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The court, however, finally concluded that the action of the District Court of Delaware "was a matter for review by the Circuit Court of Appeals on writ for error" and was "clearly beyond the proper scope and use of the" writ of habeas corpus.

The assignments of error attack the action of the District Court for error (1) in holding that §§ 20 and 21 of the Judicial Code did not apply to the case at bar; (2) in holding that Judge Bradford had jurisdiction to impose the imprisonment complained of; and (3) in refusing the writ and dismissing the petition. But questions are raised here which were not presented in the petition in the court below or passed on by that court. Section 211 of the Criminal Code act of March 4, 1909, 35 Stat. 1088 (which makes it a crime to deposit obscene books in the mails),1 under which appellant was indicted, is attacked as unconstitutional because (a) it is not within

"SEC. 211. Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy, book, pamphlet, is hereby declared to be non-mailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered from any postoffice or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall knowingly deposit, or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery, anything declared by this section to be non-mailable, . shall be fined not more than

five thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." "SEC. 21. Whenever a party to any action or proceeding, civil or criminal, shall make and file an affidavit that the judge before whom the action or proceeding is to be tried or heard has a personal bias or prejudice either against him or in favor of any opposite party to the suit, such judge shall proceed no further therein, but another judge shall be designated in the manner prescribed in the section last preceding, or chosen in the manner prescribed in section twenty-three, to hear such matter. Every such affidavit shall state the facts and the reasons for the belief that such bias or prejudice exists, and shall be filed not less than ten days before the beginning of the term of the court, or good cause shall be shown for the failure to file it within such time. No party shall be entitled in any case to file more than one such affidavit; and no such affidavit shall be filed unless accompanied by a certificate of counsel of record that such affidavit and application are made in good faith.

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the constitutional grant of legislative power to Congress, in that it does not confine its operation to depositing matter in the United States post-office or other authorized depositary for United States mail; (b) it does not inform appellant of the nature of the accusation against him nor describe an offense with certainty; (c) it is an ex post facto law; (d) appellant was deprived of his liberty and property without due process of law. It is also asserted that § 211 does not create an offense against the United States.

Appellant, however, even if, in the absence of all proof of their truth, the recitals of the petition which we have previously stated be accepted for the purpose of this proceeding only as true, encounters an obstacle to a consideration of his contentions in the limitation upon the scope of a writ of habeas corpus, and this limitation was the ultimate ground of the decision of the District Court.

The writ of habeas corpus cannot be made to perform the office of a writ of error. This has been decided many times, and, indeed, was the ground upon which a petition of appellant for habeas corpus to this court, before his trial, was decided. It is true, as we have said, that the case had not then been tried, but the principle is as applicable and determinative after trial as before trial. This was decided in one of the cases cited.-In re Lincoln, 202 U. S. 178, which cited other cases to the same effect. Subsequent cases have made the principle especially pertinent to the case at bar. Harlan v. McGourin, (218 U. S. 442) was an appeal from a judgment discharging a writ of habeas corpus petitioned for after conviction, and it was held that the writ could not be used for the purpose of proceedings in error but was confined to a determination whether the restraint of liberty was without authority of law. In other words, as it was said, "Upon habeas corpus the court examines only the power and authority of the court to act, not the correctness of its conclusions."

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Matter of Gregory, 219 U. S. 210, was a writ of habeas corpus brought after conviction, and we said that we were not concerned with the question whether the information upon which the petitioner was prosecuted and convicted was sufficient or whether the case set forth in an agreed statement of facts constituted a crime that is to say, whether the court properly applied the law-if it be found that the court had jurisdiction to try the issues and to render judgment. And for this many cases were cited.

The principle is not the less applicable because the law which was the foundation of the indictment and trial is asserted to be unconstitutional or uncertain in the description of the offense. Those questions, like others, the court is invested with jurisdiction to try if raised, and its decision can be reviewed, like its decisions upon other questions, by writ of error. The principle of the cases is the simple one that if a court has jurisdiction of the case the writ of habeas corpus cannot be employed to re-try the issues, whether of law, constitutional or other, or of fact.

We have already pointed out that appellant before his trial petitioned this court in habeas corpus, and that his petition was denied on the ground that his proper remedy was by writ of error after trial. In his petition he charged mistreatment by the prison authorities, the taking of his papers and property from his room and from the express office, and, that although he informed the United States Attorney, no permission was granted him to examine his papers for his defense. He also in the petition attacked the indictment against him on the ground that it described no offense against the laws of the United States nor an offense "against any valid law of the United States and afforded no justification for his imprisonment." The petition was accompanied by a brief which presented the same contentions as those now presented, though less elaborately.

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Having remitted him to a writ of error as a remedy, it would be a contradiction of the ruling, he not having availed himself of the remedy, to permit him to prosecute habeas corpus. The ground of the decision was that there was an orderly procedure prescribed by law for him to pursue, in other words, to set up his defenses of fact and law, whether they attacked the indictment for insufficiency or the validity of the law under which it was found, and, if the decision was against him, test its correctness through the proper appellate tribunals. It certainly cannot be said that the District Court of Delaware did not have jurisdiction of the case, including those defenses, or that its rulings could not have been reviewed by the Circuit Court of Appeals or by this court by writ of error. It would introduce confusion in the administration of justice if the defenses which might have been made in an action could be reserved as grounds of attack upon the judgment after the trial and verdict.

Order discharging writ affirmed.

CITY OF LOUISVILLE v. CUMBERLAND TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH COMPANY.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY.

No. 761. Argued March 7, 8, 1912.-Decided June 7, 1912.

Quare, and not determined, whether an ordinance cutting the earnings of a telephone company down to six per cent per annum, would, under the circumstances of this case be confiscatory and unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.

This court requires clear evidence before it will declare legislation, otherwise valid, to be void as an unconstitutional taking of property by reason of establishing rates that are confiscatory.

225 U.S.

Argument for Appellant.

In this case the evidence is not sufficient to justify enjoining enforcement of an ordinance fixing rates of a telephone company and the decree granting an injunction is reversed, but without prejudice.

THE facts, which involve the question of whether an ordinance of the City of Louisville fixing rates for telephone service in that city, was unconstitutional as confiscatory of the property of the companies, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Clayton B. Blakey and Mr. Huston Quinn, with whom Mr. Joseph S. Lawton was on the brief, for appellant:

Questions referred to a master cannot in turn be referred to an accountant in such a manner that the report of the accountant will bind the parties, the master or the court. Kimberly v. Arms, 129 U. S. 512.

The court should assume that a telephone company will charge the same rates to all of its subscribers having the same class of service. Knoxville v. Water Co., 212 U. S. 16.

A telephone company without a franchise or privilege to occupy the streets of a city is a trespasser and should not be permitted to question a rate regulating ordinance. Rough River Tel. Co. v. Cumberland Tel. Co., 119 Kentucky, 470; Rural Home Tel. Co. v. K. & I. Tel. Co., 32 Ky. Law Rep. 1072; East Tenn. Tel. Co. v. Russellville, 106 Kentucky, 669; Bland v. Cumberland Tel. Co., 109 S. W. Rep. 1180; Bridge Co. v. Prange, 35 Michigan, 400; Cincinnati Inclined Plane Railway Co. v. Cincinnati, 44 N. E. Rep. 327.

A telephone company should not be granted relief against rates established by a city ordinance where such company refuses to make a frank disclosure of its books, and records and facts within its knowledge. Knoxville v. Water Co., 212 U. S. 16.

A telephone company should not be permitted to earn a return on cables which it has installed and does not use

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