Decided January 4, 1909. It is within the police power of the State to regulate sales of entire stocks in trade of merchants so as to prevent fraud on innocent creditors; and a state statute prohibiting such sales except under reasonable conditions as to previous notice is not unconstitutional under the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment; and so held as to §§ 4868 and 4869, General Laws of Connecticut, as amended by chap. 72 of the Public Acts of 1903. 79 Conn. 434, affirmed. THE facts are stated in the opinion.

12 Corpus Juris, 931; Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U.S. 86, 11 Sup. Ct. 13. A large discretion is necessarily vested in the legislature to determine not only what the interests of public health, security and morals require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests. Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 440, 65 A. 436, 600. The plaintiffs allege that many of their customers are not willing to ride in cars which carry a number-plate indicating that they are not private cars, and that the defendant commissioner, under authority of the statutes recited above, intends to require public-service motor-vehicles to bear number-plates with special numbers thereon which would indicate that the vehicles are not private, and that the business of the plaintiffs will be greatly impaired thereby.

Such provisions sustained in Calkins v. Howard, 2 Cal.App. Rep. 233; Walp v. Moore, 76 Conn. 515; Spencer v. Broughton, 77 Conn. 38; In re Paulis, 144 F. 472 (Conn.); Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434; Lemieux v. Young, 211 U.S. 489. Second.

A large discretion is necessarily vested in the legislature to determine not only what the interests of public convenience and welfare require but what measures are necessary to secure such interests. Cotter v. Stoeckel, 97 Conn. 239, 244, 116 A. 248; Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 440, 65 A. 436, 600; State v. Kievman, supra, 464. It is not fatal to the validity of the statute that standards are not prescribed in greater detail. Lerner v. Delavan, 203 Wis. 32, 37, 233 N.W. 608. It may be of some significance that, notwithstanding the length of time a statute requiring the licensing of junk dealers had been in operation in the state (Public Acts 1864, c. 23) its constitutionality has never been called in question.

" State v. Hillman, 110 Conn. 92, 105, 147 A. 294. "A large discretion is necessarily vested in the Legislature to determine not only what the interests of public health, security and morals require, but what measures are necessary for the protection of such interests. Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 440, 65 A. 436, 600." Cotter v. Stoeckel, 97 Conn. 239, 244, 116 A. 248. Furthermore, "`incidental damage to property resulting from governmental activities, or laws passed in the promotion of the public welfare, is not considered a taking of the property for which compensation must be made.

The general purpose of this statute from its inception has been to protect creditors from prejudice through transfers of the ownership of retail businesses and similar establishments without notice to or knowledge of creditors. Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 441, 65 A. 436; Walp v. Mooar, 76 Conn. 515, 521, 57 A. 277. Originally, as we have noted, the protection accorded was confined to those who were creditors at the time of the transfer, but the effect of the amendments made in 1915 and 1917 was to extend the benefits at least to a creditor of the vendor in the situation of Lettieri. The 1917 amendment terminates this protection at the end of fourteen days after the filing for record of the instrument evidencing the transfer, but as no such evidence of the sale to Mrs. Phoenix was recorded at any time and the constructive notice which it would have afforded is lacking, the transaction continued to be subject to the infirmity attached to it by the statute and therefore void as to the claim of Lettieri against her husband for rent of the store premises.

" State v. Darazzo, 97 Conn. 728, 732, 118 A. 81. "A large discretion is necessarily vested in the legislature to determine not only what the interests of public convenience and welfare require, but what measures are necessary to secure such interests. Cotter v. Stoeckel, 97 Conn. 239, 244, 116 A. 248; Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 440, 65 A. 436. . . . It is our duty to sustain an Act unless its invalidity is in our judgment beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Bassett, 100 Conn. 430, 432, 433, 123 A. 842.

Building lines may be established in the exercise of that power, without compensation to landowners affected by them, and an ordinance establishing them must be deemed valid unless it plainly appears that its terms are not reasonable or that its provisions are not rationally adapted to the promotion of public health, safety, convenience or welfare. State v. Hillman, 110 Conn. 92, 147 A. 294; Windsor v. Whitney, 95 Conn. 357, 368, 111 A. 354; Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 440, 65 A. 436, 600. An ordinance which forbids the construction of any house within fifty feet of a street wherever building lines have not been established, which is to apply generally to all the area within an entire town, regardless of conditions in the immediate locality, and particularly regardless of the location of the lots or tracts of land affected, subject to exception only upon the issuance of a permit in the unrestricted discretion of a particular officer might well be questioned upon constitutional grounds. But, in the instant case, we do not know whether the issuance of the permit is thus left to the unlimited discretion of a particular officer or whether its issuance may not be so controlled and directed as to protect the rights of landowners against restraints not reasonably within the proper exercise of the police power.

The Act is not susceptible to successful attack on constitutional grounds as denying equal protection of the laws, as unreasonable, or otherwise. Silver v. Silver, 108 Conn. 371, 376 et seq., 143 A. 240; Cotter v. Stoeckel, 97 Conn. 239, 243, 116 A. 248; Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 440, 65 A. 436, 600.

We have consistently sustained the view that the application of the underlying principle must be made in the light of existing conditions, to the end that the great purposes for which the police power may be invoked may be promoted. Connecticut Co. v. Stamford, 95 Conn. 26, 30, 110 A. 554; Cotter v. Stoeckel, 97 Conn. 239, 244, 116 A. 248; Young v. Lemieux, 79 Conn. 434, 65 A. 436, 600; New Haven Water Co. v. New Haven, 106 Conn. 562, 576, 139 A. 99; Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 47 Sup. Ct. 114; Zahn v. Board of Public Works, 274 U.S. 325, 47 Sup. Ct. 594; Hadacheck v. Sebastian, 239 U.S. 394, 36 Sup. Ct. 143; Cusack Co. v. Chicago, 242 U.S. 526, 529, 37 Sup. Ct. 190; Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U.S. 171, 176, 35 Sup. Ct. 511; Wulfsohn v. Burden, 241 N.Y. 288, 150 N.E. 120; Spector v. Building Inspector of Milton, 250 Mass. 63, 145 N.E. 265; Providence v. Stephens, 47 R. I. 387, 133 A. 614. Counsel for the accused argued the appeal upon three claims: (1) that the regulations do not justify the Board of Appeals in directing The City Barrel Company to discontinue its business and remove its stock from its premises on Beardsley Street, (2) that if the regulations be construed to afford such justification they are not authorized by Chapter 242 of the Public Acts of 1925, and (3) are in violation of § 11 of Article First of the Constitution of Connecticu