withhold our acceptance of a resignation tendered on that account, but must ask you to allow us to fix the 31st of this month as the date of your retirement, rather than a day which is earlier.
You will take with you when you leave us the best wishes of every one of the Judges, and we shall all remember with gratitude your faithful attention to the duties of your office and your many. acts of personal kindness.
Necessarily my intercourse with you has been closer than that of most of the Judges, and it has always been to me of the most agreeable kind.
I have relied on you implicitly in all that pertained to the administration of your office, and have never found my confidence misplaced in any particular.
Your accounts have all been scrupulously exact, and in the highest degree satisfactory. I shall part from you officially with sincere regret, but with the hope that our personal relations may continue to be in the future what they have always been in the past. Very sincerely yours,
It is ordered by the court, that John Montgomery Wright be, and he is hereby, appointed Marshal of this court in place of John G. Nicolay, resigned.
Mr. Wright thereupon took the following oath, presented a bond in the penal sum of twenty thousand dollars, as required by law, which was approved, and entered upon the duties of his office.
I, John Montgomery Wright, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute all lawful precepts directed to the Marshal' of the Supreme Court of the United States and true returns make, and in all things well and truly and without malice or partiality perform the duties of the office of Marshal of the Supreme Court of the United States during my continuance in said office. So help me God.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this fourth day of January, A.D. 1888.
JAMES H. MCKENNEY,
Clerk Supreme Court, U. S.
ABANDONED AND CAPTURED PROPERTY ACT.
1. The entire administration of the system devised by Congress for the
collection of abandoned and captured property during the war was
committed by the acts regulating it to the Secretary of the Treasury,
subject to the President's approval of the rules and regulations relating
thereto prescribed by him, and with no other restriction than that the
expenses charged upon the proceeds of sales be proper and necessary
and be approved by him; and his approval of an account of expenses
incurred on account of any particular lot of such property inade before
the passage of the joint resolution of March 31, 1868, 15 Stat. 251, is
conclusive evidence that they were proper and necessary, unless it
appear that their allowance was procured by fraud, or that they were
incurred in violation of an act of Congress or of public policy. United
States v. Johnston, 236.
2. The joint resolution of Congress of March 31, 1868, 15 Stat. 251, affords
evidence that the practice of the Secretary of the Treasury prior to
that date not to cover into the Treasury the sums received from the
sale of abandoned and captured property, but to retain them in the
hands of the Treasurer in order to pay them out from time to time on
the order of the Secretary, was known to Congress, and was acquiesced
in by it, as to what had been previously done; and all this brings the
practice within the well-settled rule that the contemporaneous con-
struction of a statute by those charged with its execution, especially
when it has long prevailed, is entitled to great weight, and should not
be disregarded or overturned except for cogent reasons, and unless it
be clear that such construction is erroneous. Ib.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 2.
1. An appeal can be taken from a decree of a Circuit Court of the United
States, entered under the supervision and by the direction of the dis-
trict judge of the district sitting in the Circuit Court, although he may,
under the provisions of Rev. Stat. § 614, have had no right to a vote
in the cause. Baker v. Power, 167.
2. The signing of a citation returnable to the proper term of this court,
but without the acceptance of security, nevertheless constitutes an
allowance of appeal which enables this court to take jurisdiction, and
to afford the appellants an opportunity to furnish the requisite secu-
rity here, before peremptorily dismissing the case. Brown v. McConnell,
489.
3. The signing of a citation after the expiration of the term to which an
appeal taken with security was returnable, and after the commence-
ment of the following term, and without taking new security, is in
effect the granting of a new appeal returnable at the next term of
court thereafter. Stewart v. Masterson, 493.
4. An appeal docketed in this court after a term ends and before the next
following term begins, is docketed as of the next following term. Ib.
5. An appeal bond having become inoperative by reason of failure to
docket the appeal at the next term of this court, and a new appeal
having been granted without the filing of a new bond, on motion to
dismiss for want of filing an appeal bond; Held, that the motion
should be granted unless appellant, before a day fixed by the order,
should file a bond with the clerk of this court, with sureties to the
satisfaction of the Justice allotted to the Circuit. Ib.
6. This appeal having become inoperative through failure to docket the
case here at the return term, and the excuse presented not being
sufficient to give the appellants the benefit of the exceptions recog-
nized in Grigsby v. Purcell, 99 U. S. 505, the court dismisses it. Fay-
olle v. Texas & Pacific Railroad, 519.
See JUDGMENT, 4, 5;
LOCAL LAW, 2.
1. A marshal holding property under color of a writ of attachment, even
if found to be invalid, issued from a court of the United States in an
action at law, can be made to hold also under a writ from a state
court subsequently served by the garnishment process; and if the
creditor in the process from the State intervenes in the cause in the
Federal Court, and invokes its equitable powers, it is the duty of the
Federal Court to take jurisdiction, and to give such relief as justice
may require, and such priority of lien as the laws of the State respect- .
ing attachments permit, without regard to citizenship. Gumbel v.
Pitkin, 131.
2. A and B were citizens of the same State. A sued out a writ of attach-
ment against B from a court of the State on a Saturday. On the fol-
lowing Monday the sheriff attempted to levy the attachment, and
found the property of the debtor in the custody of the United States
marshal for the district, who had seized it by virtue of writs of attach-
ment issued and levied on the intervening Sunday from the Circuit
Court of the United States, in favor of other creditors. Being unable
to obtain possession of the property from the marshal, he placed keep-
ers about the building (who remained there until the sale) and served
notice of seizure upon the marshal, and also process of garnishment.
Subsequently, on the same Monday, the same and other creditors
levied on the same property under other writs of attachment issued
from the Circuit Court of the United States on that day, and the
property, which remained all the time in the custody of the marshal,
was finally sold by him under the Monday writs, the Sunday writs
having been abandoned. Held, that it was the duty of the court,
having in its custody the fund arising from the sale of the property,
all the parties interested in the fund being before it, to do complete
justice between them, and to give to A priority, as if he had been per-
mitted to make an actual levy under his writ. Ib.
See JURISDICTION, B, 1, 2;
NATIONAL BANK.
ARBITRATION.
See WASHINGTON AQUEDUct.
A promissory note, upon which the defendant is shown to have admitted
his indebtedness to the plaintiff, may be given in evidence under a
count for money had and received. Hopkins v. Orr, 510.
AWARD.
See EQUITY, 2;
WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT.
A member of a bankrupt partnership, purchasing of the assignee in bank-
ruptcy a debt due the firm, takes only such rights as the assignee has,
under the bankrupt laws, to contest the validity of a transfer of the debt
as in violation of those laws. Crawford v. Halsey, 648.
1. A District Court of the United States deposited in a national bank
bankruptcy moneys, which were entered by the bank to the credit of
the court, in an account with the court. Each entry of a deposit in
the books of the bank, and in the deposit book of the court, had oppo-
site to it a number, consisting of four figures, which the bank under-
stood to indicate a particular case in bankruptcy-in the present
instance, No. 2105. A check was drawn on the bank by the court, to
pay a dividend in case No. 2105. Payment of it was refused by the
bank, on the ground that it had no money on-deposit to the credit of
the court, it having paid out all money deposited by the court. Some
of such money deposited with the number 2105 had been paid out by
the bank on checks drawn bearing another number than 2105. There
was enough money deposited with the number 2105, and not paid out
on checks bearing the number 2105, to pay the check in question. In a
suit against the bank by the payee in such check to recover the amount
of the dividend: Held, that the bank was not liable. State Bank v.
Dodge, 333.
2. A check upon a bank in the usual form, not accepted or certified by its
cashier to be good, does not constitute an equitable assignment of
money to the credit of the holder, but is simply an order which may
be countermanded, and whose payment may be forbidden by the
drawer at any time before it is actually cashed. Florence Mining Co.
v. Brown, 385.
BILL OF EXCHANGE AND PROMISSORY NOTE.
1. Brown v. McConnell, ante, 489, followed. Stewart v. Masterson, 493.
2. Galveston Railroad v. Cowdrey, 11 Wall. 459, affirmed. Dow v. Memphis
and Little Rock Railroad, 652.
3. Metropolitan Railroad Co. v. Moore, 121 U. S. 558, affirmed. Inland and
Seaboard Coasting Co. v. Hall, 121.
1. Boogher v. Insurance Co., 103 U. S. 90, distinguished from this case.
Dundee Mortgage Co. v. Hughes, 157.
2. Castro v. United States, 3 Wall. 46, distinguished. Brown v. McCon-
nell, 489.
|