MASTER AND SERVANT.

See LANDLORD AND TENANT, 1;
RAILROAD, 1.

MORTGAGE.

The question of priority between two mortgages on lines of telegraph, considered. United Lines Telegraph Co. v. Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 431.

See MARRIED WOMAN, 3.

MUNICIPAL BOND.

1. When negotiable bonds of a municipality, issued in aid of a railroad company, are void as between the railroad company and the municipality, the burden is upon the holder to show that he, or some one through whom he obtained title to them, was a bona fide purchaser for a valuable consideration. Lytle v. Lansing, 59.

2. The settled rule in equity that a purchaser without notice, to be entitled to protection, must not only be so at the time of the contract or conveyance, but also at the time of the payment of the purchase money, applies to the purchase of negotiable municipal bonds. Ib. 3. It is the duty of one who purchases municipal bonds, knowing that the municipality is contesting its liability on them, to make inquiries, and the failure to do so will be held to be a wilful closing of his ears to information. Ib.

4. The several holdings of the bonds which form the subject of this litigation since they passed out of the railroad company, examined, and held to be either as collateral for a debt which has been paid, or as fictitious, for a real owner who is affected with notice of their invalidity. Ib.

5. The question under what statute of Missouri the bonds were issued which form the subject of this controversy was properly determinable in a suit on the bonds. Knox County v. Ninth National Bank, 91. 6. Decisions of state courts upon the requirements of state statutes for validating issues of municipal bonds in the State, when made subsequent to an issue of such bonds, are not controlling in litigations in Federal courts, involving the validity of such issue. Ib.

7. When the matter in dispute is whether a particular issue of municipal bonds was made under one statute of the State in which the municipality is situated or under another, the whole conduct of the municipality, both before, at the time, and after the issue of the bonds, may be shown to aid in determining the question. Ib.

8. In a subscription by a municipal corporation to aid in the construction of a railroad, it is sufficient if the route is designated, leaving to the municipal authorities to designate the particular corporation to be the recipient of the subscription. Ib.

9. The bonds issued by Knox County, Missouri, to the Missouri and Mississippi Railroad Company, were issued in pursuance of the general laws of the State, and not under the act of the legislature of Missouri, of February 20, 1865, to incorporate that company, and the county powers of taxation are not limited by the provisions of section 13 of the act incorporating the company. Ib.

10. Where the constitution and a statute of a State forbid any county to issue bonds to such an amount as will make its aggregate indebtedness exceed a certain proportion of the assessed valuation of taxable property in the county; and the statute requires the county commissioners to publish, and to enter on the public records of the county, semi-annual statements showing the whole amount of the county debt; a purchaser for value and before maturity, of a bond issued in excess of the constitutional and statutory limit, is charged with the duty of examining the record of indebtedness; and the county is not estopped, by a recital in the bond that all the provisions of the statute have been complied with, to prove, by the record of the assessment and the indebtedness, that the bonds were issued in violation of the constitution. Sutliff v. Lake County Commissioners, 230.

NAVIGABLE RIVER.

See INTERSTATE BOUNDARY.

NEGLIGENCE.

See COMMON CARRIER, 1, 3.

OATH.

See EMINENT DOMAIN, 6.

OFFICER.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 2, 3.

PATENT FOR INVENTION.

1. A patent for an invention issued to the inventor, "his heirs or assigns,"

after his death, is a valid patent, and should be construed in the alternative as a grant to him, or his heirs or assigns. De la Vergne Refrigerating Machine Co. v. Featherstone, 209.

2. Such a construction would include a grantee or grantees in being capable of taking the patent and to whose benefit the grant would enure. Ib.

3. In such case an executor de son tort may, in Texas, make an assignment of an interest in the patent which will convey a valid title to the assignee, if not repudiated by the executor or administrator of the inventor when duly appointed, or by his children. Ib.

4. An inventor agreed with an associate to give him an interest in a patent for the invention when issued, and the associate agreed to procure its issue. The patent was issued after the inventor's death to the inventor by name, "his heirs or assigns." His administratrix conveyed to the associate the promised interest, and subsequently the remaining interest, and all persons interested in the estate acquiesced in the conveyances. Held, that the patent should be construed as a grant to the associate as assignee, and should be held to have been obtained by the authority of the administratrix as well as of the associate. Ib. 5. Failure, in such case, to record title papers in the Patent Office, it appearing that the administratrix and the in-part equitable owner had obtained the patent, cannot make the patent void. Ib.

6. When an inventor makes oath to an application for a patent, filed in his lifetime, an amendment to it within the scope of the original oath and of the invention described in the original specification, made after his death without filing a new oath or a new power of attorney, is valid, and does not render the patent void. Ib.

7. Claims 1 and 3 of letters patent No. 213,323 granted to William Coupe, March 18, 1879, for an improvement in hide-stretching machines, construed. Weatherhead v. Coupe, 322.

8. The principal feature of the Coupe machine, covered by claim 1, and of his method of stretching hides, covered by claim 3, is, that the hide is stretched longitudinally and transversely at the same time; and a single passage of the hide through the machine is supposed to give it sufficient stretching transversely as well as longitudinally. Ib.

9. The defendant's machine has no stretcher bar, substantially such as that of the patent, giving a transverse stretch to the hide simultaneously with the giving of the longitudinal stretch; and, therefore, does not infringe the patent. lb.

10. Letters patent No. 116,266, granted to Alanson Cary, as inventor, June 27, 1871, for an improvement in modes of tempering springs, are invalid, in view of the state of the art, for want of patentable invention. Lovell Manufacturing Co. v. Cary, 623.

11. The invention appears, from the specification, to be a method of restoring steel wire which has been mechanically strained, by subjecting it to a temperature of 600°, more or less, and the claim limits the method to its application to "furniture or other coiled springs;" but the process, as applied to those springs, was not different, in method or effect, from the same process when applied to any mechanically strained wire, or to steel made in straight pieces or strips, or otherwise. Ib. 12. The invention was anticipated by the prior use of New England wire clock-bells and of blued hair springs, used in marine clocks. The treatment to which those articles were subjected was in all respects the same in the prior use, as in the patented process. Ib.

13. It does not amount to invention to discover that an old process is better in its results, when applied to a new working, than would have

been expected, the difference between its prior working and the new working being only one of degree and not one of kind. Ib.

14. There was nothing more than mechanical skill in arriving at the alleged invention, in view of the state of the art. Ib.

15. The point considered that no one had used the former processes for the manufacture of furniture springs, and that as soon as Cary's process

was made known, the art of making furniture springs was revolutionized. lb.

16. The cases in this court on the subject of double use, considered as to whether it is a patentable invention to apply old and well-known devices and processes to new uses, in other and analogous arts. Ib.

PLEADING.

It is bad pleading to describe a party by the initials only of his Christian name, but, when no advantage is taken of the defect in the court below, it will not be considered here. Monroe Cattle Co. v. Becker, 47.

PRACTICE.

In this case the only error being in an allowance of interest, the court orders the judgment to be affirmed if the interest be remitted; otherwise to be reversed for that error. Washington & Georgetown Railroad

Where an act is done which can be done legally only after the performance of some prior act, proof of the later carries with it a presumption of the due performance of the prior act. Knox County v. Ninth National Bank, 91.

See EXCEPtion.

PROHIBITION, WRIT OF.

See ADMIRALTY, 1.

PROMISSORY NOTE.

See JURISDICTION, C, 1.

PUBLICATION.

An order of court, directing a notice of an election which was to take place in thirty-four days to be given by publication in a designated newspaper for five weeks, must be construed to mean a publication in each of the five weeks. Knox County v. Ninth National Bank, 91.

PUBLIC LAND.

1. The issue of a patent of public land to a person who is not equitably entitled to it does not preclude the owner of the equitable title from enforcing it in a court of equity against claimants under the patent. Monroe Cattle Co. v. Becker, 47.

2. When a person makes a homestead entry of a tract of public land, and enters into occupation of it with his family, and dies a widower, and without acquiring a patent, the right to complete the proofs and acquire the patent passes, under Rev. Stat. § 2291, to all his children equally as well those who are adults as those who are infants; and not, under Rev. Stat. § 2292, to such children only as are minors at the time of his death, to the exclusion of those who had then attained their majority. Bernier v. Bernier, 242.

3. Section 2292 of the Revised Statutes was only intended to give to infant children the benefit of the homestead entry and to relieve them, because of their infancy, from the necessity of proving the conditions required when there are only adults, or adults and minors, mentioned in § 2291, and to allow a sale of the land within a prescribed period for their benefit. Ib.

4. While the location of the boundary lines of a land grant is pending before the Land Department, and the proper officers are bringing to bear upon it their own judgment and discretion, the courts have no right to interfere with their action by injunction. New Orleans v. Paine, 261.

5. When a line of a land grant railroad as located does not satisfy the terms of the granting act, whether the Land Department may not consider it as a temporary and provisional one, quære. Hamblin v. Western Land Co., 531.

6. A valid homestead entry could not be made upon indemnity lands of the Sioux City & St. Paul Railroad Company after the patent from the United States to the State of Iowa, issued June 17, 1873, under the act of May 12, 1864, 13 Stat. 72, c. 84. Ib.

7. A reservation of public land from entry, made by the Department of the Interior, as coming within the limits of a railroad grant, operates to withdraw the land from homestead entries, even if found afterwards not to come within such limits. Ib.

See EXECUTIVE, 1;
INDIAN.

PUNITIVE DAMAGES.

See DAMAGES.