ing judicial notice may be taken of what is or ought to be generally known. For such reason this court, in cases of this kind, feels the greatest reluctance in interfering with the wellconsidered judgments of the courts of a State whose people are to be affected by the operation of the law. The highest court of the State in which statutes of the kind under consideration are passed is more familiar with the particular causes which led to their passage (although they may be of a public nature) and with the general situation surrounding the subject-matter of the legislation than this court can possibly be. We do not, of course, intend to say that under such circumstances the judgment of the state court upon the question will be regarded as conclusive, but simply that it is entitled to the very greatest respect, and will only be interfered with, in cases of this kind, where the decision is, in our judgment, plainly wrong. In this case the Supreme Judicial Court of the State holds the legislation valid, and that there is a fair reason for the discrimination between the height of buildings in the residential as compared with the commercial districts. That court has also held that regulations in regard to the height of buildings, and in regard to their mode of construction in cities, made by legislative enactments for the safety, comfort or convenience of the people and for the benefit of property owners generally, are valid. Attorney-General v. Williams, 174 Massachusetts, 476. We concur in that view, assuming, of course, that the height and conditions provided for can be plainly seen to be not unreasonable or inappropriate.

In relation to the discrimination or classification made between the commercial and the residential portion of the city, the state court holds in this case that there is reasonable ground therefor, in the very great value of the land and the demand for space in those parts of Boston where a greater number of buildings are used for the purposes of business or commercially than where the buildings are situated in the residential portion of the city, and where no such reasons exist for high buildings. While so deciding the court cited, with

approval, Commonwealth v. Boston Advertising Company, 188 Massachusetts, 348, which holds that the police power cannot be exercised for a merely æsthetic purpose. The court distinguishes between the two cases and sustains the present statutes. As to the condition adopted by the commission for permitting the erection, in either of the districts B, that is, the residential portion, of buildings of over eighty feet, but never more than one hundred, that the width on each and every public street on which the building stands shall be at least one-half its height, the court refuses to hold that such condition was entirely for æsthetic reasons. The Chief Justice said: "We conceive that the safety of adjoining buildings, in view of the risk of the falling of walls after a fire, may have entered into the purpose of the commissioners. We are of opinion that the statutes and orders of the commissioners are constitutional."

We are not prepared to hold that this limitation of eighty to one hundred feet, while in fact a discrimination or classification, is so unreasonable that it deprives the owner of the property of its profitable use without justification, and that he is therefore entitled under the Constitution to compensation for such invasion of his rights. The discrimination thus made is, as we think, reasonable, and is justified by the police power.

It might well be supposed that taller buildings in the commercial section of the city might be less dangerous in case of fire than in the residential portion. This court is not familiar with the actual facts, but it may be that in this limited commercial area the high buildings are generally of fireproof construction; that the fire engines are more numerous and much closer together than in the residential portion, and that an unlimited supply of salt water can be more readily introduced from the harbor into the pipes, and that few women or children are found there in the daytime and very few people sleep there at night. And there may in the residential part be more wooden buildings, the fire apparatus may be more widely scattered and so situated that it would be more difficult to obtain the necessary amount of water, as the residence quar

ters are more remote from the water front, and that many women and children spend the day in that section, and the opinion is not strained that an undiscovered fire at night might cause great loss of life in a very high apartment house in that district. These are matters which it must be presumed were known by the legislature, and whether or not such were the facts was a question, among others, for the legislature to determine. They are asserted as facts in the brief of the counsel for the City of Boston. If they are, it would seem that ample justification is therein found for the passage of the statutes, and that the plaintiff in error is not entitled to compensation for the reasonable interference with his property rights by the statutes. That in addition to these sufficient facts, considerations of an aesthetic nature also entered into the reasons for their passage, would not invalidate them. Under these circumstances there is no unreasonable interference with the rights of property of the plaintiff in error, nor do the statutes deprive him of the equal protection of the laws. The reasons contained in the opinion of the state court are in our view sufficient to justify their enactment. The judgment is therefore

Affirmed.

GRAY v. NOHOLOA.

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF

HAWAII.

No. 174. Submitted April 20, 1909.-Decided May 17, 1909.

Which is the correct English translation of a will written in the Hawaiian language is a pure question of fact, and in this case this court follows its usual course in regard to the findings of fact of both the lower courts and adopts the translation which both found to be

correct.

The will of a childless testatrix, who lived with her husband in the

leper colony of Hawaii leaving all her property to her husband, was rightfully construed as relating to all property whether situated in that colony or outside thereof, it not being presumed that she died int state as to any of her property or that she would limit her bounty to her husband by omitting any of her property. 18 Hawaii, 265, affirmed,

THE appellant herein appeals from the decree of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Hawaii. The facts relating to the case are as follows:

Hikaalani Hobron Noholoa was a resident of the island of Molokai, Territory of Hawaii, which is called the leper settlement, and was a leper, about seventy-five years of age, at the time of her death, on or about the twenty-ninth of June, 1906. Deceased left a husband, who was also a resident of the settlement and a leper, and a niece, the appellant, Kaimiola Nakookoo Gray, also residing on the island, and two grandnieces, being minors, residing in Honolulu. She left a will, written in the Hawaiian language, of which the following was taken as a translation by the courts below:

"I, the undersigned, a leper residing at Kalaupapa, Island of Molokai, Territory of Hawaii, do make this my Last Will for all property known belonging to me and appearing in my name situate at Kalaupapa aforesaid, with good will (or intention,) do hereby bequeath the same as hereinafter described: One gray horse, one bay mare; one black mare; one frame wooden house and other houses owned by me, as well as all other property owned by me, to my husband David Noholoa, residing at Kalaupapa aforesaid, to him and to his heirs, administrators and executors forever. Renouncing all claims that my relatives may set up in law to this."

The above will was duly admitted to probate in the Circuit Court of the Second Circuit of the Territory on the twelfth day of December, 1906, and, upon petition duly made, the court granted letters of administration with the will annexed to Enoch Johnson, who thereupon received such letters and entered upon his duties as such administrator.

After the application on the part of the husband for the probate of the will of his wife, and after the filing of the same with the clerk of the Circuit Court, but before the granting of letters of administration to Enoch Johnson, as prayed for by the husband, a petition was filed with the same court by Kaimiola Nakookoo Gray, the appellant herein, and a niece of the deceased testatrix, in which petition it was averred that the will of the testatrix, which was offered for probate, did not dispose of any property other than which was within and at the leper settlement, and that the testatrix at the time of her death owned other property outside of the settlement of the assessed value of several thousand dollars, and it was averred that there was no person who could lawfully demand settlement of the people who had possession of the property outside of the settlement, and therefore the petitioner asked for the appointment of some suitable person as administrator of the estate of which decedent died intestate, and that due notice might be given thereof.

Subsequently to the filing of this petition the probate court duly admitted the will as translated by the court to probate, and also denied the petition of the niece for letters of administration upon that portion of the land of deceased which she asserted was not included in the will. The translation of the will which she put in evidence in her proceeding, was the same one that was made by the court in the proceeding to admit the will to probate.

Kaimiola Nakookoo Gray duly appealed from the order or decree of the probate court refusing to grant letters of administration, as petitioned for, and the appeal was duly argued, without objection, in the Supreme Court of the Territory upon the same translation of the will, and the decree was affirmed.

A motion was then made for a rehearing of the case, and upon that motion, for the first time, ex parte affidavits were used on behalf of the appellant in regard to the translation of the will of testatrix. Thèse affidavits asserted that the translation adopted, and most of it made, by the probate court, and