JURY TRIAL.

The rule of the supreme court of the District of Columbia (73) providing
that a plaintiff in an action ex contractu who files a sufficient affidavit
and serves the defendant with copies thereof and of the declaration is
entitled to judgment in the absence of an affidavit by the defendant suffi-
cient to offset same, does not deprive a defendant who files a plea in bar
and demands a trial by jury, but who also fails to file the affidavit of
defence required by the rule, of a right to a trial by jury, but simply
prescribes the means of making an issue in regard to which, if the same
be made as prescribed, the right of trial by jury accrues. Fidelity and
Deposit Co. v. United States, 315.

See BANKRUPTCY, 4.

LAND GRANTS.

All the lands below high water mark of the Mobile River having passed
to Alabama on her admission to the Union in 1819, there was nothing
left upon which a patent of the United States dated in 1836, could oper-
ate, and the person claiming to hold land below high water mark under
said patent has no vested interest in such land, which would require
compensation or proceedings in eminent domain on the part of the
State to take such lands. Transportation Co. v. Mobile, 479.

LEGISLATION.

1. The principle is universal that legislation, whether by Congress or by a
State, must be taken to be valid, unless the contrary is made clearly to
appear. Reid v. Colorado, 137.

2. When Congress enacted the Customs Administrative Act of 1890, it must
be presumed to have possessed knowledge of the decisions of this
court and the consistent application made of the doctrine of those de-
cisions by the officials charged with the execution of the tariff laws,
and in the light of this fact it would require a clear expression by Con-
gress of its intention to adopt a contrary policy before a court would be
justified in holding that such was the purpose of the legislative branch
of the government. Lawder v. Stone, 281.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 10;

INDIANS, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8;
JURISDICTION, 18.

LIMITATION OF ACTIONS.

See COURTS, 3, 4.

LOCAL LAW.

See ASSIGNMEnt for CREDITORS;

INSURANCE, 1;

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 3, 8, 14, 15; INTERSTATE COMMERCE, 3, 5;

A mortgagee who enters into possession, not forcibly but peacefully and

under the authority of a foreclosure proceeding, cannot be dispossessed
by the mortgagor or one claiming under him, so long as the mortgage
remains unpaid. Romig v. Gillett, 111.

See TERRITORIAL LAWS, 2.

PARTIES.

Where a rear admiral of the United States Navy who has filed a libel in
prize in his own behalf and also in behalf of all the officers and enlisted
men in the Navy taking part in the engagement, dies, and his death has
been suggested on the record, it is not necessary that the personal rep-
resentatives of the deceased should come in or that any person should
be designated ex officio, but the court may substitute any one interested
in the prosecution of the litigation, who has personally appeared in
the case. United States v. Sampson, 436.

POLICE POWER OF STATE.

The General Assembly of Illinois in enacting the dramshop act legis-
lated "against the evils arising from the sale of intoxicating liquors
not by prohibiting, but by regulating, the traffic, and such legislation
was in exercise of the police power which is reserved to the States free
from any Federal restriction material in this action. Ambrosini v.
United States, 1.

POSTAL LAWS.

Sections 2929 and 4041 of the Revised Statutes and the act of Congress
of March 2, 1875, authorizing the retention of letters directed to per-
sons obtaining money through the mails by false pretenses, do not
justify the Postmaster-General in prohibiting the delivery of letters
addressed to a corporation which assumes to heal disease through the
influence of the mind, as the statutes were not intended to cover cases
based on false opinions, but only cases of actual fraud, in fact, in
regard to which opinions formed no basis. American School of Mag-
netic Healing v. McAnnulty, 94.

See INJUNCTION.

PRACTICE.

1. Objections not raised in the court below cannot be raised in this court.
The action of the lower court is not reversible for errors which counsel
in this court have first evolved from the record. Robinson & Co. v.
Belt, 41.

2. Where a fraudulent joinder of defendants is averred by the party peti-
tioning for removal and is specifically denied, the petitioner has the
affirmative of the issue. Kansas City Suburban Belt Ry. Co. v.
Herman, 63.

3. A demurrer to a bill of complaint admitting the material facts alleged
therein, does not permit of a finding of fraud where the allegations of
the bill do not justify such finding. American School of Magnetic
Healing v. McAnnulty, 94.

4. Where the record does not show that it was contended in the state court
that a state law under which the plaintiff in error was convicted was
in contravention of the Constitution of the United States, the objec-
tion that the law is unconstitutional must be regarded as relating only
to the constitution of the State. Layton v. Missouri, 356.
5. A party claiming a title, privilege or immunity under the Constitution
of the United States within the third clause of § 709 of the Revised
Statutes, which must be specially set up and claimed by the party
seeking to take advantage of it, but which cannot be set up in any
pleading anterior to the trial, must make the claim either on the mo-
tion for new trial or in the assignments of error filed in the Supreme
Court of the State. It is insufficient, if it first appears in the peti-
tion for a writ of error from this court. Johnson v. New York Life

Insurance Co., 491.

6. It is sufficient answer to a claim that a statute of Utah amounts to a
deprivation of the rights under the Fourteenth Amendment that it
appears for the first time in the petition for a writ of error from this
court and that the claim of invalidity was not raised in the District
Court, nor assigned as a ground of error on the appeal to the Supreme
Court of the State, and that that court did not pass upon the action
of the District Court in view of the unconstitutionality of the statute.
Telluride Power Co. v. Rio Grande Western Ry. Co., 569.

7. A bill for relief to test the constitutionality of a law cannot be main-
tained until the plaintiff has shown that he has personally suffered
an injury by the application of the law. Turpin v. Lemon, 51.

8. A Federal defence which cannot be availed of unless raised before judg-
ment is not efficacious, when it has not been raised at the proper time,
to avoid the judgment when rendered. Manley v. Park, 547.

See APPEAL AND WRIT OF ERROR;

BANKRUPTCY;

JURISDICTION.

PRESUMPTION OF SURVIVORSHIP.

There is no presumption of survivorship in the case of those who perish
by a common disaster, in the absence of proof tending to show the
order in which dissolution took place; and, actual survivorship being
unascertainable, descent and distribution take the same course as if
the deaths had been simultaneous. Young Women's Christian Home
v. French, 401.

PRIZE CASES.

See PARTIES.

PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 14, 15, 16.

PUBLIC LANDS.

The action of government surveyors in segregating and setting apart a lake

by meander lines from the public lands and the approval of such sur-
vey by the Commissioner of the General Land Office was not an ad-
judication by the Government of the United States by its duly author-
ized officers and agents, that the lake so segregated and set apart was
the property of a State and not a part of the public domain. It was
beyond the powers of a government surveyor to determine the title
to such lands, or to adjudicate anything whatever upon the subject.
Iowa v. Rood, 87.

PUBLIC POLICY.

The agreements made by the Harmony Society of Pennsylvania held by
the courts of that State not to have been contrary to public policy.
Schwartz v. Duss, 8.

See CONTRACT, 4.

RAILROADS.

See INTERSTATE COMMERCE, 4.

REMOVAL OF CAUSES.

1. While an action commenced in a state court against two defendants,
one of whom is a resident and the other a non-resident, may be re-
moved to the Circuit Court of the United States by the non-resident
defendant if it can be shown that the cause of action is separable and
the resident defendant is joined fraudulently for the purpose of pre-
venting the removal of the cause to the Federal court, such removal
cannot be had if it does not appear that the resident defendant is
fraudulently joined for such purpose. Kansas City Suburban Belt Ry.
Co. v. Herman, 63.

2. This rule will be adhered to even if on the trial of the action the lower
court holds that no evidence was given by the plaintiff tending to
show liability of the resident defendant, and a second application for
removal from the state to the Federal court has been made and denied
after a trial, and the trial court has sustained a demurrer to the evi-
dence as to the resident defendant and where it appears that the ruling
was on the merits and in invitum. Ib.

3. Where the state court refuses to remove a cause to the Circuit Court
and afterwards on filing the record in the Circuit Court that court
remands the cause to the state court, if there was any error in the
ruling of the state court it becomes wholly immaterial. Telluride
Power Co. v. Rio Grande Western Ry. Co., 569.

RIPARIAN RIGHTS.

It has been conclusively settled by this court (Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan,
3 How. 212,) that the State of Alabama, when admitted to the Union,
became entitled to the soil under the navigable waters below high
water mark within the limits of the State, not previously granted.
Transportation Co. v. Mobile, 479.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 12.

SHIPPING.

Where the charter party of a vessel bound with a cargo of sugar from
Java, to a port in the United States provides that the vessel should
discharge at New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Baltimore "or so
near the port of discharge as she may safely get and deliver the same,
always afloat, in a customary place, and manner, in such dock, as
directed by charterers, agreeably to bills of lading," and also provides
"all goods to be brought to and taken from alongside of the ship al-
ways afloat at said charterers' risk and expense, who may direct the
same at the most convenient anchorage; lighterage, if any, to reach
the port of destination, or deliver the cargo at port of destination, re-
mains for account of receivers, any custom of the port to the contrary
notwithstanding," and the vessel has three steel masts built up solidly
from the bottom to the top and so riveted that there is no way of taking
them down and the mainmast requires one hundred and forty-five
feet of clear space to pass under any obstruction, which is more than
the height at dead low water of the Brooklyn Bridge over the East
River, charterers have no right to order the vessel to discharge at a
dock above the Brooklyn Bridge; and if the vessel discharges by
lighterage from the most convenient place below the bridge, the char-
terers must pay the expense of lighterage from the vessel to the dock.
Under the above conditions it is not a just exercise of the right given
to the charterers by the charter party to select a dock in getting to
which the vessel could not always be afloat or to which she could not
safely get. Under such circumstances the vessel is not obliged to sail
around Long Island and thus reach the dock above the bridge by com-
ing through Long Island Sound and Hell Gate. Mencke v. Cargo of
Java Sugar, 248.

1. There is a presumption against a construction which would render a
statute ineffective or inefficient, or which would cause grave public
injury or even inconvenience. Bird v. United States, 118.

2. The validity of a Wisconsin statute in respect of regulating the trans-
action of business of a foreign corporation within the State by con-
ditions precedent, is not effected by the invalidity of a provision
relating to partnerships where such provision is separable and its
invalidity without effect upon the remainder of the act. Diamond
Glue Co. v. United States Glue Co., 611.