[225 N.Y.] Statement of case. [Jan., of the nation. Interstate commerce does not end until the subjectmatter of the sale has been broken up or redistributed or absorbed in the common mass of property within the state, and where there is no break in the continuity of the transmission of natural gas from the pumping station in one state to home and office and factory in a city in another state, such transactions have the unity and directness of interstate commerce. 2. A corporation transporting natural gas by pipe lines from one state to another is a public service corporation and its rates are subject to regulation by some agency of government, and where gas and water companies are expressly excepted from the act of Congress (Act to Regulate Commerce, as amended June 29, 1906, ch. 3591, and June 18, 1910, ch. 309) regulating interstate commerce, there is no implied exclusion of the police power of the state to impose reasonable regulations upon the business of such public service corporation, although interstate in character. 3. Where a company engaged in the transportation of natural gas by pipe lines from another state to a city in this state occupies the streets of that city with its gas mains it is within the purview of the statute (Public Service Commissions Law, § 65; Cons. Laws, ch. 48) providing that all charges made or demanded by public service corporations for gas or electricity shall be just and reasonable and not more than allowed by law or by order of the commission having jurisdiction. Hence a writ of prohibition will not lie against a public service commission to prevent it from considering whether certain rates sought to be put in operation by such a pipe line are exorbitant. (Western Union Tel. Co. v. Foster, 247 U. S. 105, distinguished.) Matter of Penn. Gas Co. v. Public Service Comm., 184 App. Div. 556, affirmed. (Argued January 8, 1919; decided January 28, 1919.) APPEAL, by permission, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the third judicial department, entered September 30, 1918, which reversed an order of Special Term granting a motion for a writ of prohibition. The facts, so far as material, are stated in the opinion. Marion H. Fisher and John E. Mullin for appellant. The power to regulate commerce among the states 1919.] Points of counsel. [225 N. Y.] delegated by the Constitution to the Federal government is exclusive: The states have no power to regulate, burden or restrict interstate commerce. (U. S. Const. art. 1, § 8; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622; Walling v. Michigan, 116 U. S. 455; Wabash, St. L. & Pacific R. R. Co. v. Illinois, 118 U. S. 557; Bowman v. Chicago, etc., Ry. Co., 125 U. S. 507; Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100; Lyng v. Michigan, 135 U. S. 161; Covington & Cincinnati Bridge Co. v. Kentucky, 154 U. S. 204; Louisville & Nashville R. R. Co. v. Eubank, 184 U. S. 27; Caldwell v. North Carolina, 187 U. S. 622; Oklahoma v. Kansas Nat. Gas Co., 221 U. S. 261; Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352; Clark Distilling Co. v. Maryland R. R. Co., 242 U. S. 311; Southern Pac. Co. v. Jensen, 244 U. S. 205.) The transportation and sale of gas by pipe line in interstate commerce is a business national in character and susceptible of Federal regulation. (West v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 221 U. S. 229; Kansas Natural Gas Co. v. Haskell, 172 Fed. Rep. 545; Haskell v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 224 U. S. 217; Haskell v. Cowham, 187 Fed. Rep. 403; Landon v. Public Utilities Commission, 242 Fed. Rep. 682.) The distribution and sale of relator's Pennsylvania gas to consumers in New York is a vital and protected part of relator's interstate business. The original package " rule does not apply to gas transported by pipe line. (Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419; M. W. T. Co. v. Comm., 218 Mass. 558; Hatch v. Reardon, 184 N. Y. 452; State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232; Illinois Central R. R. Co. v. Louisiana Ry. Co., 236 U. S. 157; Covington Stock Yards Co. v. Keith, 136 U. S. 128; North Penna. R. R. Co. v. Bank, 123 U. S. 727; Swift & Company v. United States, 196 U. S. 398; Western Oil Refining Co. v. Lipscomb, 244 U. S. 346; Greek American Sponge Co. v. Richardson Drug Co., 124 Wis. 475; T. & N. O. [225 N. Y.] Points of counsel. [Jan., R. R. Co. v. Sabine Tram Co., 227 U. S. 111.) The state of New York has no power or jurisdiction to fix the rate or sale price of relator's gas. Such action would be a regulation of and interference with commerce forbidden by the Constitution. (People ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon, 184 N. Y. 431; West v. Kansas Gas Co., 221 U. S. 229; Heyman v. Hays, 236 U. S. 178; Clark Distilling Co. v. Maryland Ry. Co., 242 U. S. 311; R. R. Comm. v. Worthington, 225 U. S. 101; W. U. Tel. Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1.) Ledyard P. Hale for Public Service Commission, respondent. The "commerce" conducted by appellant being expressly excluded by Congress from the jurisdiction of the interstate commerce commission remains within the reach of reasonable regulation by the states, and, therefore, in New York by the public service commission. (Pipe Line Cases, 234 U. S. 548; Manufacturers' Heat & Light Co. v. Ott, 215 Fed. Rep. 940; State ex rel. Caster v. Flannelly, 96 Kan. 372; Tax on Railway Gross Receipts, 15 Wall. 293.) The Pennsylvania Gas Company is engaged in a public service at Jamestown which is subject to the regulation of the state of New York, limited only by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and the bill of rights embodied in the State Constitution. (Saratoga Gas Case, 191 N. Y. 123; People v. Budd, 117 N. Y. 14; Budd v. New York, 143 U. S. 535.) Louis L. Thrasher and Robert H. Jackson for Alfred C. Davis et al., respondents. In the absence of legislation by the Federal government the state has the right to regulate the price of natural gas brought into and sold within its territory. (Oil Mfg. Co. v. Bd. of Agriculture, 222 U. S. 380; Wilson v. Blackbird Car, etc., Co., 2 Pet. 245; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713; Pound 1919.] Opinion, per CARDOZO, J. [225 N. Y.] v. Turck, 95 U. S. 459; Simpson v. Shepard, 230 U. S. 352; M., K. & T. R. Co. v. Harris, 234 U. S. 412; Vandalia R. R. Co. v. P. S. Comm., 242 U. S. 255; W. U. Tel. Co. v. City of Richmond, 178 Fed. Rep. 310.) If the original package rule" can be applied to the sale of natural gas, then under that rule the sale of the gas within the state, after its transportation is completed, is not interstate commerce. (State ex rel. Caster v. Flannelly, Kansas Pub. Util. Rep. 810; Company v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 128.) Regulation of the selling price of natural gas piped from one state to another is not of a character requiring uniform national legislation and hence is not within that class of cases where the states are prohibited from legislation, even though Congress has not acted. (Jamieson v. Ind. N. G. & Oil Co., 128 Ind. 555.) State regulation of the selling price of gas piped in from another state infringes no province of Congress, is not a restriction upon interstate commerce in any sense, and is an appropriate exercise of a purely state function. (Manufacturers L. & H. Co. v. Ott, 215 Fed. Rep. 940.) CARDOZO, J. The Pennsylvania Gas Company is a Pennsylvania corporation which supplies natural gas to the inhabitants of the city of Jamestown. Its gas fields and wells are in Pennsylvania, and its gas is conveyed to Jamestown through pipe lines. About forty-five miles of line are in Pennsylvania and about five in New York. It has a branch office in Jamestown, and its mains and pipes are in the city's streets. Formerly its rates for gas were thirty cents a thousand. Recently it attempted to raise its rates to thirty-five cents, and filed a schedule with the public service commission accordingly. A citizen of Jamestown, alleging that the new rates were exorbitant, lodged a complaint with the commission. [225 N. Y.] Opinion, per CARDOZO, J. [Jan., The gas company was directed to answer the complaint. It filed with the commission a demurrer to the jurisdiction which the commission overruled. Thereupon the company sued out a writ of prohibition. Its petition alleges that the attempted regulation of its rates is an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce. The writ was granted at Special Term, and vacated at the Appellate Division. An appeal to this court followed. (1) We think the petitioner's business is interstate commerce. There is no doubt that the transportation of oil or gas from state to state through the medium of pipe lines is commerce between the states (West v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 221 U. S. 229; Haskell v. Kansas Natural Gas Co., 224 U. S. 217; Haskell v. Cowham, 187 Fed. Rep. 403). It is true that there is a distinction to be noted. What is regulated by this statute (Public Service Commissions Law [Cons. Laws, chap. 48], sec. 65) is not, the act of transportation; it is the sale of the thing transported (Manufacturers' Light & Heat Co. v. Ott, 215 Fed. Rep. 940, 944). But the sale of commodities to be delivered by the seller in one state to the buyer in another is also interstate commerce (Leisy v. Hardin, 135 U. S. 100; Savage v. Jones, 225 U. S. 501; Int. Paper Co. v. Mass., 246 U. S. 135). It is, therefore, subject, like the business of transportation, to the power of the nation. Interstate commerce does not end until the subject-matter of the sale has been broken up or redistributed or absorbed in the common mass of property within the state (Leisy v. Hardin, supra). When that moment arrives, 'is not always easy to determine. The test to be applied will vary with the method of transportation and the subject of the sale. The keg of beer transported from one state to another is withdrawn from interstate commerce when its contents are sold by the glass (Leisy v. Hardin, supra). Tobacco, imported in |