prove directly that the defendant had in fact pledged the lands in February, 1874, notwithstanding his denial. The court's suggestion that the plaintiff produce the bonds themselves, was an intimation that such evidence would be received. The credibility of the defendant as a witness was also open to impeachment by proof that he had made a statement at variance with his present denial, before the Congressional committee on a designated day. But this inquiry was not properly addressed to the truth or falsity of the principal subject of inquiry, but could only be admissible. upon the question of his credibility as a witness. To this question the witness replied in the negative. The plaintiff then had a right to show, by competent testimony, for the purpose of such impeachment, that the defendant had made a different statement; but the offer to read, for that purpose, the alleged testimony from a page in an unauthenticated book styled a Congressional investigation, was properly excluded.

The exception then proceeds:

"Whereupon the plaintiff, by his counsel, asked the witness whether he did not, on the 18th day of April, 1874, testify before the Congressional committee in relation to this very subject, that he had repeated notices from the board to come forward and sign the contracts and the bonds, and informed the attorney for the board, as is stated on page 1237 of the printed record of the "Congressional investigation," which the plaintiff thereupon offered to read, and which was and is as follows:

And the exception then sets forth nearly three pages of printed matter, said to be copied from the alleged "Congressional investigation," and then proceeds: "To which last question and offer the defendant, by his counsel, objected; which objection the court sustained, and would not allow the said question to be asked, or the said testimony given by the defendant before the said Congressional investigation to be read."

We think this ruling was correct upon several grounds. The transactions referred to in the pages thus taken from

the "Congressional investigation" do not tend to disprove the statement of the defendant. They refer to transactions * which were said to have occurred in October or November, 1873.

If it be proved that Evans had, in the fall of 1873, offered his wife as a surety upon the bonds referred to one or two months before the agreement for the purchase of the lands had been made, and, of course, before Evans or his wife had any right to pledge them, it would not have tended to prove that he had offered them as security on the 5th of February, 1874, which was the date mentioned in the question propounded to the defendant and by him answered in the negative. Such evidence, therefore, could not have been admissible to contradict Evans as to the alleged occurrence in February following.

Again, there is nothing in the extracted testimony which even tends to show that the property, which it is averred Mrs. Evans was willing to pledge in the fall of 1873, was the property in Berkshire county, Massachusetts. For aught that appears in that extract, the land may have been situated in Ohio or Louisiana. The innate improbability of the idea that Evans had offered to pledge the Berkshire land in February, 1874, to secure his paving contracts in Washington city, is made apparent, when it is considered that in December, 1873, Evans had turned over to Stratton all these contracts, and had washed his hands of all further connection with them, and that it was not until he repudiated the agreement, in January, 1874, that he resumed control of those contracts. It surely would have been a most extraordinary act on the part of this man, whose resumption of the Washington contract was predicated solely of his having repudiated the bargain as to the Berkshire lands to claim ownership over them anew a month afterwards, and offer to pledge them as a means of carrying on the contract which he had only resumed because of his refusal to have anything further to do with the Berkshire property in any manner, shape or form.

5th exception. The defendant then offered and proposed

'ness.

to examine Theodore A. Stratton, who was sworn as a witThe plaintiff objected to his examination, on the ground that he had been previously convicted of a felony, and had served out a sentence in the penitentiary; and he offered in evidence a record of Stratton's conviction, in a court of New York city, for an attempt to induce another to commit perjury. The court overruled the objection, and held that the witness was competent to testify.

We think this ruling also was correct. The conviction took place in the State of New York, which, quoad hoc, is to be considered as a foreign jurisdiction with respect to this District. In 1st Greenleaf's Evidence, § 376, the author concludes his examination of the question, which he admits has been the subject of disagreement in the courts, in these words: "But the weight of modern opinions seems to be that personal disqualifications, not arising from the law of nature, but from the positive law of the country, and especially such as are of a final nature, are strictly territorial, and cannot be enforced in any country other than that in which they originated. Accordingly, it has been held, upon great consideration, that a conviction and sentence for a felony in one of the United States did not render the party incompetent as a witness in the courts of another State; though it might be shown in diminution of the credit due to his testimony."

Whether the offence charged in the record of conviction was a felony in New York city, does not appear, but we see no reason to doubt that the same rule would apply if it were only a misdemeanor. There was read at bar a public statute of the State of New York, which declares that a person convicted of a crime or misdemeanor in that State is, notwithstanding, a competent witness in a civil or criminal action. or civil proceeding depending in its courts. It would be a questionable exercise of judicial power for a court of this District to hold a person incompetent to testify because of his conviction in a jurisdiction where that conviction would not be held to disqualify him as a witness. Other reasons were assigned why the witness should not have been held

competent, as that he had served out his term, and that an ancient statute of Maryland, in force at the cession of this District, would have justified his examination; but it is unnecessary to pursue the inquiry, as we think the witness was clearly competent for the reason first assigned.

6th exception. After the evidence was closed, the court granted ten prayers offered by the plaintiff, and a large number offered by the defendant; and thereupon, of its own motion, gave the charge which is set out in the record. This exception states that the plaintiff excepted to each of the prayers granted on the application of the defendant, "and to so much of the said instructions, granted by the court on its own motion, as are contained in brackets."

We see no error in the instructions excepted to. Such of them as presented any question open to question, have been practically settled in what we have already said.

With respect to the exception taken to two printed pages of the charge "contained in brackets," we remark, that it has been repeatedly announced by the courts of highest resort in this country, and notably by the Supreme Court of the United States, that an exception conceived in such language as this, does not properly present to the appellate court any question which it is called upon to examine and decide. It is well settled, says the Supreme Court in Rodgers rs. The Marshal, 1 Wallace, 644, that if a series of propositions be embodied in instructions, and the instructions are excepted to in mass, if any one of the propositions be correct, the exceptions must be overruled. Again, in Beaver rs. Taylor, 3 Otto, p. 55, the same court says: "It is not the duty of a judge at the circuit court, or of an appellate court, to analzye and compare the requests and the charge to discover what are the portions thus excepted to. One object of an exception is to call the attention of the circuit judge to the precise point as to which it is supposed he has erred, that he may then and there consider it and give new and different instructions to the jury, if in his judgment it should be proper to do so. And in Railroad Company vs. Varnell, 8 Otto, 484, the court says: "Neither the

exception nor the assignment of error designates any particular remark of the judge as erroneous; and in view of the fact that the exception is addressed to the entire remarks as an instruction, the court is of the opinion that it requires no further examination." Exceptions of this kind are not entitled to favor. Nothing could be more unjust to the judge presiding below than to interpose such a wholesale objection without pointing out any particular remark as incorrect, and then take the risk of inducing the appellate court to range through the whole charge and find some specific objection where the counsel was not able to do so at the proper time. We would not be justified, therefore, in the face of reason and of these rulings, in reversing upon this drag-net exception, even if we found some errors within the metes and bounds, courses and distances platted on the record. But a careful examination of half of the charge thus indicated satisfies us that the greater part of it consists of propositions of law that cannot be disputed, and were not disputed in the argument here, and that the few sentences complained of are not obnoxious to the criticism of the plaintiff.

This is the second time this case has been before a jury, and a verdict has now been rendered which it is to be hoped will put an end to the further litigation of this subject; and we are not disposed to strain a point to enable one of these parties to compel the other to embark in further strife. The judgment below is affirmed.