as that has been done in very recent cases such as the Lottery case, 188 U. S. 321, where it was he'd that the transportation of lottery tickets was interstate commerce, and as such subject to regulation by act of Congress. In that case the Federal act, prohibiting the transmission of lottery tickets, was sustained, because of the actual carriage in interstate traffic of the tickets themselves, and in concluding the opinion of the majority of the court Mr. Justice Harlan said (p. 363):

"The whole subject is too important, and the questions suggested by its consideration are too difficult of solution, to justify any attempt to lay down a rule for determining in advance the validity of every statute that may be enacted under the commerce clause. We decide nothing more in the present case than that lottery tickets are subjects of traffic among those who choose to sell or buy them; that the carriage of such tickets by independent carriers from one State to another is therefore interstate commerce; that under its power to regulate commerce among the several States Congress-subject to the limitations imposed by the Constitution upon the exercise of the powers granted-has plenary authority over such commerce and may prohibit the carriage of such tickets from State to State; and that legislation to that end, and of that character, is not inconsistent with any limitation or restriction imposed upon the exercise of the powers granted to Congress."

And in Leloup v. Mobile, 127 U. S. 640, it was held that a telegraph company, whose business is the transmission of messages from one State to another, invested with the powers and privileges conferred by Congress, could not be compelled to pay a license tax by the State. And in Pensacola Telegraph Co. v. Western Union Telegraph Co., it was held that interstate telegraphic communications, conducted by companies organized for that purpose, was commerce within the regulating power of Congress. The Pensacola case was affirmed in Telegraph Co. v. Texas, 105 U. S. 460, in which case Mr. Chief Justice Waite, speaking for the court, said, p. 464: "A telegraph company occupies the same relation to commerce as

a carrier of messages that a railroad company does as a carrier of goods."

While the general principles applied in these cases are not to be denied, there is a class of cases which hold that contracts between citizens of different States are not the subjects of interstate commerce, simply because they are negotiated between citizens of different States, or by the agent of a company in another State, where the contract itself is to be completed and carried out wholly within the borders of a State, although such contracts incidentally affect interstate trade.

As in the cases involving insurance policies, it has been held that issuing them in one State and sending them to another, to be there delivered to the insured upon payment of premium, is not a transaction of interstate commerce. Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168; Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648; New York Life Insurance Co. v. Cravens, 178 U. S. 389.

In Paul v. Virginia, Mr. Justice Field, delivering the opinion of the court, said (p. 183):

"Issuing a policy of insurance is not a transaction of commerce. The policies are simple contracts of indemnity against loss by fire, entered into between the corporations and the assured, for a consideration paid by the latter. These contracts are not articles of commerce in any proper meaning of the word. They are not subjects of trade and barter offered in the market as something having an existence and value independent to the parties to them. They are not commodities to be shipped or forwarded from one State to another, and then put up for sale. They are like other personal contracts between parties which are completed by their signature and the transfer of the consideration. Such contracts are not inter state transactions, though the parties may be domiciled in different States. The policies do not take effect-are not executed contracts-until delivered by the agent in Virginia. They are, then, local transactions, and are governed by the local law. They do not constitute a part of the commerce between the States any more than a contract for the purchase

and sale of goods in Virginia, by a citizen of New York whilst in Virginia, would constitute a portion of such commerce." In Hooper v. California, 155 U. S. 648, it was said:

"If the power to regulate interstate commerce applied to all the incidents to which said commerce might give rise and to all contracts which might be made in the course of its transaction, that power would embrace the entire sphere of mercantile activity in any way connected with trade between the States; and would exclude State control over many contracts purely domestic in their nature. The business of insurance is not commerce. The contract of insurance is not an instrumentality of commerce. The making of such a contract is a mere incident of commercial intercourse, and in this respect there is no difference whatever between insurance against fire and insurance against 'the perils of the sea.'"

These cases are not in conflict with those in which it is held that the negotiation of sales of goods in a State by a person employed to solicit for them in another State, the goods to be shipped from the one State to the other, is interstate commerce. Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489; similar cases are Rearick v. Pennsylvania, 203 U. S. 507, and Caldwell v. North Carolina, 187 U. S. 622. In these cases goods in a foreign State are sold upon orders for the purpose of bringing them to the State which undertakes to tax them, and the transactions are held to be interstate commerce, because the subject-matter of the dealing is goods to be shipped in interstate commerce; to be carried between States and delivered from vendor to purchaser by means of interstate carriage.

But how stands the present case upon the facts stipulated? The appellants are brokers who take orders and transmit them to other States for the purchase and sale of grain or cotton upon speculation. They are, in no just sense, common carriers of messages, as are the telegraph companies. For that part of the transactions, merely speculative and followed by no actual delivery, it cannot be fairly contended that such contracts are

the subject of interstate commerce; and concerning such of the contracts for purchases for future delivery, as result in actual delivery of the grain or cotton, the stipulated facts show that when the orders transmitted are received in the foreign State the property is bought in that State and there held for the purchaser. The transaction was thus closed by a contract completed and executed in the foreign State, although the orders were received from another State. When the delivery was upon a contract of sale made by the broker, the seller was at liberty to acquire the cotton in the market where the delivery was required or elsewhere. He did not contract to ship it from one State to the place of delivery in another State. And though it is stipulated that shipments were made from Alabama to the foreign State in some instances, that was not because of any contractual obligation so to do. In neither class of contracts, for sale or purchase, was there necessarily any movement of commodities in interstate traffic, because of the contracts made by the brokers.

These contracts are not, therefore, the subjects of interstate commerce, any more than in the insurance cases, where the policies are ordered and delivered in another State than that of the residence and office of the company. The delivery, when one was made, was not because of any contract obliging an interstate shipment, and the fact that the purchaser might thereafter transmit the subject-matter of purchase by means of interstate carriage did not make the contracts as made and executed the subjects of interstate commerce.

We are of the opinion that the Supreme Court of Alabama correctly held that the transactions of the plaintiffs in error were not interstate commerce, and the judgments in both

cases are

Affirmed.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

209 U.S.

LONGYEAR ~. TOOLAN.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN.

No. 177. Argued March 13, 1908.-Decided April 6, 1908.

An owner of property must be held to knowledge that failure to pay duly assessed taxes will be followed by sale; and if the statute gives him full opportunity to be heard as to the assessment on definite days, and definitely fixes the time for payment and the time for sale in case of default, so that he cannot fail, if duly diligent, to learn of the pendency of the sale, he is not denied due process of law because the notice of sale is by publication and not by personal service; and the validity of a tax sale under the law of Michigan sustained.

144 Michigan, 55, affirmed.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Edward Cahill for plaintiff in error:

When notice by statute is relied on to supply the place of process it must contain the elements of notice and must be as definite and certain in all the essentials of notice as any other legal process. If a statute is deficient in respect to prescribing with certainty the time and place of hearing, the defect cannot be supplied by publication of the notice unless the statute also fixes definitely the time and place when and where the publication shall be made and so furnishes, by reference, a means of certainty. What is required is notice and notice to be of value must possess certainty or furnish the means of certainty to the person entitled to it. State R. R. Tax cases, 92 U. S. 575; Davidson v. Board of Administration of New Orleans, 97 U. S. 108; Hager v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701; C. N. O. & T. P. R. R. Co. v. Kentucky, 115 U. S. 321; Spencer v. Merchant, 125 U. S. 345; P. C, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Backus, 154 U. S. 421; Winona Land Co. v. Minnesota, 159 U. S. 526, substantially differ from the case at bar.