From tbe chancery court of Jackson county.

Hon. Thaddeus A. Wood, Chancellor.

Mrs. Frederic and others, the appellants, were complainants in the court below; Mayers, appellee, was defendant there. The bill sought the cancellation of defendant’s claim to a lot in the town of Scranton as a cloud upon complainants’ title thereto. From a decree wholly in defendant’s favor the complainants appealed to the supreme court.

In 1874 one Melanethon Smith established a newspaper in the town of Scranton, Miss., having secured donations from the citizens of that place, and having obtained the promise of W. E. Frederic, the ancestor of the complainants, of the lot upon which to erect a building. In order to fully understand the conditions of the donation of the lot, he wrote Frederic, who was then a resident of New Orleans, a letter, substantially as follows :

“I now have the lumber on the ground and am ready to commence an office for the Star. I propose to build on the lot which you pointed* out to me, . . . and will be pleased if you will Vrite and state the agreement, that there may be no mistake.”

To which letter Frederic replied in substance as follows:

“I agree to give you the privilege of building an office for the publication of the Star, on the lot pointed out by you. . . . You can retain possession of the lot and building as long as you use the same for an office for the Star.”

The building was erected, and the publication of the Star continued by Smith for about two years, when he sold out to one Richmond, who afterwards consolidated his paper with the Democrat, published by Mayers, the appellee, and they jointly published the Democrat-Star, occupying and holding the lot on which Smith had begun the publication of .the Star. In 1884 Richmond sold his interest to Mayers for $1,000, taking from him a conveyance which, after describing the personal property, concludes: “Together with all my rights in the books and business of the aforesaid printing office and the rights to the ground upon which it stands.” 'About the time of the sale to Mayers, Frederic moved to Scranton and lived there until his death in Í904, and knew of the conveyance to Mayers; he acquiesced in the same, and stated to several persons that Mayers had the use of the lot so long as he continued to publish a newspaper, and when he ceased to' do. so the lot was to revert.

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