some remedy, if any practicable and expedient remedy exists. The lawyer in an important case does not feel that he has discharged his full duty if he has not made a thorough examination of the multitudinous mass of decisions and put the result upon his brief. The community which is conclusively supposed to know the law and required to obey it, does not attempt to acquire or affect to possess such knowledge. Tennyson's well-known picture borrows nothing from poetic coloring, but is severely drawn with the sober pencil of a judge. The lawless science of our law, The codeless myriad of precedent, Our condition is worse than the condition in England, since we have thirty-eight State courts of last resort, and no superior tribunal to harmonize conflicting decisions except in the comparatively small number of cases involving Federal law. Still the inquiry comes back, What is the remedy? "If there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?" Still the question presses, Where or in what is all this to end? When we consider how purblind are the wisest and most sagacious in dealing with the future, I venture a forecast and the reasons therefor with unaffected distrust. 1. Our laws will, I believe, even if codification be not adopted, become relatively more and more embodied in legislative form. The greater certainty and convenience of a carefully considered enactment over the chaotic and unmethodized condition of the law when it has to be sought through volumes of reports and a variety of statutes, will constantly operate with no inconsiderable force in expanding the scope of legislative action; and this, although codification in the sense usually attached to the term, be not undertaken. This tendency is especially observable in modern English legislation, and one cannot fail to perceive in the recent English reports how much greater than formerly is the proportion of causes that turn upon statutory enactments. In this silent, unperceived way the English bar and people are being educated up to and gradually prepared for codification in some practicable, expedient form. Every statute carefully thought out and fully covering an important subject is in one sense codification; at all events it is pro tanto a remedy for the unsatisfactory condition of the law ou that subject existing when the statute was enacted. But ought the legislative action to be so expanded as to embrace codification within its remedial endeavors? Well, what is codification? The term is used in such a variety of senses that it must be defined before the question, "Whether codification is an expedient remedy," can be answered. By one class of code advocates it is insisted that the essential idea of a code is a complete statement of the whole law of the land, including both statute law and case law. In their view the principles of true codifica. tion must assume that the law in its leading departments has practically attained its growth; that its principles are settled; that these can be and ought to be expressed in precise and logical form, without any necessary references to old language and conceptions or titles; that it is feasible to do this so as to cover the whole field of general law, to the end of superseding the prior statutes and the law reports; and that any lesser attempt argues an inadequate appreciation of the mischief and of the needful remedy. To me it has always seemed, I will not say chimerical, but inexpedient, to attempt a scheme so ambitious as the embodying into a code or statutory form rules applicable to all the complicated transactions of modern business and society, with a view wholly to supersede the reports. The comprehensive scheme above outlined seems to have been Bentham's idea of a code. What is more visionary than the legal millennium he pictured to his fancy? "Every man his own lawyer. Behold in this," he exclaimed, "the point to aim at." Bentham never argued or tried a cause. His independent and vigorous intellect lacked the true legal wisdom that can only come from living contact with the law at the bar or on the bench. He had all the elements of a reformer-enthusiastic, fierce, destructive. He is an unique, statuesque, eccentric figure in the English law. His sensitive nature personally unfitted him for the practice of his profession. But as we read his bitter, bold, sweeping denunciations of the evils in government and law as he saw them, we seem to behold in him an ancient prophet with flowing robe and beard, coming with a new message to an unheeding world. His assaults were not wholly without effect, and they brought about at length some useful emendations in the law. "Nobody has been so much plundered as Bentham," said some one to Talleyrand, who replied: "True, but how rich he still is." The world is yet troubled over his ideas as to the rational and true purpose of that to which he gave the name of codification, and it is not impossible that a more remote age may accept as sound in principle what to most of us still seem to be his extravagant notions on this subject. He believed it was possible to extract from the reports all that was valuable in them; nay, that this ought to be done, and done speedily, and embodied in a code, whereupon he would have been willing, I fancy, to have burned the law reports, and himself to have applied the torch. Unfortunately there is no alchemy by which the value of the law reports can all be extracted and transmuted into statutory coin. There are, I think, few advocates of codification who share in Bentham's extreme views; but there are many who believe, myself amongst them, that a far less radical scheme-one more suited to human nature's daily food-is not only feasible, but desirable, viz. a thorough revision and systematic statement, not of the whole law, but as far as it can be expediently done, of the law on the great subjects which relate to the ordinary business and life of the people; deducing and stating what is clear; removing what is archaic and obsolete; settling what is doubtful or obscure; filling in the gaps and interstices by legislative additions, never losing sight of the old land-marks, sailing ever close to the shore, using whenever they will answer the purpose old conceptions, language and methods of classification, and making no changes in substantive law, except where it is demonstrably clear that change is improvement. Codification within these conservative limits has many advocates in England and in this country among lawyers and judges of ability and wide experience. Of the opponents of codification of the unwritten law in any form, some deny its practicability and some its expediency. Its practicability proceeds in part upon the truth so clearly expressed by Lord Mansfield that "the law does not consist of particular cases, but of general principles, which are illustrated and explained by those cases." Rex v. Bembridge, 3 Dougl. 332. The number of the cases is legion, but the principles they establish are comparatively few, capable of course of being thoroughly mastered, and capable also of direct and intelligible statement. The objection to the expediency of such a performance, assuming the work to be thoroughly done by the ablest and fittest men in the profession, is that the freedom of growth of the unwritten law will thereby be arrested, and the inelas ticity and imperativeness of the codified rule will work injustice, since the courts will be required to apply it in cases in which the facts and circumstances would take it out of the rule if the rule had not been cast in an inflexible statutory mould. There is some plausibility, but on the assumption that the work of codification is done in the spirit and manner I have indicated, there is little real force in the objections. In my view, the codifier ought not to generalize any principle, so that it could fairly apply to any other than the class of cases specially defined, and for which it was intended, to the end that the codified rule shall, unless purposely changed, be simply co-extensive with the settled uncodified rule, which the courts have no more power to change or to refuse to apply in the uncodified than in the codified state. If cases shall arise not within the rule, and not expressly provided for, they will be determined in the same manner as if no code existed. If mistakes shall be made they can be speedily remedied by the Legislature, which meets annually or bi-annually in all the States; and by a standing provision for frequent legislative revision. A rule could also be enacted that the code should be construed as a code of the common law of the State, and not strictly, like statutes, in derogation of the common law. A more extended and radical scheme of codification than the one I have outlined is, I admit, theoretical, possible, and perhaps desirable, whenever the work can be thoroughly done. Codification in some form will, I feel sure, be accomplished at no very distant day in Great Britain, and then, if not before, our States will undoubtedly adopt the result with necessary changes. In the law of procedure we have heretofore led the way, under an able and eminent lawyer of this State (Mr. David Dudley Field) in a great reform, which spread not only over our own land, but has crossed the two oceans, and lies at the basis of the recent and existing Judicature Act of Great Britain.* It ought to gratify a laudable national and professional pride if we could in like manner lead the way to a reform equally needed, and within the limits indicated, equally practicable, in the substantative law common to both nations. I recall here Mr. Webster's remarks in his finished eulogy on Mr. Justice Story: "There is no purer pride of country thau that in which we may indulge when we see America paying back the great debt of civilization, learning and science to Europe; and in the august reckoning and accounting between nations, returning light for light and mind for mind. Acknowledging, as we all acknowledge, our obligations to the original sources of English law, as well as of civil liberty, we have seen in our generation copious and salutary streams turning and running backward, replenishing their original fountains, and giving a fresher and brighter grace to the fields of English jurisprudence." 2. In course of time each State will have, as the result of permanent statutes and the lengthened line of its own judicial decisions, a jurisprudence of its own, so ample that the necessity for going beyond it will arise only in the novel and exceptional cases, which will justify and reward the labor. 3. As the common law happily underlies our jurisprudence, thereby giving it a general uniformity of character, and as the labor of examining the multitude of reports becomes more and more onerous to the busy practitioner or the equally busy judge; and as the * Fortunate man! To have had his days graciously prolonged so much beyond the common span, that he might witness this ecumenical triumph of the ideas of his earlier, but not more enthusiastic, days. character for learning and ability of many of the benches of shifting judges is not such as to invest their judgments and decisions with special value, the combined result will be a tendency more and more to diminish the importance of the "case lawyer," and to make felt the importance of a knowledge of the great, living, fundan ental principles of our law and equity systems, and to argue and decide causes with greater reliance upon these principles. We have at length happily reached, in law as in literature, the salutary stage when, in the language of Dr. Johnson, "no precedents can justify absurdity." Life of Milton. As therefore we must expect that adjudged cases will continue to be reported, and continue as heretofore to be used as authority, and to serve as sources or evidence of legal principles, we are deeply concerned in whatever favorably or injuriously affects the value of the reports. The character of many recent reports has deteriorated from several causes. To two of these I will now allude, because they arise from mistaken views and practices of the judges themselves, and are therefore readily remediable. Most of our appellate courts are crowded with causes, and the effect of this upon the judges is that they too often feel it to be an ever-pressing, paramount, all-absorbing duty "to clear the docket." This mistakenly becomes the chief object to be attainedthe primary instead of a quite subordinate consideration. In the accomplishment of this end, the judges are as impatient of delay as was the wedding guest in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Added to this, a majority of the Appellate judges generally reside elsewhere than at the capital or place where the courts are held, and the desire is constantly felt to bring a laborious session to an end as speedily as possible, in order that they may rejoin their families and do their work in the fatigue dress of their libraries rather than under the necessary restraints of the term. As a result, two practices have grown up too generally throughout the country, which have, as I think, done more to impair the value of judicial judgments and opinions than perhaps all other causes combined. The first is that the submission of causes upon printed briefs is favored, and oral arguments at the bar are discouraged, and the time allowed therefor is usually inadequate. On this subject I hold very strong opinions, but also hold that no opinion can be too strong. As a means of enabling the court to understand the exact case brought thither for its judgment; as a means of eliciting the very truth of the matter, both of law and fact, there is no substitute for oral argument. None! I distrust the soundness of the decision of any court, of any case, either novel or complex, which has been submitted wholly upon briefs. Speaking, if I may be allowed, from my own experience, I always felt a reasonable assurance in my own judgment, when I had patiently heard all that opposing counsel could say to aid me, and a very diminished faith in any judgment given in a cause not orally argued. Mistakes, errors, fallacies and flaws elude us in spite of ourselves, unless the case is pounded and hammered at the bar. This mischievous substitute of printer's ink for face-to-face argument impoverishes our case law at its very source, since it tends to prevent the growth of able lawyers, who are developed only in the conflicts of the bar, and of great judges, who can become great only by the aid of the bar that surrounds them. It was not thus until a quite recent period. Nor are these views at all novel Lord Coke refers to the benefits of oral arguments in language the most solemn and impressive. In cases of difficulty he says: "No man alone, with all his uttermost labors, nor all the actors in them, themselves by themselves, out of a court of justice, can attain unto a right decision; nor in court without solemn argument, where I am persuaded Almighty God openeth and enlargeth the understanding of those desirous of justice and right." Formerly whenever a new or difficult question arose the judges of England invited argument and reargument always in open court; and in the earlier days of the law the matter was not only debated at the bar by the counsel for the parties, but was afterward discussed by the judges openly at a time prefixed in the presence of the barristers and apprentices. "A reverend and honorable proceeding in law, a grateful satisfaction to the parties, and a great instruction to the studious hearers."* If, gentlemen, our case law is not to go on deteriorating, we must revive the former appreciation of the value of oral arguments. It is these that must be favored, and it is the submission wholly on briefs that ought to be discouraged. The other practice among some, I fear many, of our appellate courts which injuriously affects our case law, is the practice of assigning the record of causes submitted on printed arguments to one of the judges to look into and write an opinion, without a previous examination of the record and arguments by the judges in concert. This practice ought to be forbidden; peremptorily forbidden, by statute. What is the most difficult function of an appellate court? It is, after the record is fully opened and the arguments understood, to determine precisely upon what point or points the judgment of the case ought to turn and rest. This most delicate and important of all judicial duties ought always to be performed by the judges in full conference before the record is delivered to one of their number to write the opinion of the court, which, when written, should be confined to the precise grounds thus predetermined. But in respect to oral arguments and prior conferences, it gives me sincere pleasure to add that the Supreme Court of the United States is a model for every appellate tribunal in the country. When the ideal of legal education shall be the master of principles, so that the first impulse of the lawyer will be to find the "principle" and not the "case" that governs the matter in hand; when arguments at the bar shall be mainly directed, first, to an ascertainment of the peculiar and controlling facts of the case under consideration, and then to pointing out the prin "Whereunto (in those cases that be tortuosi and of great difficulty, adjudged upon demurrer or resolved in open court) no one man alone with all his true and uttermost labors, nor all the actors in them, themselves by themselves, out of a court of justice, nor in court without solemn argument, where (I am persuaded Almighty God openeth and enlargeth the understanding of the desirous of justice and right) could ever have attained unto. For it is one amongst others of the great honors of the common laws that cases of great difficulty are never adjudged or resolved in tenebris or sub silentio suppressio rationibus; but in open court, and there upon solemn and elaborate arguments, first at the bar by the counsel learned of either party (and if the case depend in the Court of Common Pleas, then by sergeants at law only); and after by the bench by the judges, where they argue (the puisne judge beginning and so ascending) seriatim upon certain days openly and purposely prefixed, declaring at large the authorities, reasons and causes of their judgments and resolutions, in every such particular case (habet enim nescio quid energiae viva vox) a reverend and honorable proceeding in law, a grateful satisfaction to the parties, and a great instruction and direction to the attentive and studious hearers." Sir Edward Coke's Preface to 9th Coke's Reports, page XIV. ciples of law which apply to this precise state of facts, each of which operations requires the disciplined exercise of intellectual qualities of a high order; when the bench shall be constituted of the flower of the bar, and appellate judgments shall not be given without a previous conference of the judges, at which the grounds of the judgment shall be agreed upon before the record is assigned for the opinion to be written; when opinions shall be rigidly restricted, without unnecessary disquisition and essay writing, to the precise points needful to the decision, we will have an abler bar, better judgments, and an improved jurisprudence in which erroneous and conflicting decisions will be few and reduced in the minimum. And here I must close. My purpose has been to show that our system of jurisprudence is consonant with the genius of our people and with our civil and political institutions; that it is an outgrowth of them, and powerfully supports and sustains them. It is, in its ground work, the system that prevails wherever, in either continent, the English language is spoken. In our law libraries we find the learning and labors of judges administering this system in law reports from India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Sandwich Islands and the West Indies. All this is the heritage, by a species of tenancy in common, of the English and American lawyer, who wherever, within this wide horizon, he finds his language spoken, finds also individual and civil liberty, popular institutions, legislative assemblies, the grand and petit jury, Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus,the same sacred regard for iudividual rights, the same reverential affection for, and instinctive obedience to law. What incalculable advantages! We have the same legal literature. We have the same legal firmament, in which we behold Hale and Mansfield, Hardwicke and Story, Blackstone and Kent, Erskine and Webster. We partake mutually of the benefits of each other's labors. Whoever achieves any thing for the advancement of the law, achieves it not for his own country alone, but for all Englishspeaking and English-governed peoples. My further purpose has been to show that although this system is not without serious defects, rather however of form than of substance, the remedy is not to substitute the principles of some alien system, but to engraft the needed amendments and changes on this hardy, native stock. The special duty of the American lawyer is of course to improve and promote the jurisprudence of his own country. That we recognize this duty, the existence of this association, of which this is the chief end, and your presence fully attests. What great and complex problems confront the American lawyer, growing out of our vast territorial extent, and our District, Federal and State systems of government and jurisprudence; out of the changes wrought by iron, steam and electricity in business, and all the modes of communication and transportation; out of the combinations of capital almost without limit, in corporate form, affecting interests vital to individuals and to society. The law has to be adapted to these new situations and circumstances. What a weighty work! Truly it demands the most attentive study, the most penetrating observation, the most sedate consideration, the ripest judgment. Here will be found work enough for us all. We have laid, as I have attempted to show, the foundations of a noble jurisprudence, and during the two centuries of our colonial and national life the structure has been carried along so as to meet contemporary wants and needs. The work must however go forward with the national progress. What more generous ambition can inspire; what higher duty can engage the American lawyer than to assist in his day in advancing this structure, and adapting it, by alteration and enlargement, to the changed and changing conditions LOWELL, J. This bill is brought upon two patents, and the demurrer of the city of New Bedford raises several objections, all but one of which, it is agreed, can be and may be removed by amendment. A question which cannot be thus disposed of, and which has been argued with earnestness, and is pending in at least one other Circuit, is whether the complainant's title to an undivided part of one of the patents is sufficient. It seems that this title comes through an administrator of the patentee, and the defendant contends that the grant of a patent, by Rev. Stat., § 4884, is to the patentee, "his heirs and assigns," and that by force of these words a patent descends directly to the heirs, without the intervention of the administrator. This is a new and somewhat surprising proposition. It has never been doubted before that a patent' is personal property, which follows the ordinary course, and goes to the executor or administrator in trust for the next of kin. The cases take this for granted, and when any question has been mooted, it has had reference to the due qualification of the executor or administrator, or something of that sort, as in Rubber Co. v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. 788. The text-writers treat of patent-rights as personal property which goes to the executor. Norm. Pat. 145; Schouler Exrs., § 200. The defendant argues that the statute of 1870 changed the rule by omitting the words "executors and administrators" from what is now section 4884, intending to make a sort of real estate of this incorporeal right. He has not argued that the widow can be endowed of it, but I suppose that will follow. A grant of personal property to a man and his heirs, without further qualification, means to him and his next of kin, according to the statute of distributions. 4 Kent Comm. (5th ed.) 537, note d, and cases; Vaux v. Henderson, 1 J. & W. 338n.; Gittings v. McDermott, 2 Mylne & K. 69; Re Newton's Trusts, L. R., 4 Eq. 171; Re Gryll's Trusts, L. R., 6 Eq. 589; Re Steeven's Trusts, L. R., 15 Eq. 110, Re Thompson's Trusts, 9 Ch. Div. 607; Houghton v. Kendall, 7 Allen, 72; Sweet v. Dutton, 109 Mass. 589. Such a grant is simply a limitation of an estate of inheritance, having no reference one way or the other to the administrator. He takes in trust for the next of kin, because the estate is more than a life estate. The acts of Congress have not been drawn with technical accuracy in this particular respect. Down to 1836 the word executors was omitted, and patents were issued to the patentee, his "heirs, administrators, or assigns" (St. April 10, 1790, §1; 1 St. 110; St. Feb. 21, 1793, § 1; 1St., § 321); but no one ever doubted but executors would take the title. In 1836 executors were added, *S. C., 19 Federal Reporter, 753. and the grant was to the patentee, his "heirs, administrators, executors or assigns." St. July 4, 1836, § 5; 5 St. 119. In 1870 administrators and executors were left out. This omission is not significant. The law was not changed by it, the proof of which is that executors and administrators are mentioned as taking title in five of the sections of the Revised Statutes which reenact the law of 1870. Thus, by section 4896, if an inventor dies before a patent is granted, the right to obtain it devolves on his executor or administrator, in trust for his heirs at law (that is, his next of kin, as we have seen), or to his devisees, as the case may be, which technically should be legatees. By section 4898 every patent shall be assignable, and the patentee and his assigns, or legal representatives," may in like manner grant, etc. Now legal representatives usually means executors or administrators (Price v. Strange, 6 Madd. 159; Re Gryll's Trusts, L. R., 6 Eq. 589), and it has that meaning in this statute, for by section 4896, above mentioned, by which the executors or administrators are authorized to apply for a patent, it is provided that when the application is made "by such legal representatives," the oath shall be varied to meet their situation. By section 4900 it is made the duty of all patentees and their assigns and "legal representatives" to do certain acts by way of informing the public that the article they make or sell is patented. By section 4922, when a patentee has innocently claimed more than his invention, he, his executors, administrators and assigns may maintain a suit on the patent, notwithstanding the mistake. By section 4916 if a patentee is dead, without having assigned the patent, and there is occasion for a reissue, it shall be made to his executors or administrators. From a comparison of these sections it is made clear that a patent-right, like any other personal property, is understood by Congress to vest in the executors and administrators of the patentee, if he has died without having assigned it. It is really of no consequence whether they hold in trust for heirs or for next of kin, so long as they take the legal title. It was argued that Congress may have intended to express by the word "heirs" that a patent should not be assets for the payment of debts. But they have not only not exempted patent-rights from being taken for the debts of the owners, but have required that they should be so taken by assignees in bankruptcy (Rev. Stat., § 5046); and the Supreme Court have failed to discover such an intent, for they hold that by due process in chancery a patent-right may be applied to such payment. Ager v. Murray, 105 U. S. 126. Indeed section 4898 is decisive of this question, for it expressly provides that the legal representatives of the patentee may assign. Even if this were a mere statutory power, the authority would be sufficient; but it is of course a recognition of a fact, and not a new grant of power. Demurrer overruled. FEDERAL JURISDICTION-STATE LAWS. UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, DISTRICT OF INDIANA. FEBRUARY 26, 1884.* HULL V. DILLS. A bill of complaint having been filed by a ward against his guardian in the United States Circuit Court for Indiana, it was contended by the defense, that according to the laws of Indiana, in matters of probate, relief could be granted only by the courts in which the proceedings were had, and that these could not be made subject to any collateral proceedings. Held, that the equity courts of the United States are not affected by the restrictions laid by the several States upon their own equity courts. 19 Fed. Rep. 957. Sullivan & Jones, W. L. Penfield, and E. Callahan, for complainant. Combs, Bell & Morris, for defendant. WOODS, J. The bill, stated generally, charges that the defendant was appointed guardian of the complainant by the Probate Court of De Kalb county, Indiana, and that as such guardian, he wrongfully and fraudulently sold real estate of the complainant for less than its value, and afterward, in like manner, procured an order of the court for the investment of the proceeds of the sale in other lands, owned by the defendant, at and for a sum greatly exceeding the value of the land, and thereupon conveyed the land to the plaintiff, and procured the approval of the court to the conveyance, by concealing from the court the fact that the land belonged to the guardian himself; that the guardian had made false and fraudulent reports, and had been guilty of other official delinquencies specified (but which need not be particularized here); and that in October, 1878, the defendant filed with the court his resignation as guardian, concerning which the entry of record made at the time is of the tenor following, to wit: "Which resignation is accepted." plaintiff became of lawful age in December, 1882, and on the next day after attaining his majority executed and tendered to the defendant a reconveyance by quitclaim deed of said land, and demanded an accounting of said guardianship, all of which the defendant refused. The prayer of the bill is "to have the said record and proceedings examined in this court and corrected or revised; annulled, canceled, and set aside;" that the order authorizing such sale may be reviewed and wholly reversed; and that the plaintiff be restored to his rights as if the sale had not been made; and if this cannot be done, "that an account may be taken of the matters and things charged," etc., and for general relief. That The objections made to the bill is that it shows a case wherein relief should be sought, and can be granted only in the Circuit Court of De Kalb county, Indiana, the court which is clothed with probate powers, and in which the proceedings complained of were had. In support of this view, counsel for the defendant insist, and the fact cannot be denied, that the Supreme Court of Indiana has repeatedly decided that the orders of the Probate Courts, whether final or interlocutory, are binding until set aside; that they cannot be attacked collaterally; and that they can be set aside or corrected only in the particular court which made them; that a bill in equity is a collateral attack, and cannot be maintained in any other court. Among the cases cited are Spaulding v. Baldwin, 31 Ind. 376; Barnes v. Bartlett, 47 id. 98; Holland v. State ex rel., 48 id. 391; Sanders v. Loy, 61 id. 298; Parsons v. Milford, 67 id. 489; Briscoe v. Johnson, 73 id. 573; Candy v. Hanmore, 76 id. 125; Jennison v. Hapgood, 7 Pick. 1; Paine v. Slone, 10 id. 75; Negley v. Gard, 20 Ohio, 310; Goodrich v. Thompson, 4 Day, 215; State v. Rolland, 23 Mo. 95; Short v. Johnson, 25 Ill. 489; Iverson v. Loberg, 26 id. 180; Freem. Judg., §§ 319a, 608. Counsel for the complainant, on the contrary, contend, that notwithstanding the statutes which confer probate jurisdiction upon particular courts, courts of equity continue to have jurisdiction in such cases, and consequently that an original bill of review may be maintained in any court of general equity powers, State or National, which can obtain jurisdiction of the parties; and cite Bond v. Lockwood, 33 Ill. 212; Wickizer v, Cook, 85 id. 68; Fogarty v. Ream, 100 id. 366; Jones & C. Pr. 270, §6; Rorer Jud. Sales, 125, § 317; 2 Story Eq., § 1339. Whatever may be the rule in and in respect to the State courts, the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, in such cases, if the parties be citizens of different States, seems to have been distinctly declared and upheld. In Payne v. Hook, 7 Wall. 425, a case wherein the bill sought "to open the settlements with the Probate Court as fraudulent, and to cancel the receipt and transfer from the complainant to the administrator because obtained by false representations," the proposition was advanced "that a Federal court of chancery sitting in Missouri will not enforce demands against an administrator or executor, the State court, having general chancery powers, could not enforce similar demands." In response to this, the Supreme Court, by Davis, J., says: "If this position could be maintained, an important part of the jurisdiction conferred on the Federal courts by the Constitution and laws of Congress would be abrogated. But this objection to the jurisdiction of the Federal tribunals has been heretofore presented to this court and overruled." "We have repeatedly held 'that the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States cannot be impaired by the laws of the States which prescribe the modes of redress in their courts, or which regulate the distribution of their judicial power.' If legal remedies are sometimes modified to suit the changes in the laws of the States, and the practice of their courts, it is not so with equitable. The equity jurisdiction conferred on the Federal courts is the same that the high court of chancery in England possesses; is subject to neither limitation nor restraint by State legislation; and is uniform throughout the different States of the Union. Hgde v. Stone, 20 How. 175; Union Bank v. Jolly's Admrs., 18 id. 503; Suydam v. Broadnax, 14 Pet. 67. " See also Fiske v. Hills, 11 Biss. 294; S. C., 12 Fed. Rep. 372; Cornett v. Williams, 20 Wall. 249. This bill shows that the complainant is a citizen and resident of Illinois, and the respondent of Indiana, and except in the respect already considered, its sufficiency has not been questioned. The demurrer is therefore overruled. UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT ABSTRACT. STOCK-PLEDGEE-NO LIABILITY AS STOCKHOLDER. -It is well settled that one who allows himself to appear on the books of a National bank as an owner of its stock is liable to creditors as a shareholder, whether he be the absolute owner or a pledgee only, and that if a registered owner, acting in bad faith, transfers his stock in a failing bank to an irresponsible person, for the purpose of escaping liability, or if his transfer is colorable only, the transaction is void as to creditors. National Bank v. Case, 99 U. S. 628; Bowden v. Johnson, 107 id. 251. It is also undoubtedly true, that the beneficial owner of stock registered in the name of an irresponsible person may, under some circumstances, be liable to creditors as the real shareholder, but it has never, to our knowledge, been held that a mere pledgee of stock is chargeable where he is not registered as owner. Anderson v. Warehouse Co. Opinion by Waite, C. J. (See 24 Eng. Rep. 624.-ED.) [Decided April 21, 1884.] EVIDENCE-TREASURY BOOKS -TRANSCRIPT.- This suit involved the accounts of the navy department. The fourth auditor is charged by law with the duty of examining all accounts accruing in that department. Rev. Stat., § 277 subdivision fifth. He has certified under his hand that the paper offered in evidence "is |