Opinion of the Court.

not appear therefrom that jurisdiction was rested or could be asserted on any other ground.

By the fifth section of the act of March 3, 1891, appeals or writs of error from the District and Circuit Courts of the United States to this court were allowed, among other cases, "in any case in which the constitutionality of any law of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty made under its authority, is drawn in question," but it was not suggested in the summons and statement of claim that the validity or construction of any treaty made under the authority of the United States was drawn in question, and no such question was decided either by the Circuit Court or the Circuit Court of Appeals. It is unreasonable to contend that any question was raised directly touching the validity or construction of either of the treaties of Venezuela by plaintiff's statement of claim or by clear and necessary intendment therefrom, and, under the rule laid down in Turck's case, this writ of error must be dismissed. The jurisdiction of the Circuit Court depended entirely upon diverse citizenship when the suit was commenced, and to that point of time the inquiry must necessarily be referred. Had the case been brought to this court from the Circuit Court the writ of error could not have been entertained.

We do not think, indeed, that the validity or construction of either of the treaties was actually drawn in question, and the ground of the judgment really involved neither such validity nor construction.

The point was long ago settled in principle upon the record of a suit in a state court.

The twenty-fifth section of the judiciary act of September 24, 1789, c. 20, 1 Stat. 73, 85, provided that a writ of error would lie to a final judgment or decree in any suit, in the highest court of law or equity of a State in which a decision in the suit could be had, "where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States, and the decision is against their validity, or where is drawn in question the construction of any clause of the Constitution, or of a treaty, or statute of, or commission held under the United

Statement of the Case.

States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege, or exemption specially set up or claimed by either party, under such clause of the said Constitution, treaty, statute, or commission."

In Gill v. Oliver, 11 How. 529, 545, on error to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, it was held, where an award had been obtained under a treaty with Mexico and both parties claimed under the award, that the introduction of the treaty and the award merely as part of the history of the case did not in any way involve the validity of the treaty or its construction and that the writ of error could not be maintained. See Williams v. Oliver, 12 How. 111; Baltimore & Potomac Railroad v. Hopkins, 130 U. S. 210, 225.

Writ of error dismissed.

CALIFORNIA v. HOLLADAY.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

No. 566. Submitted November 1, 1895. - Decided November 11, 1895.

This case is dismissed for want of jurisdiction, on the authority of San Francisco v. Itsell, 133 U. S. 65; Beatty v. Benton, 135 U. S. 244; and Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U. S. 361; and cases cited.

MOTION to dismiss. The action was brought on behalf of the people of California to remove buildings and fences of the defendants from what was claimed to be a public park. The defendants were in possession of the land, under claim of title, and had been for many years.

The complaint alleged that a certain piece of land (describing a tract four blocks in extent, including the part thereof here in dispute)" was heretofore, to wit, on the eleventh day of March, A.D. 1858, by the lawful owner and proprietor thereof, lawfully dedicated to public use as a public square, by the name of 'Lafayette Park,' and such dedication accepted by the public, and then was and still is laid down upon the official

Statement of the Case.

map of said city and county as a public square as aforesaid:" that the defendants had erected fences within said public square, which enclosed, and were the means of excluding plaintiffs from, a certain piece or parcel of said public square (describing the land in dispute), and that defendants had erected and maintained a dwelling-house and other permanent improvements within and upon the premises, which interfered with and hindered the use by the public of said public square, and which were accordingly public nuisances, and the prayer was that they be abated, etc. The defendants answered, denying that the land ever was dedicated; admitting their occupation of the six fifty-vara lots in dispute, and their intention to keep out the public; and as special defences they pleaded three judgments in bar and estoppel. One of the judgments so pleaded was against the people of the State of California, and two of them was against the city and county of San Francisco. The actions in which those judgments were made in each instance involved the same land and the same question of dedication as here in dispute; and the prevailing parties were these defendants or their predecessor in interest.

The trial court decided that each of the two judgments against the city and county of San Francisco was, as a plea a bar and as evidence conclusive against the claim of dedication made by the plaintiffs in the present action; and that the court was thereby precluded from again inquiring into the question or claim of dedication made by the plaintiffs in this action. That decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State.

To that judgment this writ of error was sued out by the State; and the defendants moved to dismiss it for want of jurisdiction, on the ground that no Federal question was involved. On behalf of the State of California it was contended that a Federal question was involved, as follows: "The Supreme Court of the State of California first decided that the land in controversy was in fact dedicated to the public, as alleged in the complaint, by the Van Ness Ordinance, the act of the legislature of California, and the act

Syllabus.

of Congress of July 1, 1864, entitled 'An act to expedite the settlement of titles to land in California.' It then decided that the dedication was annulled by the judgments given in the suits of S. W. Holladay v. The City and County of San Francisco, and of The City and County of San Francisco v. S. W. Holladay and others. To these two records the people of the State of California were strangers. The State never consented that the city and county might submit the rights of the public to judgment in either of those actions. Hence they claim, that those judgments, so far as the people are concerned, were given without due process of law."

Mr. S. W. Holladay in person, and Mr. E. Burke Holladay for the motion.

Mr. W. F. Fitzgerald, Attorney General of the State of California, Mr. William Matthews, and Mr. William Craig opposing.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE: The opinions of the Supreme Court of California in this case are reported 68 California, 439; 93 California, 241; 102 California, 661. The motion to dismiss is sustained on the authority of San Francisco v. Itsell, 133 U. S. 65; Beatty v. Benton, 135 U. S. 244; Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U. S. 361; and cases cited. And see Hoadley v. San Franrisco, 94 U. S. 4; Hoadley v. San Francisco, 124 U. S. 639. Writ of error dismissed.

SONN v. MAGONÉ.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

No. 16. Argued October 15, 1895. - Decided November 11, 1895.

Lentils and white medium beans in a dry state, both mature and ordinarily used for food, though sometimes sold for seed, imported into New York in the years 1887 and 1888, were properly classified by the collector as VOL. CLIX-27,

Statement of the Case.

vegetables under paragraph 286 of Schedule G of the act of March 3, 1883, c. 121, and as such were subject to a duty of ten per cent ad valorem. Maddock v. Magone, 152 U. S. 368, affirmed to the point that “in construing a tariff act, when it is claimed that the commercial use of a word or phrase in it differs from the ordinary signification of such word or phrase, in order that the former prevail over the latter it must appear that the commercial designation is the result of established usage in commerce and trade, and that at the time of the passage of the act that usage was definite, uniform, and general, and not partial, local, or personal." Whether the lentils and beans were properly classified by the collector was a matter for the court to decide.

THIS was an action to recover duties exacted by the collector of customs of the port of New York, and paid by the importers under protest in order to get their goods. The importations were made in the years 1887 and 1888, and the articles were invoiced in four of the six invoices as "white hand-picked Danubian beans;" in one as "haricots;" and in another as “Bohemia lentils."

By section 2502 of the customs duties act, passed March 3, 1883, 22 Stat. 488, c. 121, as a substitute for Title XXXIII of the Revised Statutes, duties were levied on the following articles Under Schedule A, entitled "Chemical products," paragraph 94," All barks, beans, berries, balsams, buds, bulbs, and bulbous roots and excrescences, such as nut-galls, fruits, flowers, dried fibres, grains, gums, and gum-resins, herbs, leaves, lichens, mosses, nuts, roots and stems, spices, vegetables, seeds, (aromatic, not garden seeds,) and seeds of morbid growth, weeds, woods used expressly for dyeing, and dried insects, any of the foregoing of which are not edible, but which have been advanced in value or condition by refining or grinding, or by other process of manufacture, and not specifically enumerated or provided for in this act, ten per centum ad valorem." Par. 16. "Castor beans, or seeds, fifty cents per bushel of fifty pounds."

Under Schedule G, entitled "Provisions," paragraph 259: "Wheat, twenty cents per bushel." Par. 260. "Rye and barley, ten cents per bushel." Par. 263. "Indian corn or maize, ten cents per bushel." Par. 264. "Oats, ten cents