the parties to an action and providing that upon the trial of an
issue of set-off, judgment shall be for the balance found due,
whether to the plaintiff or defendant, with costs;" Chief Justice
ALVEY dissenting. Samaha v. Samaha, 76.

2. The plaintiff, however, under such circumstances, may take a non-
suit as to his own demand, without prejudice to his right to renew
his action thereon, and the judgment, if for the defendant, should
be so entered as to protect the plaintiff in that right. Id.

3. The plaintiff in an action against a municipal corporation has the
right to inspect such public records and documents as are in the
possession of the defendant and which are pertinent and material
to the trial of the issue; but a peremptory order on the defendant
in such a case passed by the trial court on motion of the plaintiff.
after notice to the defendant, requiring the defendant in its cor-
porate capacity to exhibit certain records and documents to the
inspection of the plaintiff at certain times and at certain places
is improperly granted. District of Columbia v. Bakersmith, 574.
4. The proper practice, under such circumstances, is for the plaintiff,
upon his being refused the right to inspect, to apply by a motion,
designating the particular record and document he desires to in-
spect, for a rule upon the official or agent of the defendant having
custody of the same, to show cause why such inspection should not
be allowed. If, upon the return, the rule be made absolute and
be disobeyed, the right may be enforced by attachment. Id.

5. The act of Congress of May 13, 1892 (27 Stat. 38), providing that
all public records which have any reference or in any way relate
to real or personal property in the District of Columbia shall be
open to the public for inspection free of charge, incorporated as it
is in a tax law, would seem to be in the interest and for the pro-
tection of taxpayers, and not, of itself, to give the right to a plain-
tiff in an action against the District of Columbia to inspect public
records and documents in the possession of the defendant. Id.
POLICE COURT. See CRIMINAL LAW, 5, 6, 7.

PRAYERS FOR INSTRUCTION. See CRIMINAL LAW, 1-4, 12–14.
PREJUDICIAL ERROR. See CRIMINAL LAW, 14, 18, 20.

PRESUMPTION OF SURVIVORSHIP. See EVIDENCE, 1; WILLs, 1, 9.
PRESUMPTIONS. See CRIMINAL LAW, 8, 9, 20; EVIDENCE, 1; JUDICIAL
NOTICE; MARRIED WOMEN, 1; WILLS, 1, 2.

PRINCIPAL AND SURETY. See BONDS; EXECUTORS AND ADMINIS-
TRATORS, 2; JOINT OBLIGATIONS.

PRIORITIES. See EQUITY, 3; EQUITABLE LIEN, 4.

1. A provision in a contract between a contractor and the District of
Columbia, providing for the payment by the contractor of all
claims for work and material and for the retention by the District

PRIORITIES Continued.

commissioners, in their discretion, of a sufficient sum of money
from the contract price to pay such claims, does not constitute the
municipal corporation a trustee for materialmen and workmen, or
give the latter any enforceable lien or preference over other cred-
itors in the distribution of any portion of the contract price re-
maining in the hands of the commissioners. Richards Brick Co. v.
Rothwell, 516.

2. Where insolvent government contractors give a power of attorney to
one of their creditors to perform their contracts and receive and
disburse moneys received thereunder to their creditors, and such
power of attorney contains no provision for the compensation of
such attorney, and the affairs of the contractors are subsequently
placed in the hands of receivers, of whom such attorney is one, he
has no lien or preference for compensation for his services per-
formed while acting as such attorney, in the subsequent distribu-
tion among creditors, but if entitled to compensation at all, is
entitled to it only as a general creditor of the contractor. Id.
PROBATE COURT. See EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS; PROBATE
PRACTICE.

PROBATE PRACTICE.

While, in a common-law cause, the court cannot reform a judgment
and allow costs after the expiration of the term, in the probate
court, the fact that the term has expired at which a judgment was
rendered upon a verdict after the trial of issues concerning the
validity of a will, refusing to admit the will to probate, will not
preclude the court from allowing the executor who has unsuccess-
fully defended the will counsel fees and costs incurred by him,
such expenses not being costs necessarily taxable against the un-
successful party, but being elements of the accounting within the
control of the court during the whole period of administration.
Tuohy v. Hanlon, 225.

PRODUCTION OF PUBLIC RECORDS. See PLEADING AND PRACTICE,

3-5.

PROMISSORY NOTES. See AFFIDAVIT OF DEFENSE, 1, 3; INJUNC-
TIONS, 3; MARRIED WOMEN, 1, 2; NATIONAL BANKS; USURY,
1, 2.

1. Circumstances of suspicion only are insufficient to charge the holder
of a promissory note for value with knowledge of its invalidity as
between the maker and payee. Brewer v. Slater, 48.

2. While reference on the face of a promissory note to the fact that it
is secured by mortgage, may be sufficient to call attention to any
restraining or qualifying words of the mortgage having special
relation to the note, and affecting its negotiability, and require
that the two be read and interpreted together, the negotiability

PROMISSORY NOTES - Continued.

of the note, in the absence of such words, is not affected; and the
debt evidenced by the note gives character to the mortgage and
protects it from the equities between mortgagor and mortgagee
on behalf of a bona fide holder of the note for value. Id.

3. The trustee in a deed of trust may become the purchaser and bona
fide holder for value of the promissory note secured by the deed of
trust, his duty as trustee concerning only the security and not the
debt; and the rule that forbids his purchasing the trust property
has no application to his acquisition of the note in a transaction
with its owner, otherwise free from taint. Id.

PROVISO. Sec STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION.

PUBLIC POLICY. See CONTRACTS, 6.

PUBLIC RECORDS, RIGHT TO INSPECT. See PLEADING AND PRAC-
TICE, 3-5.

QUALIFIED OWNERSHIP OF CHATTELS. See CONTRACTS, 6.
QUESTIONS FOR JURY. See CONTRACTS, 3.

RAILROADS. See MEASURE OF DAMAGES; SURFACE WATERS, 1, 2.
In an action against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for breach
of a special contract for carriage, where it appeared that the
plaintiff purchased, at Washington, D. C., from the Baltimore &
Potomac Railroad Company, a round trip special excursion ticket
to Atlantic City, N. J., entitling him to carriage on that railroad
to and from Camden, N. J., and on the Camden & Atlantic Rail-
road from Camden to Atlantic City and return, which ticket was
refused on the Camden & Atlantic Railroad on plaintiff's return
from Atlantic City, it was held, upon the plaintiff's evidence, con-
sisting of newspaper advertisements published in Washington
prior to the purchase by plaintiff of his ticket, that special excur-
sions would be run to Atlantic City by the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company; proof that the general passenger agent of the defendant
was also the general passenger agent of the two other roads;
schedules of through trains between Washington and Atlantic
City, published in a traveler's guide, in which the Baltimore &
Potomac and Camden & Atlantic Railroads were embraced under
the heading "Pennsylvania Railroad system;" extracts from an
annual report of the directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com-
pany showing that the two roads mentioned belonged to the Penn-
sylvania Railroad system, and proof that the officials who arrested
plaintiff at Camden for failure to pay his fare wore buttons on
their uniforms containing the letters "P. RR." — was insufficient
to so connect the defendant with the other railroads as to render
it liable to the plaintiff. Tyler v. Railroad Co., 31.

REASONABLE DOUBT. See LEGISLATIVE REGULATION OF CALLINGS.

REDEMISE. See EJECTMENT, 2.

REPAIRS. See BUILDING REGULATIONS.

REPEAL. See STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION, 1.

RES JUDICATA. See APPELLATE PRACTICE, 1; EQUITY, 2.

RESTRAINING ORDERS. See INJUNCTIONS, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6; MUNICIPAL
ORDERS AND REGULATIONS, 1.

RESTRAINT OF TRADE. See CONTRACTS, 1-3.

RIGHT OF WAY. See MEASURE OF DAMAGES, 1.

RULES OF COURT. See APPELLATE PRACTICE, 10.

RULE TO INSPECT PUBLIC RECORDS. See PLEADING AND PRACTICE,
3-5.

SALES. See CONTRACTS, 1-3; MEASURE OF DAMAGES, 3.

SELF-DEFENSE. See CRIMINAL LAW, 1-4.

SET-OFF. See EQUITY, 2; PLEADING AND PRACTICE, 12.
SEVENTY-THIRD RULE. See AFFIDAVITS OF DEFENSE.

SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE.

Where trustees to whom has been devised land for the sole and separate
use of a married woman for life have agreed in a lease thereof
to a railroad company to sell the land to the company, for a
specified sum, and it is doubtful whether they had authority to
enter into the contract for sale, and the company has the power
to acquire the land by condemnation, specific performance of the
contract of sale will not be decreed. Railroad Co. v. Winslow, 438.
STAKEHOLDER. See INTERPLEADER.

STATUTES. See MUNICIPAL ORDERS AND REGULATIONS.

STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION.

1. Where the later of two statutes, which are not in express terms
repugnant, covers the whole subject of the first, and embraces new
provisions plainly showing that it was intended as a substitute,
it will operate to repeal the earlier statute, the presumption being
that it was not the intention of the legislature that two or more
acts relating to and covering the same subject-matter should re-
main in force together; but all such acts being in pari materia
must be construed together in order to arrive at the legislative
intent. Bride v. Macfarland, 120.

2. The office of the proviso of a statute is, generally, intended to restrain
the enacting clause, and to except something which would other-
wise have been within it, or in some measure to modify the
enacting clause. Id.

STREET RAILWAYS.

See CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE, 1.

SUBDIVISIONS. See BUILDING REGULATIONS, 2.

SUBROGATION. See EQUITY, 3.

SUPREME COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. See JUDI-
CIAL NOTICE.

SURETYSHIP. See BONDS.

SURFACE WATERS.

1. A railroad company has no right to concentrate or accumulate surface
water in ditches along the tracks or bed of its road and by cuta-
ways or outlets turn it upon the lower adjoining or adjacent
lands to the injury of proprietors thereof. Frisbie v. Cowen, 381.
2. In the absence of a prescriptive right of drainage, a railroad company
has no right to utilize a depression or gully, not constituting a
natural watercourse, in the lower land of an adjoining owner, for
the purpose of receiving water from a ditch along its tracks; and
such adjoining owner has the right to fill up and level his land;
and if, in so doing, it becomes flooded and injured from the flow of
water from the ditch, is entitled to recover damages from the
railroad company. Id.

SURVIVORSHIP, PRESUMPTION OF. See EVIDENCE, 1; WILLS, 1, 2.
TAX DEEDS. See TAX SALE CERTIFICATES.

TAX SALE CERTIFICATES.

A writ of mandamus will not lie to compel the Commissioners of this
District to execute and deliver to the petitioner, the assignee of a
tax sale certificate, a deed conveying to him a certain lot, without
the payment of arrears of taxes due thereon, where the lot was
sold and the certificate issued to petitioner's assignor in April,
1898, and the certificate recited that the sale was made in accord-
ance with the provisions of the act of Congress of February 28,
1898, and that it was issued " subject to the payment of all
arrears of taxes before the issue of the deed," as required by that
act, although the levy or assessment of the taxes for which the
sale was made was under the act of Congress of March 3, 1877,
and the amendments thereto, which contained no such provision
as to payment by the purchaser of arrears of taxes as a condition
precedent to the execution and delivery to him of a deed. Bride v.
Macfarland, 120.

TELEPHONE SERVICE. See EQUITY, 1.

1. A telephone company incorporated under the laws of another juris-
diction and doing business in this District by sufferance only, may
be compelled to perform its accustomed service at a rate fixed by
Congress as a condition to its remaining and doing business here,
although the rate so fixed may be wholly insufficient to meet the
necessary expenses of the service to be performed. Manning v.
Telephone Co., 191.

2. In considering the evidence and determining whether compensation
for telephone service as prescribed by law is destructive of the
property rights of an existing telephone company, the basis of