Volume 88 — United States Reports

The Germania Insurance Company had insured a cargo of wheat, laden on a barge at Shoekopee, on the Minnesota River, and about to be towed by the steamer Lady Pike down that river to its junction with the Mississippi,'thence down the Mississippi to Savannah, Illinois; “unavoidable dangers of the river . . . only excepted.” The cargo was laden on the barge, and the transportation of it begun. In the course of the voyage, however, the barge was wrecked.

On motion of Mr. G. F. Edmunds, to increase the amount of a bond given on appeal and for additional security. The case was thus: McCarter, the holder of a third mortgage, given bjr the Lake Superior Ship Canal, Railroad, and Iron Company, on about 400,000 acres of lands — pine lands, hard-wood lands, iron lands, copper lands, and farming lands — in Michigan, filed a bill in the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, to foreclose his mortgage.

John W. Doaue, Patrick Towle, and John Roper (partners as J. ~W. Doane & Co.), the plaintiffs in error in this case, commenced a suit in the first judicial district of the Territory for the county of Arrapalioe, against Oliver S. Glenn and Rufus E. Tapley. A writ of attachment was issued in their behalf, and certain personal property, described in the sheriff’s return, was seized.

, for the faithful discharge of his duties. But the act does not declare that if he does not give the bonds he shall cease to be trustee.

Held: that after a motion for a newT trial had been granted, a removal might be had. But after one trial the right to a second miist be perfected before a demand for the transfer can properly be made. Every trial of a cause is final until, in some form, it has been vacated. Causes cannot be removed to the Circuit Court for a review of the action of the State court, but only for trial.

Held: 1st. That the act of Juno 3d, 1856, and the first section of the act of May 5th, 1864, are grants in jn-esenii, and passed the title to the odd sections designated to be afterwards located; when the route was fixed their locution became certain, and the title, which was previously imperfect, acquired precision and became attached to the land ; 2d. That the lands granted have not reverted to the United States,…

. . “ In case tbo return of the distiller shall have been less than the quantity thus ascertained, the distiller, or other person liable, shall be assessed for such deficiency at the rate of fifty cents lor every proof gallon, together with the special tax of $4 ■for every cask of forty proof gallons. “ But in no case shall the quantity of spirits returned by the distiller, together with the quantity so assessed, be for a less quantity of spirits than eighty per centum of…

Stewart brought an action in a State court of Kansas against Maxwell. The writ was returned, “Not served.” Thereupon an attachment was issued and levied on his property. A bond- was then entered into by which the property was released. The judgment entry recited that “the plaintiff appeared by his attorney, J. C. Henningray, and the defendant by his attorneys, John Martin and Isaac Sharp, and both parties announcing themselves ready,” the trial proceeded.

Hamilton and others brought assumpsit in the court below against Dillin, surveyor of the port at Nashville, Tennessee, to recover a charge of four cents per pound paid by them to the said defendant, from August, 1863, to July, 1864, for permits to purchase and ship to the loyal States large quantities of cotton, amounting to over seven millions of pounds.

In such cases when a return is awarded, it is “upon the said defendant entering into bond, with security to be approved by the court, conditioned for the return of said property, if the same be adjudged by the court.”* This statute being in force, Henry Douglass executed in Washington, D. C., a penal bond of the sort mentioned to William Douglass, in the sum of $11,000.

In trials of actions upon contracts, express or implied, where the action is brought by partners, or by joint payees or obligee's, it shall not be necessary for the plaintitf, in order to maintain any such action, to prove the copartnership of the individuals named in such action, or to prove the Christian or surnames of such .partners, or joint payees, or obligees; but the names of such copartners, joint payees, or obligees, shall be presumed to be set forth in the…

Smith, a holder of a patent from the United States, filed a bill, on the 19th of November, 1868, against Nichols, in the court below, to enforce and protect his rights as patentee. The subject-matter of the patent was an elastic woven fabric, especially adapted to use in forming gores for what are known as Congress or gaiter-boots, though applicable to other uses.

† The act enacts as follows: “§ 2. The.city of Sacramento shall be governed by a board of trustees consisting of three members. “ § 3. The officers of the city of Sacramento shall be a' first, second, and third trustee, who shall constitute a board of trustees. “§4. The board of trustees shall be designated as follows: The first trustee shall be president of the board of trustees and general executive officer of the city government. “ § 5.

Walter Bondurant brought this action against one Watson, in the court below, to recover possession of a lot of land containing one hundred and sixty acres, in the parish of Tensas, Louisiana. The ease was thus: Daniel Bondurant, owning a large plantation in the said parish of Tensas, died intestate, leaving three sons, Horace, Albert, and John, and also a grandson, the plaintiff, then an infant, and coheir with them.

Held: that the State court did not refuse to accord due force and effect to the judgment; that such a judgment in the State courts would not be conclusive on the point in question, and the judgment of the Circuit Court could not have any greater force or effect than judgments in the State courts. *131 Error to the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana; the case being thus: Pierre Sauvé, of the city of New Orleans, being…

Vermilye & Co., bankers of New York, having presented to the Treasury of the United States for payment some time after their maturity eight treasury notes issued under the authority of the act of March 5th, 1865, were informed that the Adams Express Company asserted an ownership of .the notes, and that they could not be paid until the question of ¿he rightful ownership was settled.

, this court will reverse the judgment, founded on that conclusion. Error to the Circuit Court for the District of California. French brought ejectment, on the 30th of November, 1872, in the court below, against Edwards and twelve others, for a piece of land in California. The case was submitted to the court without the intervention of a jury. The court found these facts: (1) That K. H. Vance, on the 1st of March, 1862, was seized in fee of the premises in controversy.

Mahone and wife brought debt on a policy of life insurance issued by the American Life Insurance Company, August 30th, 1870, for $5000, on the life of one Dillard. The policy was issued to him, but to be paid to Mrs. Malone, one of the plaintiffs, his sister, within sixty days after notice of his death, with proviso, that it should be void “ if he shall become so far intemperate as to impair his health.” Dillard died November 4th, 1870, at a place called Edwards’s Depot.

Sidney Sea sued the Springfield Fire and Marine Insurance Company .upon a policy of insurance. On the trial a jury was waived, and the cause submitted to the court, under the provisions of the act of March 5th, 1865.* The plea was the general issue, with a stipulation by the parties that the defendant might offer anyr and every matter in evidence under it, with the like effect as though such matter had been specially pleaded.

Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that citizenship does not confer a right to vote, and therefore state laws barring women from voting are constitutionally valid. The Supreme Court upheld state court decisions in Missouri, which had refused to register a woman as a lawful voter because that state's laws allowed only men to vote. The Minor v. Happersett ruling was based on an interpretation of the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court readily accepted that Minor was a citizen of the United States, but it held that the constitutionally protected privileges of citizenship did not include the right to vote.

Held: J.s to the notes. That the insolvency of the company and the decision of the Supreme Court of Maine were a sufficient defence. It said : *182 “This decision was made in 185S. and was almos| universally acquiesced in by the profession; hundreds of actions were decided in accordance with it, and it was not until December, 18G4, that the decision was reversed by the Supremo Court of the United States.

<p>Appeal from the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The ease was thus:</p> <p>Adams, a government clerk, in Washington, owning a house and lot there, on the 13th of August, 1861, executed, with his wife, a deed of the premises to one Appleton, in fee, as trustee for the wife. The deed by appropriate words in preesenii conveyed, so far as its terms were concerned, the property for the sole and separate use of the wife for life, with power to lease and to take the rents for her own use, as if she was a feme sole; the trustee having power, on request of the wife, to sell aud convey the premises in fee and pay the proceeds to her or as she might direct; and after her death (no sale having been made), the trust being that the trustee should hold the property for the children of the marriage as tenants in common, and in default of issue living at the death of the wife, then for Adams, the husband, his heirs and assigns.</p> <p>The deed was signed by the grantors, and the husband acknowledged it before two justices “to be his act aud deed.” The wife did the same; being separately examined The instrument purported to be “signed, sealed, and delivered” in the presence of the same justices, and they signed it as attesting witnesses. The husband put it himself on record in the registry of deeds for the county of Washington, D. C., which was the appropriate place of record for it.</p> <p>Subsequent to this, that is to say in September, 1870, the husband and wife were divorced by judicial decree.</p> <p>And subsequently to this again, that is to say, in December, 1871 — the husband being iu possession of the deed, and denying that any trust was ever created and executed, and Appleton, on the wife’s request, declining to assert the trust, or to act as trustee, Mrs. Adams filed a bill in the court below against them both, to establish the deed as a settlement made upon her by her husband, to compel a delivery of it to her; to remove Appleton, the trustee named in it, and to have some, suitable person appointed trustee in his place.</p> <p>The bill alleged the making of the indenture on the day of its date, set forth the trusts as above given, appended a copy of it as part of the bill, alleged the fact and place of record of the original, and averred that the original indenture, after being duly signed, sealed, acknowledged, and delivered by the parties thereto, was recorded at the exclusive expense and express instance and request of the husband, Adams, who afterwards, as the friend of the complainant and the agent of Appleton, the trustee, obtained possession of the original, which was still in his custody or under his control.</p> <p>The bill further alleged the dissolution of the marriage by law, and that the complainant, relying upon the provisions of the deed referred to, neither sought nor obtained alimony in that suit; and further, that she had accepted, and still accepted the benefits of the trust; that Appleton declined to act as trustee, to allow the use of his name, or in any way to aid her in the matter; that her husband, the defendant' was in possession, receiving the rents and profits, and declined to acknowledge her rights in the premises.</p> <p>Adams, the husband, after denying that the allegation of the bill was true in manner and form as stated, answered as follows:</p> <p>“I admit that a certain indenture was made, but it never was executed and delivered to the said Appleton, or to any other person in his behalf, or to his use, either by myself or by any person whatever.' I never at any time intended to deliver said deed so as to render it valid and effectual in law, but designedly retained said deed in my own possession without any delivery whatever.</p> <p>“I admit that I placed said deed on record in tbe registry of deeds of the county of Washington, and it never has been out of my possession except for the time it was necessary to be recorded.</p> <p>“ I admit and aver the fact to be that owing to the disturbed and revolutionary character of the times and the threatened condition of the city of Washington, and other contingencies growing out of the state of war then existing, I caused said deed to be made and partially executed, so that upon short notice I could deliver it and make it effectual, or make such other changes of the title as I might think proper growing out of any changed circumstances, retaining, in the meantime, the future control of the title to the same; that said deed was not delivered to my then wife, nor did I intend to make it a settlement upon her; that I have kept and maintained possession of the premises, making, in the meantime, extensive repairs and improvements upon the property, paying the taxes and insurance, and collecting the rents issuing from the same, and I most emphatically deny the existence of any such trust as the plaintiff, in her bill of complaint, alleges to exist and seeks the aid of this court to enforce.”</p> <p>Appleton also answered,, alleging that if any such deed as described was executed, it was executed without bis knowledge or consent; that no such deed was ever delivered to him, and that he never accepted any trust imposed by it; that he was never informed of the existence of the deed till 1870, when he was informed of it by the complainant, and that he then declined to act as trustee.</p> <p>Mrs. Adams, the complainant, was examined as a witness. Bhe stated that the defendant told her that he wanted to make over this house to her and her children, to be for their sole and entire use while she lived and for the children after her death. She stated further that she had entire confidence in her husband, so much so that she never took the paper, but left it in his possession, thinking that her interests were perfectly safe in his hands; that she saw it frequently, and that there was nothing to prevent her taking possession of it; that this deed was a frequent subject of conversation between her husband and herself, and that he always spoke of it as making the property over to her during her lifetime, and to her children after her death, and that the deed was always understood between them to be good and valid. None of these statements were denied by Mr. Adams.</p> <p>Testimony of the same character was given by other witnesses. One (the brother of the complainant) testified that the defendant told him emphatically that the house and lot was made over to the complainant as her property, as a provision for the support of herself and children against acei-. dents. This witness specified three different occasions on which these statements were made, giving the details of the conversations. The defendant made uo. denial of these statements.</p> <p>Another witness (a sister-in-law of the complainant) gave testimony to the same purport, giving one conversation in detail. No denial of her statements was made by the defendant.</p> <p>There were no other witnesses. Neither of the defendants testified.</p> <p>The court below declared the trust valid and effective in equity as between the parties; appointed a new trustee;' required the husband to deliver up the deed to the wife or to the new trustee; and to deliver also to him possession of the premises described in the deed of trust, and to account before the master for the rents and profits of it which had accrued since the filing of the bill, receiving credit for any payment made to the complainant in the meantime, and to pay the complainant’s costs of the suit.</p> <p>From a decree accordingly, the husband appealed.</p>

It required the commissioners of the Central Park of the city, within four months after its passage, to lay out and establish the lines of the street, so as to -widen and straighten it, and to cause certificates and maps of the location of the new lines to be filed in certain public offices of the city, and declared that such certificates and maps should be final and conclusive as to the extent and boundaries of the proposed improvement; and that the part of Broadway thus…

, embraced in the patent. The “grant” was thus: “ Whereas letters-patent have been granted to and are now held bj*- the said party of the first part, for a coal-burner so constructed as to produce combustion of the inflammable gases of anthracite coal, which letters bear date the 15th of April, 1851.

Appeal in admiralty from a decree of the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. The Home Insurance Company of New York was the insurer of a cargo of wheat shipped on a barge appurtenant to the steamer Mohler, on the 12th of May, 1866, at Mankato, on the Minnesota River, in the State of Minnesota— the river then being high — and destined to St. Paul, on the Mississippi.

<p>On petition for mandamus to the circuit judge for the New York Circuit. The case was thus:</p> <p>Sawyer and others libelled Oakman in admiralty in the District Court of Massachusetts and got a decree against him. Oakmau appealed to the Circuit Court for that district, but the presiding justice of it, having been counsel in the cause, or otherwise disqualified, it was transferred, under the act of Congress providing for such cases, to the Circuit Court for New York circuit.*</p> <p>After this transfer, an order was made in the Circuit Court of New York that the decree of the District Court be carried into effect, unless the appellant gave stipulation by security of himself and two sureties for the payment of all damages and costs on the appeal to the said Circuit Court, and in this court, in the sum of $10,000.</p> <p>Hereupon Oakman, without its being seen or approved by the court, filed ex parte a certificate, intended as “stipulations,” signed by the commissioner of the Massachusetts circuit, and certifying that Oakman, as principal, and James Lee, Jr., and Wade Davis, as sureties, were bound in $10,000 that Oakmau should pay all damages and costs which might be awarded against him in the suit. The paper was not signed by either the principal or the sureties, and herein was not iu conformity to the rules about stipulations of the New York circuit.</p> <p>On subsequently hearing the appeal, the Circuit Court for New York affirmed the decree of the District Court, and adjudged that the appellees recover of the appellant the sum of $7970. The decree then proceeded as follows:</p> <p>“ And it is further ordered, adjudged, and decreed that unless an appeal be taken from this decree within the time prescribed by law, a summary judgment therefor be entered in favor of the said libellants, appellees, and against James Lee, Jr., and Wade Davis (sureties on appeal from the District Court in the sum of $10,000, the amount of their stipulations by them given on said appeal), and that the said appellees have execution therefor, to satisfy said decree.”</p> <p>'Within the time prescribed by law an appeal was taken to this* court, where the decree of the Circuit Court was affirmed and the cause remanded with instructions to the effect “ .that such execution and proceedings be had in said cause as according to right and justice and the laws of the United States ought to be had, the said appeal notwithstanding.” Upon the filing of this mandate the libellants moved the Circuit Court for a decree charging the sureties upon the stipulation and ordering execution against them. This motion the circuit judge refused to grant, and instead ordered that the sureties show cause, if any they had, why such execution should not issue. Afterwards, upon cause shown, the court) for the first time, observed the peculiar form of the paper purporting to be the stipulations, and that it was not executed according to its rules. It accordingly held that the sureties were not liable upon the alleged stipulation, and refused to decree or award execution against them.</p> <p>The libellants now moved this court for a mandamus requiring the Circuit Court to cause such decree and order to be entered.</p>

T; Pelton, a resident of Chicago, Illinois, and doing business there, drew a draft on Tilden & Co., residents of New Lebanon in the State of New York, payable to his own order, for $5000 at sixty days, dating it at Chicago.

” This clause of the constitution of 1865, commonly called “the double liability clause,” being in force (with a statute also prescribing a method of giving effect to it), the Alexandria and Nebraska City Railroad Company — a Missouri company, with a paid-up capital of $2,000,000 — in May, 1869, became indebted to one Ochiltree.

Held: that the interrogatories were pertinent and proper in themselves; that the objection that they related to speculative damages did not apply to the first and last, in which the damages sustained would be the subject of actual estimation, and that the facts sought would at least have furnished elements to the jury for a just estimate of the damages to be recouped from the demand of the contractor. 8.

Caldwell sued the Southern Express Company in the court below, as a common carrier, for its failure to deliver at New Orleans a package received by it on the 23d day of April, 1862, at Jackson, Tennessee; places the transit between which requires only about one day.

Tennessee. Debt on a joint and several internal-revenue bond, executed by Emory, as principal, and by Butler, Sawyer, and Choppin as sureties, the bond on oyer appearing to be in the sum of $15,000.

<p>Where a statute of a State places the whole estate, real and personal, of a decedent within the custody of the Probate Court of the county, so that the assets may be fairly and equally distributed among creditors, without distinction as to whether resident or non-resident, a non-resident creditor may get a judgment in a Federal court against the resident executor or administrator, and come in on the estate according to the law of the State for such payment as that law, marshalling the rights of creditors, awards to debtors of his class. But he cannot because he has obtained a judgment in the Federal court, issue execution and take precedence of other creditors who have no right to sue in the Federal courts; and if he do issue execution and sell lands, the sale is void.</p>

<p>Error to the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York; the case being thus:</p> <p>The one hundred and tenth section of the Revenue Act of the United States, as amended on the 13th of July, 1866,* enacts—</p> <p>“ That there shall be levied, collected, and paid a tax of one twenty-fourth of one per centum each month . . . upon the capital of any bank, association, company, or corporation, and on the capital employed by any person in the business of banking beyond the average amount invested in United States bonds.”</p> <p>And the seventy-ninth section of the same act as amended,. declares—</p> <p>“That every incorporated or other bank, and every person, firm, or company having a place of business where credits are opened by the deposit or collection of money or currency, subject tQ be paid or remitted upon draft, cheek, or order; or where money is advanced or loaned on stocks, bonds, bullion, bills of exchange or promissory notes; or where stocks, bonds, bullion, bills of exchange, or promissory notes are received for discount or for sale, shall be regarded as a bank or as a banker.”†</p> <p>During the years 1869 and 1870, Clark and others were bankers within the meaning of this statute, doing business in the city of New York, under the name of Clark, Dodge & Co.; and at various times between the 1st of April, 1869, and the 1st of February, 1870, they made returns, as required by law, to the assessor of internal revenue for the district, of the amount of their fixed capital employed in banking, and of the amount of moneys deposited with them by their customers. The assessor required more than this; he insisted, against the objection of Clark, Dodge & Co., that all moneys borrowed by them from time to time, and temporarily in the ordinary course of their business, formed a part of their capital employed in the business of banking, and were subject to the tax imposed upon capital, under the section cited. He accordingly assessed a tax upon the several amounts thus borrowed within the dates mentioned, as part of the capital of the company.</p> <p>One Bailey was at the time collector of internal revenue nrthe district, and as such officer enforced the payment of the taxes thus assessed, amounting to over six thousand dollars. Clark, Dodge & Co. protested at the time against the legality of the assessment, and appealed from the decision of the assessor to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Failing to obtain any rescission of the assessment or restitution of the moneys paid, they brought the present action for their recovery.</p> <p>The action was tried by the court without the intervention of a jury, by stipulation of the parties, under the recent act of Congress. The court found the facts as above stated, but with greater detail, and held that the money thus temporarily borrowed by the plaintiffs in the ordinary course of their business was not capital of the company employed in the business of banking, and was not, therefore, liable to assessment as part of such capital; and that the assessment and collection of the tax was, therefore, illegal and unauthorized. The court accordingly gave judgment for the plaintiffs: To review that judgment, the case was brought here on writ of error.</p>

The case arose in this wise: In April, 1866, one Yaugh A. Ililburn, a resident of Mississippi, executed to Hugh Allison and others a mortgage upon certain real property situated' in that State, to secure the payment of his promissory note of the same date for §12,000, payable in March of the following year. In April, 1867, the mortgagor sold and conveyed the premises for a valuable consideration to one Eliza Kyle, and placed her at the time in possession.

Held: that hogs were included within the term cattle, and that B.’s drafts against shipments of hogs not having been paid, the Bank of Decatur was responsible on.its letter of credit. 2.

The manner in which the said yearly payments were to be made was thus: Cole was to cut not less than three million feet of logs in each of the three years, and to pay Leonard, monthly, for every thousand feet cut and removed from the lands, the sum of $8; it being provided and agreed that in case the said monthly payments should fall short of the yearly payments agreed on as just mentioned, Cole was to make up the deficiency.

Held: 1st. That the act of Congress authorized a sale of one hundred and.twenty sections in advance of the construction of any part of the road, and that it was pnly as to the sale of the remaining sections that the provision requiring a previous completion of twenty miles applied ; 2d. That there was no restriction upon the State us to the. place where the one hundred and twenty sections should bo selected along tho line…

Clews & Co. brought an action at law, in the court below, against Chambers County, Alabama, to procure payment of certain coupons attached to ninety-three bonds of $1000 each, issued by the county. The bonds purported to be issued in aid of a certain railroad named in each of them, and to have been issued under the authority and in pursuance of an act of the legislature of the State of Alabama, approved December 31st, 1868.

■Error to the Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The Bankrupt Act enacts: “Section 35.

Bailey, assignee in bankruptcy of Benjamin Glover, and appointed as such December 1st, 1869, filed a bill on the 20th of January, 1873 (three years and seven weeks, therefore, after the date of his appointment) against Elenora Glover, wife of the bankrupt, Hugh Weir, his father-in-law, and Nathaniel Glover, his son, to set aside certain conveyances.

Held: on a question whether he had been trading with the enemy, not to have lost his original domicile, and accordingly to have been so trading. Appeal from the Court of Claims. That court found the following facts: At the beginning of the late rebellion, Mitchell, the claimant and appellant, lived in Louisville, Kentucky. He was engaged in business there.

Held: 1st, that the bonds were negotiable instruments notwithstanding the agreement respecting the scrip preferred stock contained in them, that agreement being independent of the pecuniary obligation of the company; and, 2d, that the absence of the certificates originally attached to the bonds, when the latter were taken by the defendants, was not of itself a circumstance sufficient to put the defendants upon inquiry as…

Held: and took up the collaterals aud notes. Thus a payment was effected on the judgment of *364 the difference between the amount of the notes and the col-laterals. Then Dibblee & Co. paid $1900 in cash, and transferred bills receivable and accounts owned by them, amounting to $47,839.52, in satisfaction of the balance of the judgment, and the levy was released.

On certificate of division in opinion from the Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The case was thus: Taylor, prior to the 4th of August, 1868, was, and at the time of this suit still continued to be, a wholesale drygoods merchant, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Sweeney, prior to the same day, was, and until January 13th, 1869, continued to be, a retail merchant, residing and doing business in Freeport, Pennsylvania.

<p>A confirmation of a claim to land in California under a grant from the former Mexican government, obtained under the net of Congress of March 3d, 1851, is limited by the extent of the claim made ; nnd the decree of confirmation cannot be used to maintain the title to other land embraced within the boundaries of the grant.</p>

, and which was under consideration in the present case, held not to be sustained by any of these considerations. 5.

Post, assignee in bankruptcy of the Macary Brothers, filed a bill against Henry Michaels and Nathan Levi, partners, to make them account for the value of certain merchandise (an entire stock in trade, worth about $4200), which Post, as assignee, alleged that the said Macary Brothers had transferred to the said Michaels & Levi in fraud of the Bankrupt law, The case, as it appeared on the weight of evidence, and as it .was assumed by this court to be, was thus: Harlow Macary…

Held: that a contractor, agreeing with the corporation to construct a portion of the road, and obtaining the assent of two of the trustees to his contract, and subsequently doing'the work, did not acquire any lien for the payment of his work, under this covenant of the indenture, upon ' the funds received by the corporation from the bonds.

N. P. Trist having a claim against the United States for his services, rendered in 1848, touching the treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo — a claim which the government had not recognized — resolved, in 1866-7 to submit it to Congress and to ask payment of it. And he made an agreement with Linus Child, of Boston, that Child should take charge of the claim and prosecute it before Congress as his agent and attorney.

Hill sued Mendenhall in the court below upon a judgment in one of the courts of record in the State of Minnesota. The plea was nul tiel record alone. Upon the trial of the issue made by this plea, the plaintiff introduced in evidence an exemplification of the record sued upon.

Held: 1st. That this stipulation was not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. 2d. That it was a contract to pay, and not a receipt of money belonging to the State; and, if unconstitutional, the objection could be set up as a defence to an action brought by the State to recover the money. 3d. That as the alleged unconstitutionality of the stipulation was set up as a defence, the State court was bound to pass…

Young as a contractor (excavator) under'them. By the terms of the contract with Young, Fox & Howard were to pay him, on the 15th of December, 1870, a certain sum per cubic yard of earth excavated; payments to be made as follows: “To the laborers employed in doing said work the.amount ascertained to be due to them for their services and the balance to the said Young.” Young finished his work November 24th, 1870, and being in debt to one Burrows, as also to three other persons…

By the constitution of Texas, on the subject of “ The Homestead,” it is ordained that “ the owner thereof, if a married man, shall not be at liberty to alienate the same unless by the consent of the wife,” &c.* With the abovementioned provision of the constitution of Texas in force, one Gustavus Kirohberg, a blacksmith, and Catherine, his wife, went from Pennsylvania, A.D. 1849, to the city of Austin, Texas, and immediately bought lot 6 in block 111 in the city named.

This was an application for an order that a subpoena issue for John Chiles, the defendant in the ease of Texas v. Chiles (a case in equity), in order that his deposition might be taken on behalf of the complainant. The proper disposition of the motion depended upon the solution of the question whether he could be required to testify by the other party.

<p>Error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.</p> <p>The question in this case was that of the right and intention of the State of Pennsylvania to impose a tax upon the. gross receipts of the Erie Railway Company, a corporation created by the State of New York and having a portion of its road in Pennsylvania. The case was thus:</p> <p>In May, 1868, the legislatui-e of Pennsylvania passed an act, by the seventh and eighth sections of which there was imposed a tax of three-fourths of one per cent, upon the gross receipts “of every railroad company, steamboat company, now or hereafter doing business in the State, and upon whose works freight may be transported, whether by such company or individuals.”</p> <p>Under this section the accounting officers of the State of Pennsylvania settled an account against the Erie Railway Company. From this settlement an appeal was taken, in pursuance of the practice of that State, by the company to the Dauphin County Court, where a verdict for $76,788 was rendered in favor of the State, which, upon an appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, was sustained. Prom this judgment of the Supreme Court a writ of error brought the ease to this court.</p> <p>It was decided by this court, as the reader will remember, in the case of the State Tax on Railway Gross Receipts,* that a tax upon the gross receipts of a railroad company is such a tax as it is within the power of the State to impose.</p> <p>Not denying the effect of this decision, the Erie Railway Company still contended that the tax in question was hot legal, for two reasons: 1st. Because this company was not intended b}7 the legislature to be embraced within the terms of the act of 1868; and 2d, because the(terms and conditions of former acts of the legislature had created an agreement with the company that it should be exempt from taxation except to a limited extent and in-a specified manner, which was not the manner in w’hich it was now taxed.</p> <p>To understand these positions, it is necessary to give a short statement both about the company and about the acts of Pennsylvania, whose meaning was under consideration.</p> <p>The Erie Railroad Company was chartered by an act of the legislature of the'State of New York, April 24th, 1832, with power to- construct a railroad from the city of New York to Lake Erie, through the southern tier of counties, of the State of New York. By an act passed in 1846 it was authorized to locate a certain portion of its road in the State of Pennsylvania.. By subsequent foreclosure and legislation the present Erie Railway Company was formed, with all the fights and authorities conferred upon the Erie Railroad Company.</p> <p>On the 16th of February, 1841, the legislature of Pennsylvania, by an act in which it is recited that for the purpose of avoiding certain engineering difficulties in one of the counties of New York, through which the straightest course of the road of the Erie Railroad Company lay, it was desirable that the road should be located for a distance of about fifteen miles through the county of Susquehanna, a county on the north line of Pennsylvania, enacted that the ‘said road might be located upon such route through said Susquehanna County as the company should find to be expedient. The Company was authorized to enter upon and take the lands of individuals; also gravel, stone, or wood, for the purpose of constructing the road; paying for the same if the amount was agreed upon; if not, to be ascertained by an appraisement of the damages as in the act is prescribed. Nothing of any sort was said in this act about taxation.</p> <p>By a second act, an act of March 27th, 1846, authority was further given to this company to construct its road through another of the northern counties of Pennsylvania— the county of Pike — for a distance not exceeding thirty miles, with the same general powers and under the same general restrictions.</p> <p>This act contained two provisions in reference to taxation.</p> <p>One was in section five of the act, by which it was enacted that, after the road should be completed through the counties of Pike and Susquehanna, an accurate account of the cost of that portion of the road should be filed in the office of the auditor-general, and that, after the road should be completed to Dunkirk, or extended by any other improvement to Lake Erie, the company should annually pay into the treasury the sum of $10,000.</p> <p>The other was in the sixth section, which provided that tfie stock of the company to an amount equal to the cost of the construction of that part of their road situate in Pennsyl vania “ shall be subject to taxation by this Commonwealth in the same, manner and at the same rate as other similar property is or may be subject; . . . and the company shall annually make a statement of its affairs . . . and of the business done upon said road during the previous year, said statement to contain a full and accurate account of the number of passengers, amount and weight of pi'oduee, merchandise, lumber, coal, and minerals transferred on said road east of Dunkirk and west of Piermont.”</p> <p>But in neither section five nor section six was there any engagement in terms not to tax the road in any other way than by them was done.</p> <p>The whole length of the Erie railroad is 455 miles, 42^ miles of which are in the State of Pennsylvania, in Pike and Susquehauna Counties.</p> <p>The gross receipts of the company upon its main line (of which this 42£ miles were a part) in the year 1869 were $9,266,349.33. Of this sum fifths, viz., $884,988.38, was adjudged to be the portion taxable in Pennsylvania under the statute imposing the tax in question. Upon this sum, three-fourths of one per cent, was imposed as a tax, and in this manner the sum of the tax for several years, with interest and expenses, was made up.</p>

Little, as assignee in bankruptcy of J. R. Alexander, the father, filed a bill against T. L. Alexander, the son, to have certain real estate of the bankrupt, the father, and which had come as paid of his assets to the complainant as assignee, relieved from the apparent incumbrance of a judgment which the son had got against it; the father having made no opposition to the obtaining of the judgment.

This was a suit in equity brought by the alleged heirs-at-law of David C. Broderick, late United States Senator from California, to set aside the probate of his will, and have the same declared a forgery, and to recover the said Broderick’s estate, much of which consisted of lands now comprised in the thickly settled portions of the city of San Francisco.

Held: as matter of law, under the foregoing facts: “1st. That the act of confirmation of 1897 was a present grant, becoming so far operative and complete, to convey the legal title when the land' was located and surveyed by the United Stales in 1820, as that an action of ejectment could be maintained on the same. “2d. That the patent was not Of itself the grant of the land by the United States, but only the evidence that…

of the case, given by the reporter, is thus: “ The admiralty jurisdiction of the courts of the United States does not extend to cases where a lien is claimed by the builders of a vessel for work done and materials found in its construction.

Held: on the evidence, that the lien for supplies had not been perfected under the State law; and, if it had been, that the libels for such supplies could not be sustained prior to the recent change in the twelfth admiralty rule.

provide a National currency secured by a pledge of United States bonds, and to provide few the circulation and redemption thereof,”* the act commonly known as the National Banking Act. Payment of the draft was refused.

Held: he had no right so to use it as to obtain an advantage for himself over the other . bondholders. He had no right to employ it as an instrument by which he might become the owner of the property mortgaged at the lowest possible price at which it could be obtained, leaving the bonds held by his associate holders unpaid.

Held: except as to the State of Louisiana, where a peculiar practice prevails, that we would not look into the opinions of the courts to ascertain what had been decided. * Since that act, however, in Murdock v. Memphis, † we intimated that we might, under some circumstances, examine those opinions, when properly authenticated, as far as might be useful for the purpose of ascertaining that fact, but at the same time were…

- Bailey, assignee in bankruptcy of a bankrupt, filed a bill in chancery in the District Court against Wood, Whitfield, and others, in regard to a mortgage held by Wood, and a supposed vendor’s lien claimed by the other parties, on lands owned by the bankrupt and passing to the assignee by the assignment in bankruptcy. The object of the bill was to contest the validity of these liens-, and to have a sale of the land discharged of the claims asserted by the defendants.

<p>Error to the Circuit Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.</p> <p>Doe, lessee of Vaillant, assignee of Montgomery, a bankrupt, brought ejectment against Childress to recover land in Tennessee.</p> <p>The question was this:</p> <p>"When attachment proceedings are regularly commenced, a levy made, and the property is in the possession of the sheriff' before the tiling of petition in bankruptcy; — when there is no stay of proceedings or other measures in the bankrupt court to arrest the suit in the State court, there being no fraud, a sale is had under the judgment of the State court, a deed is given by the sheriff, and possession taken under it — can the title acquired under such sale be attacked by the assignee collaterally in a suit at law ?</p> <p>In other words, can the assignee allege that under these circumstances the State court had no jurisdiction to proceed in the action after an adjudication in bankruptcy, and that no title passed to the purchaser under the judgment of the State court?</p> <p>The defendant’s title rested upon a purchase under two decrees in the Court of Chancery of the State of Tennessee. Proceedings in the suit were commenced by attachment on the 15th and 27th days of April, 1867. Decrees in them were obtained in April and June, 1868, and on the 17th of September, 1868, sales were made under the decrees. The purchaser then entered into possession, and the defendant under him now claimed title and possession by virtue of that purchase. By the laws of Tennessee the levy of an attachment gives a specific lien in the property described in them.*</p> <p>Montgomery had filed his petition to be declared a bankrupt on the 18th of February, 1868. This was ten months after the attachment proceedings had been commenced, and four months before the decrees were obtained in those suits, and seven months before the sale took place under those decrees.</p> <p>He was adjudged a bankrupt on the 27th of February, 1868.. This again was about seven months before the sale under State decrees took place, and ten months after the actual commencement of the attachment proceedings in the State court.</p> <p>' The fourteenth section of the Bankrupt Act enacts that the register shall convey to the assignee all the estate, real and personal, of the bankrupt. The section thus proceeds:</p> <p>“And such assignment shall relate back to the commencement of the proceedings in bankruptcy, and thereupon, by operation of law, the title to all such property and estate shall vest in said assignee, although the same is then attached on mesne process as the property of the debtor, and shall dissolve any such attachment made within four months next preceding the commencement of said proceedings.”</p> <p>; The court below held that the attachment was not dissolved, and gave judgment for the defendant. Thereupon the plaintiff brought the case here.</p>

Sun petition for mandamus. ■ On tlio 8th of June, 1872, Congress passed the following act: ■“ An act referring the claim of the heirs and legal representatives of Colonel Francis Vigo, deceased, to the Court of Claims for adjustment. “ Be it enacted, &e., That the claim of the heirs and legal representatives of Colonel Francis Vigo, deceased, late of Terre Haute, Indiana, for money and supplies furnished the troops under command of General George Rogers Clarke, in tho year…

The United States sued Henry Boecker, principal, and C. Schorr and F. Altevoght, his sureties, in a distiller’s bond.

Morton sued certain tenants of the State of Nebraska in ejectment to recover three hundred and twenty acres of salt land — salines—in the said State; a State formed, as every reader of these volumes is aware, out of that vast region formerly known as the Territory of Louisiana and purchased in 1803 by us from France. The land in question was palpably saline, so incrusted with salt as to resemble snow-covered lakes.