disregarded the provision of the Constitution of the United States that
no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of a contract.
Held, that the first contention was incorrect; that the question as to
the impairment of the obligation of a contract was raised for the first
time in this court, and was not accurate in fact; and that the writ of
error must be dismissed. Winona & St. Peter Railroad Co. v. Plain-
view, 371.
6. On a complaint before a United States commissioner in New York,
against H. for a criminal offence, in violation of § 3894 of the Revised
Statutes, as amended by the act of September 19, 1890, c. 908, (26
Stat. 465,) prohibiting the sending by mail of circulars concerning
lotteries, H. was committed to await the action of the grand jury. A
writ of habeas corpus issued by the Circuit Court of the United States
was dismissed by that court. H. appealed to this court in November,
1891. Held, (1) As the constitutionality of § 3894, as amended, was
drawn in question, an appeal lay directly to this court from the Circuit
Court, under § 5 of the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, (26 Stat. 826 to
828, 1115;) (2) Under such an appeal, this court acquires jurisdiction
of the entire case, and of all questions involved in it, and not merely
of the question of constitutionality; (3) This court ought not to
review the question whether the transaction complained of was an
offence against the statute, because the commissioner had jurisdiction
of the subject matter involved, and of the person of H.; (4) The stat-
ute is constitutional; (5) A statute is a law equally with a treaty, and,
if subsequent to and conflicting with the treaty, supersedes the latter.
Horner v. United States, No. 2, 570.
The Supreme Court of the United States has original jurisdiction of a
suit in equity brought by the United States against a State to deter-
mine the boundary between that State and a Territory of the United
States, and that question is susceptible of judicial determination.
United States v. Texas, 621.
See BEHRING SEA;
NATURALIZATION.
C. OF CIRCUIT COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
1. In a case reversed in this court and remanded to a state court upon the
ground that that court had lost its jurisdiction by petition and bond
for removal, the propriety of staying proceedings in the Circuit Court
after removal, until costs adjudged in the state court are paid, is
purely a matter of discretion in the Circuit Court. National Steam-
ship Co. v. Tugman, 28.
2. The provision in the statute of Illinois, (Rev. Stats. c. 45, § 35,) that
"at any time within one year after a judgment, either upon default or
verdict in the action of ejectment, the party against whom it is ren-
dered, his heirs or assigns, upon the payment of all costs recovered
therein, shall be entitled to have the judgment vacated, and a new
trial granted in the cause" applies to such a judgment rendered in a
Circuit Court of the United States, sitting within that State, on a
mandate from this court in a case commenced in a court of the State
of Illinois, and removed thence to the Circuit Court of the United
States. Smale v. Mitchell, 99.
See EXCEPTION; EXECUTOR AND ADMINISTRATOR, 2.
1. The District Court for the District of Alaska has jurisdiction in admi-
ralty to forfeit vessels for violating the provisions of Rev. Stat. § 1956
on any of the navigable waters of the United States which were ac-
quired by the treaty with Russia, concluded March 30, 1857, 15 Stat.
539. In re Cooper, 472.
2. United States District Courts, sitting in admiralty, are courts of supe-
rior jurisdiction, and every intendment is made in favor of their de-
crees; and when it appears that the court had jurisdiction of the
subject matter and either that the defendant was duly served with
process or that he voluntarily appeared and made defence, the decree
is not open collaterally to any inquiry upon the merits or jurisdiction
dependent on those facts. Ib.
3. The latter part of section 7 of the act of May 17, 1884, 23 Stat. 24, 26,
may be read as follows: "And the final judgments and decrees of said
District Court of Alaska may be reviewed by the Supreme Court of
the United States as in other cases;" and, being so read, its meaning
is that this court may review the final judgments or decrees of that
court, as in cases of the same kind from other courts. Ib.
4. The act of February 16, 1875, 18 Stat. 315, c. 77, § 1, applies to appeals
taken from decrees of the District Court of the United States for the
District of Alaska, sitting in admiralty. 1b.
In all cases where actual fraud is not made out, but the imputation rests
upon conjecture, where the seal of death has closed the lips of those
whose character is involved, and lapse of time has impaired the recol-
lection of transactions and obscured their details, the welfare of soci-
ety demands the rigid enforcement of the rule of diligence. Hammond
v. Hopkins, 224.
See EQUITY, 2;
TRUST, 1, 2, 3.
Under the Code of Wisconsin, an express denial, upon information and
belief, that the plaintiff was, at or since the commencement of the
action, or is now, a corporation, puts in issue the existence of the
corporation. Michigan Insurance Bank v. Eldred, 293.
MAILS, TRANSPORTATION OF.
Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, affirmed to the points; (1) That the power
vested in Congress to establish post-offices and post-roads embraces the
regulation of the entire postal system of the country, and that under
it Congress may designate what may be carried in the mail and what
excluded; (2) That in excluding various articles from the mails the
object of Congress is, not to interfere with the freedom of the press, or
with any other rights of the people, but to refuse the facilities for the
distribution of matter deemed injurious by Congress to the public
morals; (3) That the transportation in any other way of matter ex
cluded from the mails is not forbidden. In re Rapier, 110.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, A, 1.
MISREPRESENTATION.
See EQUITY, 1;
EVIDENCE, 4.
MISSOURI RIVER.
See RIPARIAN Owner, 2.
In ejectment for the possession of a mine. The plaintiff claimed under
a placer patent, issued January 30, 1880, on an application made
November 13, 1878, and entry and payment made February 21, 1879.
The defendant claimed under a location certificate of a lode issued to
one Goodale, dated March 10, and recorded March 11, 1879, reciting
a location February 1, 1879. The defendant, to maintain its claim,
offered the testimony of several witnesses, which this court holds to
establish that in 1877, and more than a year before any proceedings
were initiated with reference to the placer patent, the grantors of
defendant entered upon and ran a tunnel some 400 feet in length into
and through that ground which afterwards was patented as the placer
tract;
and that in running such tunnel they intersected and crossed
three veins, one of which was thereafter, and in 1879, located as the
Goodell vein or lode. The vein thus crossed and disclosed by the
tunnel was from seventy-five to seventy-eight feet from its mouth, of
about fifteen inches in width, with distinct walls of porphyry on either
side, a vein whose existence was obvious to even a casual inspection
by any one passing through the tunnel. At the trial the court ruled
that if the vein was known to the placer patentee at or before entry
and payment, although not known at the time of the application for
the patent, it was excepted from the property conveyed by the patent.
Held,
(1) That this vein was a known vein at the time of the application for
the placer patent;
(2) That the plaintiff was bound to know of the existence of the tunnel,
and what an examination of it would disclose;
(3) That it was a question for the jury whether there was sufficient gold
or silver within the vein to justify exploitation, and to be properly a
"known vein or lode" within the meaning of Rev. Stat. § 2333;
(4) That the time at which the vein or lode within the placer must be
known in order to be excepted from the grant of the placer patent is
the time at which the application for that patent was made; but that
the plaintiff suffered no injury from the error in the instruction of the
court below in that respect, as the facts which implied knowledge at
the time of the entry and payment existed also at and before the date
of the application;
(5) That the neglect of the parties who ran the tunnel to at once develop
the vein was of no account, as it appeared that there was a prevalent
belief that a rich blanket vein was underlying the entire country, and
this was the object of pursuit by all;
(6) That the admission of evidence respecting that blanket vein was im-
material, as the attention of the jury was directed by the court to the
vein disclosed by the tunnel as the known vein, upon which the rights
of defendant rested. Iron Silver Mining Co. v. Mike & Starr Gold and
Silver Mining Co., 394.
2. A placer patent conveys to the patentee full title to all lodes or veins
within the territorial limits not then known to exist; and mere specu-
lation and belief, based, not on any discoveries in the placer tract, or
any tracings of a vein or lode adjacent thereto, but on the fact that
quite a number of shafts, sunk elsewhere in the district, had disclosed
horizontal deposits of a particular kind of ore, which, it was argued,
might be merely a part of a single vein of continuous extension through
all that territory, is not the knowledge required by the law. Sullivan
v. Iron Silver Mining Co., 431.
MISREPRESENTATION.
See EQUITY, 1;
EVIDENCE, 4.
Under the law of Illinois, a grantee who by the terms of an absolute con-
veyance from the mortgagor assumes the payment of the mortgage
debt, is liable to an action at law by the mortgagee; the relation of the
grantee and the grantor towards the mortgagee is that of principal
and surety; and therefore a subsequent agreement of the mortgagee
with the grantee, without the assent of the grantor, extending the time
of payment of the mortgage debt, discharges the grantor from all per-
sonal liability for that debt. Union Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Hanford, 187.
See RAILROAD, 1, 2.
The conversion of a state bank into a national bank, with a change of
name, under the National Banking Act, does not affect its identity, or
its right to sue upon liabilities incurred to it by its former name.
Michigan Insurance Bank v. Eldred, 293.
NATIONAL BOARD OF HEALTH.
The National Board of Health had no authority to incur any liability upon
the part of the government for salaries or other expenses in excess of
the amounts appropriated by Congress for such purposes; and the
plaintiff in error did not perform services as a member of that board,
or as its chief clerk, or its secretary, or as a disbursing agent of the
Treasury Department under any implied contract that he should be
compensated otherwise than out of the moneys specifically appropri-
ated to meet the expenses incurred by the board in the performance of
the duties imposed upon it. Dunwoody v. United States, 578.
Boyd was born in Ireland in 1834, of Irish parents. His father emigrated
to the United States in 1844, with all his family, and settled in Ohio,
in which State he has since resided continuously. In 1849 the father
duly declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States,
but there is no record or other written evidence that he ever completed
his naturalization by taking out his naturalization certificate after the
expiration of the five years. For many years after the expiration of
that time, however, he exercised rights and claimed privileges in Ohio,
which could only be claimed and exercised by citizens of the United
States and of the State. The son, on attaining majority, voted in
Ohio, under the belief that his father had become a citizen. In 1856
he removed to Nebraska, in which State he resided continuously until
the commencement of this action. He voted there at all elections, held
various offices there which required him to take an oath to support the
Constitution of the United States, served in the army during the war,
was a member of a convention to frame a state constitution, was mayor
of Omaha and, after thirty years of unquestioned exercise of such
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