Opinion of the Court. ticular charter under consideration, and that when the property had been exempted by reason of the exemption of the capital, it had been because, taking the whole charter together, it was apparent that the legislature so intended. "Thus the capital stock of a bank usually consists of money paid in to be used in banking, and an exemption of such capital stock from taxation must almost necessarily mean an exemption of the securities into which the money had been converted in the regular course of a banking business. And, in general, an exemption of capital stock, without more, may, with great propriety, be considered, under ordinary circumstances, as exempting that which, in the legitimate operations of the corporation, comes to represent the capital." It was held, however, that in that particular case it could not have been understood that the property was to represent the capital for the purposes of taxation, and that such property was taxable under the original charter at the expiration of twenty years from the completion of the road. The same construction was given to a similar provision of the charter of the Cairo and Fulton Railroad Company in Railroad Company v. Loftin, 98 U. S. 559. So in Bank v. Tennessee, 104 U. S. 493, where a bank was required to "pay to the State an annual tax of one half of one per cent upon each share of capital stock, in lieu of all other taxes," and was also allowed to "purchase and hold a lot of ground" for its place of business, and hold such real property as might be conveyed to it to secure its debts, it was held that the immunity from taxation extended only to so much of the building as was required by the actual wants of the bank to carry on its business. See, also, Wiggins Ferry Co. v. East St. Louis, 107 U. S. 365, and Tennessee v. Whitworth, 117 U. S. 129. From a review of these cases, it is evident that while in the absence of any words showing a different intent, an exemption of the stock or capital stock of a corporation may imply, and carry with it, an exemption of the property in which such stock is invested, yet, if the legislature uses language at variance with such intention, the courts, which will never presume a purpose to exempt any property from its just share of Opinion of the Court. the public burdens, will construe any doubts which may arise as to the proper interpretation of the charter against the exemption. In the eighteenth section of the charter under consideration there are three clauses which cover the question of taxation. First, the railroad and its appurtenances shall not be subject to be taxed higher than one half of one per centum upon its annual net income; second, no municipal or other corporation shall have the power to tax the stock of said corporation; third, but such municipal or other corporation may tax any property, real or personal, of the said company within the jurisdiction of said corporation in the ratio of taxation of like property. The first clause was obviously intended as a limit upon state taxation; the second, as a prohibition upon the powers of municipalities to tax the shares of stock held by its citizens; the third, as an express permission to tax any property of the company within its jurisdiction for local purposes. If, as insisted by the defendants, this permission were limited to the taxation of property, belonging to the company, other than the railroad and its appurtenances, the clause would be meaningless, since the first clause, limiting taxation to a percentage upon the income, applies only to the railroad and its appurtenances, and leaves to the State itself, as well as to its municipalities, the power to tax property received by the corporation in satisfaction of debts, or otherwise, for purposes disconnected with the business operations of the railroad. Full effect can be given to these three clauses only by sustaining the right of the municipalities to tax any property of the company within their jurisdiction. Indeed, the argument made here was the very one made in connection with the somewhat similar clause in Railroad Companies v. Gaines, 97 U. S. 697, and held to be unsound. In the State of Georgia there seems to have been, prior to the act of 1889, some efforts made to subject the property of this road to municipal taxation, which were ineffectual by reason of the legislature failing to provide the proper machinery for the assessment and collection of such taxes; and, as late as 1883, it was held that its system of taxation virtually Opinion of the Court. excluded counties and municipal corporations from levying a tax upon it for county or municipal purposes by making no provision for the assessment and collection of such taxes. Houston County v. Central Railroad &c. Co., 72 Georgia, 211. This defect seems to have been supplied by the acts of 1889 and 1890, and we see no reason why the system of taxation provided by these acts is not valid and consistent with the charter. We regard it as quite immaterial that when the act of 1835 was passed, a county was not a municipal corporation, or indeed a corporation at all. The power given by the eighteenth section not only extends to municipal but to other corporations, by which was evidently intended other corporations with power to tax for local purposes. If, for instance, cities were reorganized under the names of boroughs or taxing districts, the power of taxation, so far as this section is concerned, would pass to the same corporation under its new name, if the legislature so directed; and the fact that no corporations existed in 1835 under the names of boroughs or taxing districts, would not affect the question. The essential thing reserved was the power to tax for local purposes by whatever corporation then existed, or should thereafter be called into being, for municipal purposes. The legislature could not then foresee what corporations might thereafter be established for municipal purposes, and it would be frittering away its whole object to limit it to corporations then existing. The decree of the court below was clearly right, and it is, therefore, VOL. CLXIV-22 Affirmed. Statement of the Case. GONZALES v. FRENCH. APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF ARIZONA. No. 34. Argued and submitted April 27, 28, 1896. Decided November 30, 1896. As the claim of the plaintiff in error, claiming under an alleged preëmption, was passed upon by the proper officers of the land department, originally and on appeal, and as the result of the contest was the granting of a patent to the contestant, in order to maintain her title she must show either that the land department erred in the construction of the law applicable to the case, or that fraud was practised upon its officers, or that they themselves were chargeable with fraudulent practices, which she has failed to do. The claim of the plaintiff in error to a right of preëmption is fatally defective because her vendors and predecessors in title had failed to make or file an actual entry in the proper land office. EMMA J. Gonzales, in October, 1891, filed a bill of complaint in the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District of the Territory of Arizona, against E. W. French, probate judge of the county of Yavapai and Territory of Arizona, and former trustee of the inhabitants of the town of Flagstaff, of the county of Coconino, and J. E. Jones, probate judge of said county of Coconino, and the successor as trustee of the inhabitants of the said town of Flagstaff, and therein alleged that she was the equitable owner of a certain tract of land containing 120 acres, and forming part of section 16, T. 21 N., R. 7 E. of the Gila and Salt River meridian. The facts, as alleged by her, were substantially these: Prior to the survey of said township, Thomas F. McMillan, Frank Christie and Conrad Farriner, who were citizens of the United States, over the age of twenty-one years, and qualified preëmptors, while prospecting for a home upon the public lands of the United States subject to preëmption, or that might so become when the same should be surveyed, settled on this land, intending to claim the same as preëmptors, and were on said land at the date of survey in 1878; that they had built dwelling Statement of the Case. houses thereon and reduced portions of it to cultivation prior to such survey; that they continued to improve and claim the same until in June, 1883, when the plaintiff bought from the said occupants all their improvements and took possession thereof; that she afterwards, and while living on the land she now claims, built a dwelling house thereon and made other improvements, prior to April 2, 1885, of the value of $3000; that, on said date, she made formal application to the register and receiver of the United States Land Office at Prescott, Arizona, to be allowed to file a preëmption declaratory statement for the land, and to enter the same, tendering to said officers the proper price therefor, said application being made before any adverse claimant was known, but her application was rejected on the ground that the land was reserved for schools; that on February 3, 1889, Congress passed an act for the relief of the inhabitants of Flagstaff, Arizona, the tract involved in this suit being embraced in the half section mentioned in said act, by which it was provided that the probate judge of Yavapai County might enter the south half of section sixteen, township twenty-one north, range seven east, in trust for the occupants and inhabitants of Flagstaff. The bill further alleged that the tracts settled on at the date of the survey were excepted by section 2275 of the Revised Statutes of the United States from the reservation of the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections in each township for school purposes, but that, if not so excepted, the land claimed by her was released from any such reservation by said act of February 13, 1889, and becaine subject to her settlement claim; that the said French, probate judge, had been permitted, on January 17, 1889, to make townsite declaratory statement for the benefit of the inhabitants of Flagstaff for said half section; that she, the plaintiff, contested the right of the said French to make townsite entry, and prosecuted her protest by successive appeals to the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior, but that a patent of the United States was issued to said French on said entry for said land; that at the time she purchased said improvements and settled on the land, the town of Flagstaff was unorganized |