal protection of the law because graduate nurses were excepted therefrom.

VOL. CCXXXVI-25

Argument for Appellants.

236 U.S.

THE facts, which involve the constitutionality under the Fourteenth Amendment of the California Women's Eight Hour Labor Law, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. John F. Bowie, with whom Mr. Charles S. Wheeler was on the brief, for appellants:

The provision of the statute excepting graduate nurses from the operation of the law results in denying equal protection of the laws to all other women working in hospitals.

The fact that a law may be passed in exercise of the police power does not obviate the requirement of equal protection.

Equal protection of the laws requires that no impediment be interposed to the pursuits of one except as applied to the pursuits of others under like circumstances.

Appellants offered to prove as a fact that the statute imposed on women following the same pursuits as those followed by graduate nurses impediments not imposed on graduate nurses: that no difference existed justifying this discrimination.

The pursuits followed by graduate nurses in hospitals are the same as those followed by other women in hospitals and there is no difference in theory or past experience justifying the discrimination.

The statute will if enforced operate to deprive appellants of liberty without due process of law.

The act under consideration is not a health law.

Laws limiting hours of labor of adults operate to deprive those subject thereto of liberty.

Liberty includes freedom to work at a lawful calling.

Women are not wards of the State.

The statute operates to deprive appellants of liberty without due process of law.

The statute is invalid even if viewed as an exercise of

236 U.S.

Argument for Appellees.

police power as the restrictions imposed are arbitrary and unnecessarily oppressive.

In support of these contentions see Addyston Co. v. United States, 175 U. S. 211; Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578; Attorney General v. Sillem, 33 L. J. Ex. 92; Chicago, B. & Q. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549; Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 540; Cotting v. Kansas, 183 U. S. 79; Ex parte Drayton, 153 Fed. Rep. 986; Dyke v. Elliott, L. R. 4 P. C. 184; Erie R. R. v. Williams, 233 U. S. 685; Eubank v. Richmond, 226 U. S. 137; German Alliance Ins. Co. v. Kansas, 233 U. S. 389; Gulf, Col. & Santa Fe R. R. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150; Ex parte Jentzsch, 112 California, 468; Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133; Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45; Low v. Rees Printing Co., 41 Nebraska, 127; Minnesota v. Barber, 136 U. S. 313; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623; Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412; Opinion of Justices, 208 Massachusetts, 622; People v. Elerding, 254 Illinois, 579; People v. Williams, 189 N. Y. 131; Ritchie v. People, 155 Illinois, 98; In re Sing Tuck, 126 Fed. Rep. 386; Smith v. Alabama, 124 U. S. 465; Smith v. Texas, 233 U. S. 630; Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703; State ex rel. Galle v. New Orleans, 113 Louisiana, 371; United States v. Ragsdale, Hempst. 479; United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheaton, 76; Statutes of California, 1913, p. 713.

Mr. William Denman and Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, with whom Mr. G. S. Arnold were on the brief, for appellees: Eight-hour laws for women are valid.

Statutes have been passed for women's eight-hour laws in private businesses.

There are eight-hour laws for men and women in certain private businesses,-in mines, smelters, ore reduction, and in miscellaneous private businesses.

There are eight-hour laws for men and women telegraphers and telephone operators in railroad service; for