PATENT FOR INVENTION.

Patent No. 501, 537, for an improved method of repairing asphalt pavements,
which forms the subject of controversy in this suit in this court was
anticipated in invention, by a patent issued in France to Paul Crochet,
June 11, 1880. United States Repair and Guarantee Co. v. Assyrian
Asphalt Co., 591.

PHILIPPINES.

See CASES AFfirmed and FOLLOWED, 3.

PRACTICE.

1. An agreed statement of facts which is so defective as to present, in ad-
dition to certain ultimate facts, other and evidential facts upon which
a material ultimate fact might have been but which was not agreed
upon or found, cannot be regarded as a substantial compliance with the
requirements of Rev. Stat. § 649, and of Rev. Stat. § 700. Wilson v.
Merchants' Loan & Trust Co., 121.

2. An agreed statement of facts may be the equivalent of a special verdict,
or a finding of facts upon which a reviewing court may declare the ap-
plicable law if said agreed statement is of the ultimate facts, but if it
be merely a recital of testimony, or evidential fact, it brings nothing
before an appellate court for consideration. U. S. Trust Co. v. New
Mexico, 535.

3. The certified statement of facts is insufficient, and presents nothing for
examination. Ib.

4. There is no prejudicial error in the ruling of the court below on the ad-
mission of testimony. McKinley Creek Mining Co. v. Alaska Mining
Co., 563.

5. Assignments of error cannot be based upon instructions given or refused
in an equity suit. Ib.

PUBLIC LAND.

1. The deed of an Indian, who has received a patent of land providing that
it should never be sold or conveyed by the patentee or his heirs with-
out the consent of the Secretary of the Interior, is void, and the stat-
utes of limitation do not run against the Indian or his heirs so long as
the condition of incompetency remains; but where it appeared that by
treaty subsequent to the deed, all restrictions upon the sales of land
by incompetent Indians or their heirs, were removed, it was held that
from this time the statute of limitations began to run against the grantor
and his heirs. Schrimpscher v. Stockton, 290.

2. Even if Indians while maintaining their tribal relations are not charge-
able with laches, or failure to assert their claims within the time pre-
scribed by the statutes, they lose their immunity when their relations
with their tribe are dissolved and they are declared to be citizens of
the United States. Ib.

3. A deed, valid upon its face, made by one having title to the land, and
containing the usual covenants of warranty, when received by one pur-

chasing the land in good faith, with no actual notice of a defect in the
title of the grantor, constitutes color of title; and in Kansas, posses-
sion without a paper title seems to be sufficient to enable the possessor
to set up the statute of limitations. Ib.

4. The fact that the Secretary of the Interior might thereafter declare the
deed to be void, does not ipso facto prevent the statute from running.
Ib.

5. The title of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company to the lands in con-
troversy in this suit was acquired by virtue of the act of July 27, 1866,
14 Stat. 292, and the construction of the road was made under such
circumstances as entitle the company to the benefit of the grant made
by the eighteenth section of the act. Southern Pacific Railroad v.
United States, 519.

6. The settled rule of construction is that where by the same act, or by
acts of the same date, grants of land are made to two separate com-
panies, in so far as the limits of their grants conflict by crossing or
lapping, each company takes an equal undivided moiety of the lands
within the conflict, and neither acquires all by priority of location or
priority of construction. Ib.

7. It is well settled that Congress has power to grant to a corporation
created by a State additional franchises, at least of a similar nature. Ib.
8. The grant to the Southern Pacific and that to the Atlantic and Pacific
both took effect, and both being in præsenti, when maps were filed and
approved, they took effect by relation as of the date of the act. Ib.
9. The United States having by the forfeiture act of July 6, 1886, become
possessed of all the rights and interests of the Atlantic and Pacific
Company in this grant within the limits of California, had an equal
undivided moiety in all the odd-numbered sections which lie within
the conflicting place-limits of the grant to the Atlantic and Pacific
Company and of that made to the Southern Pacific Company by the
act of July 27, 1866, and the Southern Pacific Company holds the other
equal undivided moiety thereof. Ib.

10. The locations are valid so far as they depend upon the discovery of
gold. McKinley Creek Mining Co. v. Alaska Mining Co., 563.

11. The notices as set forth in the opinion of the court constituted a suffi-
cient location. Ib.

12. Grantees of public land take by purchase. Ib.

13. In Manuel v. Wolff, 152 U. S. 505, it was decided that a location by an
alien was voidable, not void, and was free from attack by any one ex-
cept the Government. Ib.

14. The sole authority to the General Land Office to issue the patent for the
land in dispute in this case was the act of March 3, 1869, 15 Stat. 342;
the patent was issued under that authority, and it does not admit of
controversy that it must issue to the confirmee of Congress, viz.: the
town of Las Vegas. Maese v. Herman, 572.

15. This court cannot assume that Congress approved the report of the
Surveyor General unadvisedly, used the name of the town of Las Vegas
unadvisedly, or intended primarily some other confirmee. Ib.

16. The town and its inhabitants having been recognized by Congress as

having rights, and such rights having been ordered to be authenticated
by a patent of the United States, it is the duty of the Land Office to
issue that patent, to give the town and its inhabitants the benefit of
that authentication, and to remit all controversies about it to other
tribunals.

Ib.

17. Under the act of July 17, 1854, c. 83, 10 Stat. 304, Sioux half-breed cer-
tificates were issued to Orillie Stram, a female half-breed, authorizing
her to select and take one hundred and sixty acres of the public lands
of the United States, of the classes mentioned in said act. In June, 1883,
she, through Eaton, her attorney in fact, applied at the local land
office to locate the same on public lands of the United States, in that
district, then unsurveyed, and filed a diagram of the desired lands suffi
cient to designate them. Those lands were not reserved by the Gov-
ernment. Subsequently they were surveyed, and the scrip was located
upon them, and the locations were allowed, and certificates of entry
were issued. In 1886, Orillie Stram and her husband conveyed seven-
ninths of the land to Eaton, the defendant in error. In 1889, an oppos-
ing claim to the land having been set up, the Secretary of the Interior
held, for reasons stated in the opinion of this court in this case, that the
opposing claimants had no valid claim to the lands; that the improve-
ments made upon the land when it was unsurveyed, not having been
made under the personal supervision of Orillie Stram, she had not the
personal contact with the land required by law; that the power given to
Eaton to locate the land, and the power given to sell it, as they operated
as an assignment of the scrip, were in violation of the act of July 17, 1854,
and that it followed that the entry of the lands was not for the benefit of
Orillie Stram; that the location and adjustment of the scrip to the lands
were ineffectual; that Orillie Stram had no power to alienate or contract
for the alienation of the lands, before location of the scrip, and that the
lands were still public lands and open to entry. This was an action to
quiet the title, the plaintiff in error claiming adversely to Eaton. The
scrip locations were adjudged by the district court and by the Supreme
Court of the State of Minnesota to be valid. This court sustains that
judgment. Midway Company v. Eaton, 602.

18. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company took no title to lands with-
in the indemnity limits of its grant until the deficiency in the place
limits had been ascertained, and the company had exercised its right of
selection. Southern Pacific Railroad Company v. Bell, 675.

19. The Secretary of the Interior had no authority upon the filing of a plat
in the office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, to withdraw
lands lying within the indemnity limits of the grant from sale or pre-
emption; and a patent issued to a settler under the land laws, prior to
the selection made by the railroad company, of the land in dispute as
lieu lands, was held to be valid, notwithstanding the lands lay within
the forty-mile strip ordered by the act to be surveyed, after the general
route of the road had been fixed. Ib.

RAILROAD.

1. By the decrees in these cases, the Railroad Commissioner of the Common-

wealth of Kentucky was enjoined from proceeding to fix rates under a
certain act of the General Assembly charged to be unconstitutional, the
ground of equity jurisdiction being threatened multiplicity of suits, and
irreparable injury. McChord v. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co., 483.
2. This court, being of opinion that under the Kentucky statutes the duty of
enforcing the rates it might fix vested in the Railroad Commission, held
that none of the alleged consequences could be availed of as threatened
before the rates were fixed at all. Ib.

3. Section 3 of the Compiled Laws of Nebraska of 1889, c. 72, providing for
the incorporation of railroad companies, is as follows: "Every rail-
road company, as aforesaid, shall be liable for all damages inflicted
upon the person of passengers while being transported over its road,
except in cases where the injury done arises from the criminal negli-
gence of the person injured, or when the injury complained of shall be
the violation of some express rule or regulation of said road actually
brought to his or her notice." Held that the plaintiff in error, being a
domestic corporation of Nebraska, accepted with its incorporation the
liability so imposed by the laws of that State, and cannot now com-
plain of it. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway v. Zernecke, 582.
4. Where goods are carried by connecting railways, as between intermediate
carriers, the duty of the one in possession at the end of his route is to
deliver the goods to the succeeding carrier, or notify him of their arrival,
and the former is not relieved of responsibility by unloading the goods
at the end of his route and storing them in his warehouse without deliv-
ery or notice to or any attempt to deliver to his successor. Texas &
Pacific Railway v. Reiss, 621.

5. In this case it cannot be claimed that the defendant had either actually
or constructively delivered the cotton to the steamship company at the
time of the fire. Ib.

6. If there be any doubt from the language used in a bill of lading, as to its
proper meaning or construction, the words should be construed most
strongly against the issuer of the bill. Ib.

7. In such a bill if there be any doubt arising from the language used as to
its proper meaning and construction, the words should be construed
most strongly against the companies. Ib.

8. It cannot reasonably be said that within the meaning of this contract the
property awaits further conveyance the moment it has been unloaded
from the cars. Ib.

9. The defendant at the time of the fire was under obligation as a common
Ib.
carrier, and was liable for the destruction of the cotton.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 19, 21.

REMOVAL OF CAUSES.

1. When a state court refuses permission to remove to a Federal court a
case pending before the state court, and the Federal court orders its re-
moval, this court has jurisdiction to determine whether there was error
Missouri, Kansas
on the part of the state court in retaining the case.

& Texas Railway Co. v. Missouri Railroad and Warehouse Commission-
ers, 53.

VOL. CLXXXIII-46,

2. The plaintiffs were citizens of the State of Missouri, in which this action
was brought. The railway company was a citizen of the State of Kan-
sas. On the face of the record there was therefore diverse citizenship,
authorizing, on proper proceedings being taken to bring it about, the
removal of the action from the state court to the Federal court; and
the State of Missouri is not shown to have such an interest in the re-
sult as would warrant the conclusion that the State was the real party
in interest, and the consequent refusal of the motion for removal. Ib.
3. The test of the right to remove a case from a state court into the Circuit
Court of the United States under section two of the act of March 3,
1887, as corrected by the act of August 13, 1888, is that it must be a case
over which the Circuit Court might have exercised original jurisdiction
under section one of that act. Arkansas v. Kansas & Texas Coal Co.,

185.

4. A case cannot be removed on the ground that it is one arising under the
Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States unless that appears
by plaintiff's statement of his own claim, and if it does not so appear,
the want of it cannot be supplied by any statement of the petition for
removal or in the subsequent pleadings, or by taking judicial notice of
facts not relied on and regularly brought into controversy. Ib.
5. Although it appears from plaintiff's statement of his claim that it cannot
be maintained at all because inconsistent with the Constitution or laws
of the United States, it does not follow that the case arises under that
Constitution or those laws. Ib.

6. A fair interpretation of the language used by the District Judge in the
court below in granting the application for a warrant of removal from
New York to Georgia shows that from the evidence he was of opinion
that there existed probable cause, and that the defendants should
therefore be removed for trial before the court in which the indictment
was found. Greene v. Henkel, 249.

7. In proceedings touching the removal of a person indicted in another State
from that in which he is found to that in which the indictment is found
this court must assume, in the absence of the evidence before the court
below, that its finding of probable cause was sustained by competent
evidence.

Ib.

8. It is not a condition precedent to taking action under Rev. Stat. § 1014 that
an indictment for the offence should have been found. Ib.
9. The finding of an indictment does not preclude the Government, under
Rev. Stat. § 1014, from giving evidence of a certain and definite char-
acter concerning the commission of the offence by the defendants in
regard to acts, times, and circumstances which are stated in the indict-
ment itself with less minuteness and detail. Ib.

10. Upon this writ the point to be decided is, whether the judge who made
the order for the removal of the defendants had jurisdiction to make
it; and if he had the question whether upon the merits he ought to
have made it is not one which can be reviewed by means of a writ of
habeas corpus. Ib.

11. The indictment in this case is prima facie good, and when a copy of it is
certified by the proper officer, a magistrate acting pursuant to Rev.