Volume 82 — United States Reports

The Portland Company, a corporation of Maine, filed a petition in the court just named to recover the drawback allowed by'the 17th section of the act of June 30th, 1864,* on certain locomotive-eiigines exported by them. The engines were manufactured by the company under a contract with the United States, and the internal revenue.tax thereon was paid. Afterwards the engines were sold by the government at public auction, and the company bought them.

Motion to dismiss a writ of error to the Supremo Court of Iowa, which liad been sued out on the assumption that the case came within the third danse of the 25th section of the Judiciary Act.

On motion to dismiss a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut. Johnson held bonds of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad Company, secured by mortgage on the road and by the transfer of certain stock to Huntington and Nichols, as trustees. The bonds were not paid at maturity, and Johnson filed a petition in equity in the Superior Court of New London County, Connecticut, praying that the mortgage be foreclosed, and sale ordered of the stock.

Held: as laid down by Lord Mansfield, in Zouch v. Parsons, ¶ that deeds of an infant *26 which do not take effect by delivery of his hand (in which class he places a letter of attorney), are void. Wo are not aware that any different rule exists in England or in this country.

United States for a term not exceeding seven years, and that when the value of the goods unladed exceed $400, the vessel, tackle, apparel, and furniture shall be subject to seizure and condemnation.” The same statute, after directing how seizures for violations of it shall be made, enacts: “Section 71.

This was an appeal by the United States from a judgment of the Court of Claims, in favor of one Kelly, lately a soldier in the army of the United States, for an uupaid balance of bounty money. The claim was denied by the pay department, on the ground that the bounty had been forfeited by desertion.

On the 5th of February, 1864, Smoot entered into two contracts with the War Department through Eakin, quartermaster; one to deliver within forty days 2500 cavalry horses at St. Louis, and the othér to deliver within fifty days 2000 like horses at Chicago, at the government stables in each place; of certain qualifications set forth in the contracts, and subject to the inspection provided for in one article of the contract, which was as follows: “ It is agreed that the horses,…

Held: that as the record stood, there was no case that this court could examine. 2.

Held: after a review of the statutory provisions and the treasury regulations concerning the purchase of products of insurrectionary States, that a purchasing agent, acting in behalf of the Uuited States, had no authority to negotiate with any one in relation to the purchase of such products, unless at the time of the negotiation the party either owned or controlled them; in other .words, that they were not designed to…

An act of Congress of March 2d, 1867,* provides that “There shall be levied, collected, and paid annually upon the gains, profits, and income of every person, . . . whether derived from any kind of property, rents, interest, dividends, or salaries, or from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation, ... or from any other source whatever,... a tax of five per centum on the amount so derived over $1000. . . .

On motion to dismiss a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the State of Texas, ■ The suit below was upon a note payable in common currency circulating in the State of Texas at its maturity, that is, on the 27th day of November, 1.8.63, This common currency was Confederate notes, and the note in .question was given for the purchase of land. The Supreme Court of the State held that the transaction was a gambling one, and dismissed the suit on that ground.

The case was thus: An act of June 30th, 1864,† to provide internal revenue to support the government, to pay interest on the public debt, and for other purposes, amended’ by an act of March 3d, 1865,‡ laid duties on nearly every sort of manufacture, including pig iron, railroad iron, all iron advanced beyond blooms, slabs, or loops, on iron castings used for .bridges or' other permanent structures, on stoves and hollow-ware, on steel in ingots, bars, sheet, or wire, &c., &c.…

In this suit Van Arsdale sued Erskine, a collector of internal revenue, to recover back certain taxes paid by him after March 2d, 1867, on thimble-skeins and pipe-boxes made of iron.

Held: an act was passed by which the State accepted the grant thus made of the Yosemite Valley and Big Tree Grove, upon “the conditions, reservations, and stipulations” contained in the act of Cougress, and the governor and eight commissioners, who had previously been appointed by him during the recess of the legislature, were constituted a board of commissioners, “ with full power to manage and administer the grant made,…

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company were the proprietors of a canal which, at its terminus in Georgetown, D. C., was much higher than the Potomac River, and so furnished by its surplus water a considerable water power. This power the company had for many years been in the habit of leasing out to the proprietors of various mills built not far from the side of the canal.

filed a bill in the court below against one Shinn, to enforce contribution to the repayment of advances made by their assignors for the repairs and expenses of a steamer called the Fairfax; the bill averring that Shinn was owner of one-fourth part of the vessel, and Shinn by his answer denying this averment of his ownership, and asserting a mere interest as mortgagee.

Held: that the official bond of the distillers and their sureties, in this case executed in January, 1869, does not bind them to make reimbursement of this money expended by the United States before the joint resolution was passed: 1st, because the joint resolution only contemplates the reimbursement of expenses and salary paid after its'passage; and, 2d, because tho reimbursement to the United States of moneys paid bj’…

<p>1. The act of Congress of March 6th, 1820, admitting Missouri into the Union, and the act of March 3d, 1823, respecting grants of land to that State, without further grant or patent, vested in the State the 16th section of each township for school purposes; but where this section had been sold or disposed of by the government, it required the selection of other lands in lieu thereof by the register and receiver of the proper land district, and such selection when made and entered in the register’s hooks, vested the title of such substituted lands in the State.</p> <p>2. In such case, where the register’s book, or the leaf supposed to contain the entry, is lost or destroyed, the fact of such selection may be proved by other evidence, — as, that the lands claimed to have been so selected had been treated and sold as school lands by the proper State authorities near to the period when the selection should have been made; also, that the original township plat kept in the register’s office had a memorandum on the lot in question that it was “ reserved for schools.”</p> <p>8. Where a county school commissioner in Missouri kept in a book a record of his transactions in selling the school lands in the county, which was deposited in the county clerk’s office, and preserved as a public monument among the county archives, it is de facto a public record, and proper evidence of his official acts. It is also admissible as the entries of a deceased person, made in the course of his official duty, in a matter of public concern, to prove his official transactions.</p> <p>4. If a township plat be lost or destroyed, it may be proved by a copy ; and memoranda on such copy, not contained in the original, if accounted for and explained, will not exclude the copy as evidence of the contents of the original, even though such memoranda be a translation of corresponding memoranda in the original.</p>

arising out of a controversy in an unincorporated religious society of colored persons, in Washington, calling themselves the “ Third Baptist Church.” The case was thus: From about the 1st of September, 1857, a small number of colored persons were in the habit of eonsociating in prayer-meetings and other religious conferences at the house of one Albert Bouldin, a colored man from Virginia, who had been licensed to preach, and was so styled the Reverend Albert Bouldin; he…

<p>A statute of the State of New York thus enacts:</p> <p>“ No injunction shall be issued to stay the trial of any personal action at issue in any court of law until the party applying therefor shall execute a bond; with one or more sufficient sureties, to the plaintiff in such action at law, in such sum as the chancellor or master allowing the injunction shall direct, conditioned for the payment to the said plaintiff, and his legal representatives, of all moneys which may be recovered by such plaintiff or his legal representatives,... in such action at law, for debt or damage, and for costs therein.”</p> <p>"With this statute in force, Pickersgill sued Lahens at law in the Superior Court of New York, a common law court^ on certain indorsements. Thereupon Lahens filed a bill in the Court of Chancery of the State, for relief against the indorsements ; and having done so, applied, under the above-quoted act, for an injunction to stay the trial at law. The court upon the filing of a bond meant to be such as the above-quoted act required, granted a temporary injunction staying the suit at law till an answer to the bill in chancery should come in. The bond was the joint bond (not the joint aud several bond) of Lahens and one Lafarge; this Lafarge not having been any party to the suits already mentioned, nor interested in them, aud not deriving any benefit from his joining in the bond. The bond recited the action at law against Lahensj the bill and injunction in chancery, and the condition of the instrument was that the obligors should pay all moneys which should be recovered in the suit at law. Answers to the bill for relief having come in, the action at law proceeded, and a judgment was rendered against Lahens for $129,000. Before this time Lafarge had died; and at the time Lahens had become insolvent. Thereupon Pickersgill filed a bill in equity against the executors of Lafarge, to have his estate pay the amount of ?lie bond, with interest from the recovery of the judgment against Lahens. The executors demurred; assigning among other grounds of demurrer that it appeared by the bill that Lafarge was not severally bound by the bond, but only jointly bound with Lahens; that Lafarge received no consideration for becoming an obligor; that he was not interested in any of the matters in consequence whereof the bond was given, and was merely a surety therein, and that he departed this life before the filing of the present bill, leaving Lahens surviving him, who was still alive. The court below sustained the demurrer; acting doubtless on the ancient principle of equity, announced with a clear mention of its grounds by Grier, J., for this court, in the United States v. Price,* that after the death of one joint obligor (the other surviving) the estate of the one deceased cannot be pursued in equity unless there was “some moral obligation antecedent to the bond;” the which obligation the eourt declared could not exist where the deceased obligor had been but a surety. To review the action of the court in sustaining the demurrer this ap- • peal was taken.</p>

Held: that though the court below had erred in sustaining in part, and overruling in part a demurrer which was single, yet that the complainant by amending his bill, and the defendant by answering afterwards had both waived their right to object anywhere: as the defendant specially had in this court by not appealing; and that the question of forfeiture was withdrawn from this court. *147 2. -A. leased a wharf from a city…

Error, to the District Court for tbe District of West Virginia : ; Thompson brought ejectment, A.D. 1859, in the court below against Shutte for four conterminous tracts of land of 1000 acres each, situate in West Virginia. The plaintiff’s title originated in a grant made in the year 1787, by the State of Virginia, to one Jabez Bacon, who subsequently died leaving eight children, his heirs; among them one named Nathaniel.

The case was thus: In. 1833 Commodore William Bainbridge, a resident of Philadelphia, died, leaving four daughters, one of whom was Mary T. B., subsequently the wife of Charles Jaudon.

The case was thus: On the 29th of May, 1860, Brown, who was then and still is a citizen and resident of Virginia, being at the time in Kansas, lent to the defendants, citizens of that State, the sura of $2000, at interest, at the rate of 20 per cent, a year, and took the bond in suit, payable in twelve months, for the amount, with the interest for the period included, making the sum of $2400, the whole drawing the stipulated interest after maturity.* As security for the…

Eees sued Gould in an action at law for an alleged infringement of a patent for improvement in steam engines, dated January 24th, 1860. The claims of the patent were as follows: “ Having thus described the nature, construction, and operation of my improvement, what I claim as my invention and desire to secure by letters-patent of the United States is: “ First.

Johnson sued the Norwich and Worcester Railroad Company on certain coupons for interest attached to bonds, made by the said company A. D. 1860. When the coupons fell due, the amount was tendered in the legal-tender notes of the United States, issued under the act of Congress of Eebruary 25tb, 1862, and the several acts in addition thereto, and they were refused.

An act of Congress, approved July 17th, 1862, and entitled “ An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes,” among other things, provided, .“ that if any person within any State or Territory of the United States other than those named as aforesaid after the passage of this act, being engaged in armed rebellion against the government of the United States, or aiding or abetting such…

Held: that the risk was a • marine risk — not one of war.; and that though the acquiescence of the master deprived the act of the quartermaster of being a tortious act, no recovery could he had in the Court of Claims.

Motion by Mr. T. J. Durant to dismiss a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Louisiana, taken on assumption that the case fell within the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, quoted supra, p. 3. The case, as it appeared from some recitals and other evidences in the record, was thus: The State of Louisiana,, on the 22d March, 1866, made a contract with one Nixon, public printer, to pay him in cash, monthly, certain prices for printing to be done by him. He did the work.

Held: is manifest, because 1st. Spain describes the fund he wishes to enjoin, as amounting to the large sum of $81,000. At the same time he sets forth particularly the fact that Wetmore only claimed for himself the sum of $2500, and that the large remainder Wetmore professed to hold for Corcoran & Eiggs and Hill.

Reading Railroad Co. v. Pennsylvania, 82 U.S. (15 Wall.) 232 (1872), often known as the State Freight Tax Case, is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled that the state of Pennsylvania violated the U.S. Constitution by imposing unjust taxes on interstate commerce. The case was brought by Reading Railroad Co., which challenged Pennsylvania's Act of August 25, 1864, also referred to as 'An act to provide additional revenue for the use of the Commonwealth'. The act was established to provide additional revenue for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania after the American Civil War. It imposed systematic taxes on transportation companies, based on freight weight, for municipal purposes. All freight transported within Pennsylvania was subject to this tax. Reading Railroad Co.

A case, like the preceding one, in error to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Held: that it was not a tax on the property, but on the franchises or privileges of the defendant corporation.

Held: impaired the obligation of the contracts between the bondholders and the company, and is therefore repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and void.

And this lien may be enforced— “First. By attachment, to bo issued upon affidavit that the rent is due and unpaid; or if not due, that the defendant is about to remove or sell all or some of said chattels; or, “Second. By judgment against the tenant, and execution to be levied on said chattels or any of them, in lohosesoever hands they may be found; or, “ Third.

Held: in the same case, that the lien created by that act of Congress commences with the tenancy, and continues for three months after the rent is due, which cannot be true for any practical effect if it be admitted that the sale of the personal property in bulk, when not removed from the premises, and not in the usual course of trade, prevents the landlord from levying on the chattels *337 "in whosesoever hands they may…

The United States sued Thomas and others as the principal and sureties on the official bond of the said Thomas, as surveyor of the customs for the port of Nashville, Tennessee, and depositary of public moneys at that place.

Held: previous to the issue of the bonds. 8th. That Hewett owned $5500 of the bonds in suit, that Conkey owned the residue, and that they, and not Winegar, were the real parties in interest in the action.

The town of Grand Chute, in Wisconsin, filed its hill on the equity side of the court below against one Winegar; three other persons, Goodwin, Ilewett, and Conkey, being also made defendants.

Kimball and Trask brought their bill in chancery against West, to rescind a contract for the sale of laud of which they were purchasers from him. The contract was an executed one, West having conveyed the land — about four hundred acres in quantity — to the complainants’ agent, who had conveyed to them, and the purchase-money (§22,000) having been paid. The deed of West, the defendant, contained a clause of general warranty.

On motion to dismiss, for want of jurisdiction, a writ of error to the Supreme Court of Arkansas. Eaton sued Pennywit in the Pulaski County Court of Arkansas upon the record of a judgment rendered by the Fourth District Court of New Orleans, that court, when the judgment was rendered, having been held by a judge appointed by a military governor of Louisiana.

Held: however, that Louisiana, being then in war against the General Government, and the forces of the latter having had possession of her territory, a government there by those forces was a necessity, that may be admitted, so far as the necessities of military occupation were concerned, and no further. ‡ "When this court said, in The Grapeshot, § that a court organized by the President of the United States in Louisiana,…

<p>The allowance of an appeal to this court by the Court of Claims, does not absolutely and of itself remove the cause from the jurisdiction of the latter court, so that no order revoking such allowance can bo made.</p>

On motion of Mr. P. Phillips, to dismiss for want of jurisdiction ; the case being thus: Moses and another had filed their bill in a State court of Alabama, asserting that a law of that State authorized them, on payment of a certain sum, to establish a lottery; that they had paid the sum and established a lottery accordingly.

On motion to advance on the docket an appeal from the Circuit Court for the District of Iowa, and to assign it specially for hearing. The case was thus: Prior to June 30th, 1870, the order of hearing causes here was regulated by rule. Criminal cases were advanced, by leave of court, on motion of either party.

Held: that however frivolous the objection of the vendee, it raised a question under the section.

H. Montgomery, a British subject domiciled in New Orleans before and during the war of the rebellion, after the capture of that city by the forces of the United States, in April, 1862, made a written agreement with J. W. Bur-bridge, a loyal person residing in that city, doing business as Burbridge & Co., and the factor and agent of one Leo Johnson, a planter, residing at that time in the parish of La Fourche, Louisiana, and within the enemy’s lines; by which Burbridge & Co.,…

Some person was standing beside him on the front platform of the car. Instead of looking at his horses and before him, he turned his face round and began to talk to this person; thus turning himself so as to look at a right angle to the course in which he was driving. Just as he turned his head, Oliver Gladmon, a- child seven years old, attempted-to run across the track, in front of the horses. Before he got across he turned to come back again.

Louis: the deed being made on the 24th of that month. At a meeting of Darby’s creditors, held on the 17th of June following, he was told by them that he must file his petitiou to be adjudged a bankrupt, or that he would be forced into bankruptcy. On that day he discontinued business, and on the 1st of July presented his petition praying to be adjudged a bankrupt, and on the 12th following was adjudged a bankrupt accordingly; one Tiffany being appointed his assignee.

” The 14th section, referring to certain courts of the United States, including the Circuit and District Courts, enacts that they “ Shall have power to issue writs of scire facias, habeas corpus, and all other writs not specially provided for by statute which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions, and agreeable to the principles and usages of law!” "With these statutory enactments in force, one Norton, the assignee in bankruptcy of certain…

<p>The council of the city of Richmond, towards the close of the rebellion, and in anticipation of the entry into the city of the forces of the United States, which were then beleaguering it, passed a resolution that the stock of liquors in the city should be destroyed by committees to be appointed to do this, who should give receipts to the holders ; the council pledging the faith of the city to the holders for the value. The stock of S was destroyed accordingly. Almost immediately afterwards, the Confederate government, against the protest and remonstrance of the city council, set fire to certain tobacco warehouses and other buildings near the premises where S had his liquors,'whereby the premises of S. and his liquors were destroyed. S. sued the city, counting specially on the resolutions, the destruction of his .liquor, and stating that he had no receipts. The city demurred. The court overruled the demurrer.</p> <p>The defendant then pleaded specially the fact of the firing of the tobacco warehouse, &c., near to S’s premises, and that at the instant of destruction the premises were about to take fire from the tobacco warehouses, and did in a short time thereafter actually take fire ; that the city had no means to extinguish that fire, and that the liquors were consumed ; and would have been consumed by the fire if the committee had not destroyed them, and that so they were of no value to the plaintiff. The plaintiff demurred. The court sustained the demurrer.</p> <p>The parties now went to trial, when they agreed to waive a jury and to submit all questions of fact to the court, “ with authority to draw all inferences and conclusions that a jury is authorized to drnw from the evidence, and with liberty to either party to except to the judgment in the same manner and to the same extent that he might except to the verdict of a jury, and to object to the same for the same reasons and with the right-to appeal from the same.” The court found for the plaintiff generally.</p> <p>Meld (the highest State court of Virginia having in a similar case held the city liable):</p> <p>1st. That the declaration was good; in other words, that the action lay against the city.</p> <p>2d. That the special plea was bad; in other, words, that the fact that the plaintiff would have lost his liquors in any event, was no defence.</p> <p>3d. That the defendant could not under the agreement raise any questions as to the effect of evidence, &c., in this court, with a view of making this court find as true the facts s'et forth in the special plea; which plea, as above mentioned, if true, was declared to be no defence.</p>

<p>On certificate of division in opinion between the.judges of the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas; the ease being thus:</p> <p>Hanauer sued Woodruff" in the court below upon a promissory note executed by the. latter, at Memphis, Tennessee, on the 22d of December, 1861, for $3099, payable twelve months after date, if not before, with interest after maturity at the rate of 8 per cent, per annum. The case was tried in the District of Arkansas, by the Circuit Court, without the intervention of a jury, by stipulation of the parties. And the court found, specifically, that the only consideration of the note was certain bonds, issued by authority of the convention which attempted to carry the State of Arkansas out of the Federal Union, by an ordinance of secession; that these bonds were issued for the purpose of supporting the war levied by the insurrectionary bodies then controlling that State against the Federal government, and were styled “war-bonds” on their face, and that the purpose of their issue was well known to both the plaintiff and defendant. The court further found that at the time of the transaction between the parties, that is, at the time the note was given, these war-bonds had at Memphis and in Arkansas a value 25 per cent, below their par value; that those received by the defendant were not used nor intended to be used by him in direct support of the war, but were received by him to be used in the ordinary course of his business; and that bonds of this character were at that time used as a circulating medium in Arkansas and about Memphis, in the common and ordinary business transactions of the people.</p> <p>Upon the facts thus found, the following questions of law arose, upon which the judges of the Circuit Court were divided in opinion:</p> <p>1st. Was the consideration of the note void on the ground of public policy, so that no action could be sustained upon it in the Federal courts ?</p> <p>2d. Was the consideration of the note illegal under the principles of public law, the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of Congress, and the proclamations of the President relating to the rebellion, which existed and was pending when the note was made ?</p> <p>3d. If the bonds were a sufficient consideration to sustain the action, what was the measure of damages?</p> <p>These three questions were now sent up to this court for answers.</p>

<p>Error to the Circuit Court for the District of Louisiana, in which court Tweed sued Flanders, deputy general agent of the Treasury Department of the United States, to recover damages caused by an alleged unlawful seizure and detention of certain cotton of his, Tweed’s. Judgment being given for the plaintiff the treasury agent appealed.</p>

Held: that the taxation was legal and constitutional; that the power reserved to the State by the law of 1841 authorized any change in the contract created by the charter between the corporators and the State, as it originally existed, or as subsequently modified, or its entire revocation. 2.

Brauch and others, stockholders of the South Carolina Railroad Company, filed a bill in equity in the court below against the said company, as also against one Tomlinson, the State Auditor, and others, certain county collectors, to enjoin the company from paying and the others from collecting certain taxes imposed on the said company in pursuance of an act of the legislature of South Carolina, passed in April, 1868, and another act passed in February, 1870; it being alleged…

Held: subject to the conditions and requirements of the lease, in favor of the lessor, his heirs and assigns. The bill alleges that Jane Mallion left but one child, Mary Ann Roby, her only heir-at-law, who was the original complainant in this litigation. Porter died many years before this bill was filed. It does not appear that he left any heir, or that there has ever been any legal representative.

Held: in the case of Sherman v. Smith, ‡ that a subsequent statute imposing such a liability upon the shareholders of the association was a valid law, as the charter reserved to the legislature the power to alter or repeal the act of incorporation.

” This general law being on the statute-book the legislature of the State in 1848 passed an act to incorporate the Hadley Falls Company, for the purpose of constructing anil maintaining a dam across the Connecticut River, and of creating a water-power to be used by the corporation. The capital stock was fixed at $5,000,000, and it could hold $500,000 worth of real estate.

Held: that they were not liable for the damage caused by the accident to the premises occupied by other parties. 2. Common carriers are not chargeable, in cases free from suspicion, with notice of the contents of packages carried by them; nor are they authorized, in such cases, to requiro information as to the contents of the packages offered as a condition of carrying them. 3.

The 21st Rule of this court; as amended November 16th, 1872, and made operative from the first of the following January,* prescribes that the brief of counsel for the plaintiff in error shall contain: i. A concise abstract or statement of the case presenting succinctly the questions involved, and the manner in which they are raised. ii.

Held: also, that thére exists no cloud upon the title which justifies the interference of a court of equity, where the proceedings are void upon their face, that is, the same record which must be introduced to establish the title claimed, will show that there is no title. † *549 The whole subject has been recently examined in this court in Dows v. The City of Chicago. * The head note of the case is in these words: “A suit…

Magwire sued Biggin in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, Missouri, to recover damages for a breach of covenant. The defendant pleaded a discharge under the Bankrupt Act of 1841, obtained in June, 1843, but his plea was disallowed, both by the lower court and by the Supreme Court of Missouri on appeal. He, therefore, brought the case here by writ of error.

Do La Vega filed a bill in the court below against Frow and thirteen other defendants, charging eight of them (including Frow) with a joint conspiracy to defraud him, the complainant, out of a large tract of land in Texas, by the use of a forged power of attorney purporting to be executed by the complainant, and by various conveyances and mesne conveyances, deraigning a false and fraudulent title from him.

Held: in United States v. Anderson, * previously to the decision in the present case in the Circuit, that as to the time of bringing suits iu the Court of Claims under the Captured and Abandoned Property Act, which, by the terms of that act, must be within two years after the close *557 of the war, the proclamation of the President of August 20th, 1866, announcing that peace prevailed all over the United States, which had…

Godbe filed a complaint in the court below against Brigham Young, “as trustee in trust of the Church of Jesus Christ, a religious association in the Territory of Utah,” alleging an account stated by “said defendant” prior to February 12th, 1866, and upon such statement a balance of $10,020 “ due from said defendant;” a payment of $5000, May 30th, 1868, and praying judgment with interest at 10 per cent. “ by way of damages.” The defendant demurred, assigning for cause that it…

<p>The trustees or representative officers of a parish, county, or other local ' jurisdiction, invested with the usual powers of administration in specific matters, and the power of levying taxes to defray the necessary expenditures of the jurisdiction, have no implied authority to issue negotiable securities, payable in future, of such a character as to be unimpeachable in the hands of bona fide holders, for the’ purpose of raising money or funding a previous debt.</p>

Held: the agent being afterwards discharged from the company’s service, that he could not prove by witnesses that the phrase in the company’s letter had a technical meaning, and that there was a usage between insurance companies and their agents in the place where the agency was that all agents should have the right to solicit and cause policies to be issued according to the published rules of the company, .and to collect…

Mary Terry brought an action in the court below against the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, to recover the sum of $2000, claimed by her as due upon a policy of insuranee on the life of her husband George Terry, made and issued to her as his wife.

The statute further enacted, “that to secure the condemnation and sale of any such property, proceedings, ire mre shall be instituted in the name of the United States,” in the District Court; and that the proceedings shall conform as nearly as may be to proceedings in admiralty and revenue cases; “ and if said property, whether real or personal, shall be found to have belonged to a person engaged in rebellion, or who has given aid or comfort thereto, the same shall be…

Held: on a congest between the landlord and judgment creditors for the proceeds of them in the syndic’s hands, that although it was finally decided in the Supreme Court of the State that a corporation was not entitled by the laws of Louisiana to make a cessio bonorum, and although, accordingly, the order staying all judicial proceedings was vacated and annulled, yet that the landlord had not lost his lien by omitting to…

Held: 1st. That as respected a creditor who had obtained by his judgment a lien on the land which the old exemption secured to him while the new one destroyed it, the law creating the new exemption impaired the obligati6n of a contract, and was unconstitutional and void. 2d. That the fact that the constitution had been made under the special circumstances and in the special way above mentioned, and under the eye of…

Held: maid fide, during his whole term of possession, have a right, if the party recovering as true owner desire to retain improvements which the possessor, maid fide, has put on them, to demand the value of the materials and price of workmanship of such improvements; yet where, in a peculiar and complicated case, in which specific amounts and estimates were not possible to be made, and the case had to be adjusted largely…

This was a motion of Mr. A. J. Parker, for John Thompson, a bankupt, to dismiss two appeals by his creditors from a decree of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, affirming a decree of discharge granted to him by the District Court.

The Commercial Bank of Rochester brought suit in one of the State courts of New Yoi’k against the city of Rochester, to recover a tax which the said city had levied and collected on $100,000 of the capital of the bank, which was invested in the bonds of the United States.

Lewis, of 'Washington, D. C., beihg in bad health and owing by note $70, which he was not then able to pay, to a certain C. Cammack, Jr., tailor, for clothing, procured June 19th, 1868, at Cammack’s suggestion, an insurance on his life, in the New Jersey Mutual Life Insurance Company, which had an agency in Washington, for $3000.. The policy, No. 2885, was for seven years.

Held: that the company had the general and special control of the work, and that the contractor was their agent; and that the company was responsible for an injury occurring through the negligence of the contractor or of those in his employment. 4.

Held: that the statute of 11th January, 1868, was not operative to prevent a recovery on a bond given before its passage, on a removal of spirits made when the bond was given.

Lyman & Co. brought their action in the court below against the Merchants’ Mutual Insurance Company of New Orleans, for the sum of $12,000, the value of the brig “ Sailor Boy,” lost at sea on the 8th of January, 1870, and which was insured, as they allege, by the said company. Their petition set forth that on the 30th of October, 1869, the companj' had issued a policy to them on the brig for the sum named, which insured her until January 1st, 1870.

,* makes it the duty of distillers to make and return to the assessor of their district, a list of the .merchandise made or sold by them; and if they make a list which in the opinion of the assessor is false or fraudulent, or contains any understatement or undervaluation, it is made the duty of the assessor — it being made “ lawful ” for him first to give notice to the party, and summon such party before him to give testimony aud to answer interrogatories respecting his…

The wind was a very light breeze from the southeast; and the course of the schooner north-by-west, her sails well set on the port side. The course of the steamer was south-by-east-half-east, and her rate about seven or eight miles an hour.

On motion to dismiss an appeal from the Circuit Court' for the District of North Carolina.

On motion to amend a writ of error. Prior to the 24th of January, 1878, the annual session of this court began on the first Monday of December in each year; and writs of error were, of course, returnable to that day.