"The public cannot properly be subjected to unreasonable rates in order simply that stockholders may earn dividends. The legislature has the authority in every case, where its power has not been restrained by contract, to proceed upon the ground that the public may not rightfully be required to submit to unreasonable exactions for the use of a public highway established and maintained under legislative authority." (164 U. S., 578.) "It is not to be inferred that the power of limitation or regulation is itself without limit. This power to regulate is not a power to destroy, and limitation is not the equivalent of confiscation. Under pretense of regulating fares and freights the State cannot require a railroad corporation to carry persons or property without reward, neither can it do that which in law amounts to the taking of private property for public use without just compensation. * * *" (116 U. S., 307.) In the case of Smyth _vs._ Ames (169 U. S., 466), the Court said: "If a railroad corporation has bonded its property for an amount that exceeds its fair value, or if its capitalization is largely fictitious, it may not impose upon the public the burden of such increased rates as may be required for the purpose of realizing profits upon such excessive valuation or fictitious capitalizations; and the apparent value of the property and franchises used by the corporations, as represented by its stocks, bonds and obligations, is not alone to be considered when determining the rates that may reasonably be charged. * * * "We hold, however, that the basis of all calculations as to the reasonableness of rates to be charged by a corporation maintaining a highway under legislative sanction must be the fair value of the property being used by it for the convenience of the public. * * * * * "What the company is entitled to ask is a fair return upon the value of that which it employs for the public convenience. On the other hand, what the public is entitled to demand is that no more be exacted from it for the use of a public highway than the services rendered by it are reasonably worth." The relations between the corporations and the public that they serve have been clearly defined by the Courts, as the foregoing quotations show.