of a percentage on its entire authorized stock as the fee to the State
for the filing of the articles of consolidation in the office of the Secre-
tary of State of the State, without which filing it could not possess
the powers, immunities, and privileges which appertain to a corpora-
tion in that State, is not a tax on interstate commerce, or the right
to carry on the same, or the instruments thereof; and its enforcement
involves no attempt on the part of the State to extend its taxing
power beyond its territorial limits. Ashley v. Ryan, 436.
16. A state statute, requiring insurance companies to make full and
specified returns to the proper state officers of their business condi-
tion, liabilities, losses, premiums, taxes, dividends, expenses, etc., is
an exercise of the police power of the State, and may be enforced
against a company organized under a special charter from the legislat-
ure of the State which does not in terms require it to make such
return, without thereby depriving it of any of its rights under the
Constitution of the United States. Eagle Ins. Co. v. Ohio, 446.
17. Congress, under the power to regulate commerce among the States,
may create a corporation to build a bridge across navigable water
between two States, and to take private lands for the purpose, making
just compensation. Luxton v. North River Bridge Co., 525.
18. The act of July 11, 1890, c. 669, to incorporate the North River
Bridge Company, and to authorize the construction of a bridge across
the Hudson River between the States of New York and New Jersey,
is constitutional.
19. The New York and Erie Railroad Company was a corporation organ-
ized under the laws of, and having its principal place of business in
the State of New York. Its object was to construct and operate a
railroad between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. In 1841 the
legislature of Pennsylvania granted to it the right to construct a few
miles of its proposed road in the county of Susquehanna in that State.
In 1846, no work having been done on the road, the legislature of
Pennsylvania granted to it the further right to construct a portion of
its road in Pike County, and further enacted that, after the road
should be completed to Lake Erie, the company should pay annually
into the treasury of the State of Pennsylvania the sum of ten thousand
dollars, and that the stock of the road should be subject to taxation
in Pennsylvania to an amount equal to the construction of so much
of the road as was in that State. The road was then completed from
the Hudson to Lake Erie, passing through portions of Pike County
and of Susquehanna County, and the requisite payments have been
made, first by the original company, and since by its successors
through foreclosures of mortgages. The plaintiff in error is now
possessed of the property and of the rights under the acts of 1841 and
1846, and has its principal place of business in the city of New York.
In 1885 the legislature of Pennsylvania assessed an annual tax of three
mills on the dollar on moneys, loans, stocks, moneyed capital, etc., in
the hands of individual citizens of that State, and required the
treasurer of each private corporation, incorporated under the laws
of any other State and doing business in Pennsylvania, when making
payments of interest upon its bonds, etc., held by residents of that
State, to assess the tax upon it, and to report to the auditor general
of the State, and to pay the taxes so assessed and collected into the
state treasury. In accordance with this law the treasurer of the rail-
road company in 1888 reported the nominal value of all its scrip,
bonds, and evidences of indebtedness to be $78,573,485.10, and the
nominal value of all such known to be owned by residents of Penn-
sylvania as " None." Thereupon the State, by its attorney general,
commenced an action to recover of the company a tax of three mills
on the whole amount returned. In the course of the trial it was
found that the amount of bonds of the company held and owned by
residents of Pennsylvania aggregated $841,000, and judgment was
given for a tax of three mills on that amount, which was affirmed on
appeal by the Supreme Court of the State. Held, (1) That the Com-
monwealth of Pennsylvania cannot, consistently with the Constitution
of the United States, impose upon the New York, Lake Erie and
Western Railroad Company the duty, when paying in the city of New
York the interest due upon scrip, bonds, or certificates of indebtedness
held by residents of Pennsylvania, of deducting from the interest so
paid the amount assessed upon bond and moneyed capital in the hands
of such residents of Pennsylvania. (2) That the fourth section of the
act of 1885, in its application to the New York, Lake Erie and West-
ern Railroad Company, impairs the obligation of the contract origi-
nally made by the New York and Lake Erie Railroad Company and
the State of Pennsylvania, as disclosed by the acts of 1841 and 1846,
and by what was done by the companies, upon the faith of those acts.
New York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad v. Pennsylvania, 628.
20. In the State of New York the committal to prison of a person con-
victed of crime, without giving him an opportunity, pending an appeal,
to furnish bail, is in conformity with the laws of that State when no
certificate is furnished by the judge who presided at the trial or by a
Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, that in his opinion there is
reasonable doubt whether the judgment should stand; and such com
mittal under such circumstances violates no provision of the Constitu-
tion of the United States. McKane v. Durston, 684.
21. An appeal to a higher court from a judgment of conviction is not a
matter of absolute right, independently of constitutional or statutory
provisions allowing it, and a State may accord it to a person convicted
of crime upon such terms as it thinks proper. Ib.
22. A city ordinance, made under power conferred by a state statute,
imposing a license of five hundred dollars upon a telegraph company
which had accepted the provisions of the act of July 24, 1866, c. 230,
14 Stat. 221, upon business done exclusively within the city and not
including any business done to or from points without the State, and
not including any business done for the government of the United
States, its officers or agents, is an exercise of the police power and is
not an interference with interstate commerce. Postal Telegraph Co.
v. Charleston, 692.
See TAX AND TAXATION, 4, 5, 6.
1. A contract for a loan and water works in Havana having been awarded
to R., G., L., and M., a deposit was required as a guarantee. N. was
employed by R. to raise the money. He borrowed it from B. R. be-
came the assignee of the interests of his co-contractors, and then failed
to perform the contract. In order to procure a general release from
the liabilities arising from such failure, he gave a power of attorney
to Q., who thereupon, in his name and as attorney in fact, entered into
an agreement in writing with B. by which it was, among other things,
agreed that R. should pay to B. an agreed balance of $19,087.36 in
three months from date, with interest at 9 per cent. That sum not
being paid when due, B. sued R. to recover it. Held, (1) That the
power granted by R. to Q. was outstanding when the agreement was
executed; (2) that the agreement made by Q. with B. was authorized
by the power; (3) that R., having taken an assignment of the respec-
tive interests of his co-contractors, stood in their shoes, and that
evidence touching the transaction, admissible against an assigning
co-contractor, was admissible against him. Runkle v. Burnham, 216.
2. A provision in a contract for the mining, removing, and loading by the
party of the first part of ore from a mine of the party of the second
part, that the party of the second part may be at liberty to terminate
it at any time when he shall be satisfied that the system employed by
the party of the first part is prejudicial to the welfare and develop-
ment of the mine, and that, in that event, there shall be a reference
to determine the damages sustained by the party of the first part by
reason of the termination, does not give the party of the second part
a right arbitrarily to terminate the contract, but only to do so when
it is determined that the system employed is prejudicial to the future
welfare and development of the mine. Anvil Mining Co. v. Humble,
540.
3. A contract made for the extract of ore from the first level of a mine
provided that the ore should contain at least 56 per cent of metallic
iron. Subsequently the parties extended the contract so as to include
the ore contained on and above the second and third levels, with the
exception that the ore extracted under this contract should contain at
least 58 per cent of metallic ore. Held, that this stipulation was ap-
plicable only to the ore taken from the second and third levels. Ib.
4. Whenever one party to a contract is guilty of such a breach as is here
attributed to the defendant the other party may treat the contract as
broken, and may abandon it, and recover as damages the profits he
would have received through full performance, which measure of
profits was within the intent of both parties when the contract was
made, and could be ascertained without difficulty. Ib.
5. By an agreement under seal the party of the first part agreed that, after
the making of the payments and the full performance of the covenants
as agreed to by the party of the second part, he would convey to the
party of the second part, certain described lands in California, together
with a specified number of shares in the stock of an irrigation com-
pany, representing a certain pressure of water, to be delivered to the
party of the second part in making payment in full for the land. The
party of the second part agreed to pay for the land in fixed consecu-
tive payments, and both parties agreed that the instrument should not
be construed as a conveyance, equitable or otherwise, and that, until
delivery of the formal deed or tender of all payments precedent thereto,
the party of the second part should have no title, equitable or other-
wise, to the premises. Held, (1) That these covenants were inde-
pendent, and that the payment or tender of payment of the purchase
price for the land was a condition precedent to the right to the con-
veyance; (2) that the party of the second part, on making the con-
tract payments, became entitled to receive the agreed number of shares
in the irrigation company, subject to the by-laws of such company, but
not stock which represented the title to water or water rights to the
extent of such pressure. Loud v. Pomona Land & Water Co., 564.
See PROMISSORY NOTE;
RECEIVER, 1;
USURY, 1, 2.
1. A State, in permitting a foreign corporation to become one of the con-
stituent elements of a consolidated corporation, organized under its
laws, may impose such conditions as it deems proper, and the accept-
ance of the franchise implies a submission to the conditions without
which the franchise could not have been obtained. Ashley v. Ryan,
436.
2. The State only can challenge the right of a foreign corporation to take
and hold real estate within its limits. Seymour v. Slide & Spur Gold
Mines, 523.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 15, 16;
DIVIDEND.
A defendant, who wrongfully removes a cause from a state court into the
Circuit Court, from whose decree appeals are taken by himself and
other parties to this court, must, upon reversal of the decree by this
court for want of jurisdiction in the Circuit Court, pay the costs in
that court, as well as of all the appeals to this court. Hanrick v. Han-
rick, 192.
1. While it is well settled in Federal courts that the presiding judge may
sum up the facts to the jury, and express an opinion upon them, he
should take care to separate the law from the facts, and leave the lat-
ter in unequivocal terms to the judgment of the jury. Starr v. United
States, 614.
2. The circumstances of this case apparently aroused the indignation of
the judge who presided at the trial of it in an uncommon degree, and
that indignation was expressed in terms which were not consistent
with due regard to the right and duty of the jury to exercise an inde-
pendent judgment in the premises, or with the circumspection and
caution which should characterize judicial utterances; and this court
is constrained to express its disapprobation of this mode of instruct-
ing and advising a jury. Ib.
1. On November 12, 1890, in the Indian country, within the boundaries of
Oklahoma Territory, as defined by the act of May 2, 1890, c. 182, 26
Stat. 81, horse stealing was not a crime against the United States,
punishable under the act of February 15, 1888, c. 10, 25 Stat. 33; but
as to the Cherokee Outlet, it remained Indian country after the pas-
sage of the act of May 2, 1870, and such an offence, committed there,
continued to be an offence against the United States. United States
v. Pridgeon, 48.
2. An indictment in the District Court of the United States within and
for Logan County in Oklahoma Territory, and for the Indian country
attached thereto, charging the commission of the offence of horse
stealing in November, 1890, and laying the venue of the offence "at
and within that part of the Territory of Oklahoma attached for judi-
cial purposes to Logan County," with a description of territory which
included part of Oklahoma and part of the Cherokee Outlet not in
Oklahoma, and which averred the same to be "then and there Indian
country, and a place then and there under the sole and exclusive
jurisdiction of the United States of America," will not be held to be
fatally defective when attacked collaterally by writ of habeas corpus.
3. Where a court has jurisdiction of the person and the offence, the impo-
sition of a sentence in excess of what the law permits, does not render
the legal or authorized portion of the sentence void, but only leaves
such part of it as may be in excess open to question and attack. Ib.
4. In accordance with this principle the court answers the third question
certified in the negative, without expressing an opinion as to what
would have been the proper action of the Circuit Court in dealing
with the prisoner's application. Ib.
5. A person who has an angry altercation with another person, such as to
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