Opinion of the Court. to such expenditures, nor any implication of any intention to impose the burden of maintaining suitable premises for the transaction of the business upon the commissioner, and we think that the commissioner was not required, under the act of 1886, to pay out of his compensation expenses of the office which before that act were paid by the government. If before the act of 1886, Reed received $5000 for services and the government paid the rent and other expenses, and after the passage of the act he would receive $5000 and pay the rent and expenses himself, he could not, under the latter construction, receive the same compensation as before. It is true that under the Revised Statutes prior to the act of 1884, the commissioner was to lease, rent or procure at his own cost the premises in which to do business, and had also to pay all the other expenses of his office. But during that period he had all the fees of the office. The fees were taken from him by the act of 1884, and the Treasury was directed by that act to assume payment of all expenses, as is seen in its language, as follows: "All expenditures by shipping commissioners shall be audited and adjusted in the Treasury Department in the mode and manner provided for expenditures in the collection of customs. All fees for shipping commissioners shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States, and shall constitute a fund, which shall be used under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States to pay the compensation of said commissioners and their clerks, and such other expenses as he may find necessary to insure the proper administration of their duties." 23 Stat. 59. The record discloses that the Secretary of the Treasury construed the act of 1884 as directing him to allow for rent and expenses similar to those included in these judgments; and that he did not contend that the act of 1886 changed the rights of the commissioner in these particulars, but that he excused the non-payment of rent and expenses because Congress had failed to make the proper appropriation. The government's brief cites the case of United States v. Gunnison, 155 U. S. 389. But that was a case where it was Syllabus. held that a shipping commissioner at Mobile was not entitled to moneys paid for clerk hire, for the reason that the Secretary of the Treasury had formally notified the shipping commissioner, previous to the time for which the clerk hire. was claimed, that his compensation would be limited to one hundred dollars per month, and that no additional compensation would be allowed. When he presented his vouchers, including the items for clerk hire, the Secretary approved them only for one hundred dollars per month. The government's claim that the commissioner was to meet rent and expenses out of his salary might result in the application of his entire salary to that purpose. We are not willing to construe the statute so as to require so unreasonable a result. Without pursuing the subject into further detail, we are of opinion that the Circuit Court did not err in sustaining the commissioner's claims for reimbursement, and the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is accordingly Affirmed. HEDRICK v. ATCHISON, TOPEKA AND SANTA FÉ RAILROAD COMPANY. ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. No. 154. Argued January 14, 1897. - Decided May 24, 1897. F. located a bounty land warrant on the west half of range 14, with which he was acquainted. The land office, knowing his purpose and intending to comply with it, by mistake and oversight entered the location as of the half of range 17 instead of range 14. F., being ignorant of the mistake, entered upon the half of range 14 which he had thus located, took possession of it, paid taxes on it, and sold it. His grantees and their successors paid taxes on it, occupied it, and exercised acts of ownership over it. H., by his agent W., who knew all these facts, applied to enter the tract in range 14 so intended to be located by F., and received a patent therefor. In an action instituted by H. to recover possession of a portion of the land, Held, that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover, and that he held the legal title, evidenced by his patent, as trustee for those holding under F. VOL. CLXVII-43 Statement of the Case. ROBERT G. Hedrick filed his petition in the Circuit Court of Adair County, Missouri, on October 14, 1890, against the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad Company, seeking to recover possession of the portion of the defendant company's right of way which extended through the west half of the southeast quarter of section 28, township 61, range 14, in said county. The defendant company answered, as did also James G. Wilson and John G. Sanders, who, upon their own application, were made parties defendant. The plaintiff subsequently filed replications, and on May 5, 1891, the said court entered the following decree : "Now at this day this cause coming on to be heard, the parties appear, by their respective attorneys, and answer ready for trial, and a jury being waived, the cause is submitted to the court. "And the court having seen and heard the allegations and proofs of the parties, and being fully informed in the premises, doth find that this is an action of ejectment for the premises described in plaintiff's petition brought by the plaintiff against the defendant, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad Company, and that the defendants, Wilson and Sanders, have, on their own motion, been made parties defendant; that the said defendant railroad company is the lessee of the Chicago, Santa Fé and California Railway Company of Iowa, which company is the grantee of the defendants Wilson and Sanders by general warranty deeds for the land in controversy; that the defendant Sanders is the grantee of said Wilson for a part of the said premises; that said Wilson is the grantee by mesne conveyances of warranty of one William E. Parcells, who is the grantee of one William A. Lane by general warranty deed of date April 15, 1875; that said Lane is the grantee of one Cavil M. Freeman by general warranty deed of date the day of January, 1860. "That on July 25, 1860, said Freeman, at the district land office at Milan, Missouri, where said land was subject to entry, located military bounty land warrant No. 8470 (act of Congress of March 3, 1855) upon the west half of the southeast quarter of section 28, township 61 north, range Statement of the Case. 14 west, of the fifth principal meridian (which includes the land in question), and thereupon received a certificate of entry for said west half from the register of said land office, which entry was duly and properly posted on the books and records of said land office by proper notations and entries in the tract books, the plat book and the monthly abstract book, but by mistake and oversight said land was described in the application as being in range 17 instead of range 14. "That said Freeman sold said land as aforesaid, and paid taxes thereon, and his grantees have ever since paid taxes thereon and exercised acts of ownership over said land, and since April, 1875, have been in the actual, constant, continuous and uninterrupted occupancy of said premises, making lasting and valuable and permanent improvements thereon, such as fencing, dwellings and barns, and building a railroad thereon; that the plat book in the office of the county clerk of Adair County, certified by the register of the land office in 1866, shows that said west half, in range 14, had been entered and located by said Freeman, and the books in said land office continued to show said entry of said Freeman until some time subsequent to 1874, when first alterations and additions began to be made; and the court finds that said Freeman intended to and did enter said west half, in range 14, and the land officers in the land office at Milan, Missouri, knew said intention of said Freeman, and that he intended to enter said tract, and they intended him to enter said tract; and that thereby he became and was vested and possessed of the equitable right and estate in and to said tract, and became and was entitled to a patent to said land from the government. "That on September 1, 1885, while defendants Wilson and Sanders were in the actual occupancy and possession of said premises, plaintiff, taking advantage of the mistake made in said application, by his agent, A. C. Widdicombe, who was also his son in law, and an expert lawyer, who had full knowledge of the original entries and notations in said books and records of the land office, as well as of the additions, alterations, erasures and defacements of said books and records then and now existing, made application to enter said tract of land, Statement of the Case. and did thereafter, on the 20th day of July, 1886, secure a patent for said land. "And the court further finds that the plaintiff is not a purchaser of said land in good faith without notice of the defendants' estate therein, but he is chargeable with full knowledge of all the rights, equities and estate of defendants in and to the said premises, and holds the legal title, evidenced by said patent, as trustee for the defendant railroad company's lessor, the Chicago, Santa Fé and California Railway Company, and that plaintiff is not entitled to recover in this action. "Wherefore it is by the court considered, ordered, adjudged and decreed that plaintiff be, and he is hereby, divested of all right, title, interest and estate in and to the premises described in the petition as follows, to wit: a strip of land 100 feet wide on the north and west of the Santa Fé survey, and 50 feet wide on the south and east of said survey through the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 28, in township 61, of range 14; and also a tract of land 100 feet wide on each side of and along the centre line of said railway company's survey from where it enters the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 28, township 61, of range 14, at station No. 7078-39 for a distance of 111 feet to station No. 7079-50; thence a tract of land 50 feet in width on the north and west side of said survey for a distance of 450 feet to station No. 7084; thence 100 feet on north and west side of said survey and 50 feet on south and east side of said survey for a distance of 1310 feet to station No. 7097-10, to where said survey leaves said last-described 40 acres and as the same is located over and across the said southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 28, township 61, range 14; all the said described premises being the same land claimed and occupied by said railway company, situate in the west half of the southeast quarter of section 28, township 61, range 14, in the county of Adair and State of Missouri; and that all the said right, title, interest and estate accruing to plaintiff by reason of said patent be and the same is hereby vested in the said Chicago, Santa Fé and California Railway Company |