Opinion of the Court.

II. The court below must be regarded as the judge of its own rules and sessions. Life Ins. Co. v. Francisco, 17 Wall. 672; United States v. Breitling, 20 How. 252.

In the case last cited, Chief Justice Taney said, in a case which presented this point, in regard to an exception: "The time within which it may be drawn out and presented to the court must depend on its rules and practice, and on its own judicial discretion." This is to be understood, of course, as to exceptions presented before the end of the term.

In the case at bar, the October term at which the judg ment was rendered had passed, and a new term had commenced. The power of the court to allow exceptions had terminated. But if it had not, in the absence of any extension of the time, the petitioner could assert no lawful right to exceptions.

III. The decision of the Circuit Court was right. It fol 'lowed the reported decisions of this court, and, had it decided otherwise, this court would have disregarded the exceptions. Müller v. Ehlers, 91 U. S. 249; Walton v. United States, 9 Wheat. 651; Hunnicutt v. Peyton, 102 U. S. 333; Bronson v. Schulten, 104 U. S. 410; Phillips v. Negley, 117 U. S. 665; Brooks v. Railroad Co., 102 U. S. 107.

MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

We are of opinion that the writ of mandamus must issue. By rules 67 and 69 of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, which took effect on the first Monday of August, 1838, it is provided that, when exceptions to the opinion of the court are taken by either party on the trial of a cause, he shall not be required to prepare his bill of exceptions at the trial, but shall merely reduce the exceptions to writing, or the court will, on request, note the point, and the bill of exceptions shall afterwards be drawn up, amended, and settled, under the following regulations: The bill of exceptions shall be prepared and a copy thereof served upon the opposite party before judgment is rendered on the verdict; the oppo

Opinion of the Court.

site party may, within four days after such service, propose amendments to the bill and serve a copy upon the party who prepared it; if the parties cannot agree in regard to the amendments, then, within four days after such service of a copy of the amendments, either party may give to the other notice to appear within a convenient time, and not more than four days after service of such notice, before the judge who tried the cause, to have the bill and amendments settled; the judge shall thereupon correct and settle the same as he shall deem to consist with the truth of the facts; but, if the parties shall omit, within the several times above limited, unless the same shall be enlarged by a judge, the one to propose amendments, and the other to notify an appearance before the judge, they shall respectively be deemed, the former to have agreed to the bill as prepared, and the latter to have agreed to the amendments as proposed; and if the party omit to make a bill within the time above limited, unless the same shall be enlarged as aforesaid, he shall be deemed to have waived his right thereto.

A corresponding practice prevails in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, by its rules, with variations as to time. Under those rules, a case, or a case and exceptions, or a case containing exceptions, on a trial before a jury, is to be made, and a copy thereof served on the opposite party, within ten days after the trial. The party served may, within ten days thereafter, propose amendments thereto and serve a copy on the party proposing the case or exceptions, who may within four days thereafter serve the opposite party with a notice that the case or exceptions, with the proposed amendments, will be submitted at a time and place to be specified in the notice, not less than four nor more than twenty days after service of such notice, to the justice before whom the cause was tried, for settlement.

It is apparent that both parties in this case acted upon the view that the rule of practice of the Supreme Court of the State applied to the case; because the plaintiff, instead of serving on the defendant his proposed amendments to the bill within four days after the 3d of March, as required by

Opinion of the Court.

the rule of the Circuit Court, waited ten days, under the rule of the Supreme Court of the State, and then, on the 13th of March, obtained a stipulation from the defendant giving ten days' additional time to prepare and serve amendments. It may be that the defendant, in serving, on the 27th of March, a notice of settlement of fourteen days, for the 10th of April, on the plaintiff, intended to comply, as it in fact did comply, with the requirement of the rule of the state court that such notice should be a notice of not less than four nor more than twenty days; yet it also sufficiently complied with rule 67 of the Circuit Court, which required a notice of not more than four days, because a notice of four days, served on the 27th of March, would have been for the 31st of March, and Judge Shipman was not then within the Southern District of New York, so as to be able to perform any judicial act there, nor did he come there, so as to be able to do so, until the 2d of April, 1888. Under these circumstances, the notice for the 10th of April was a reasonable compliance with the rule of the Circuit Court.

We are of opinion that the practice and rules of the state court do not apply to proceedings in the Circuit Court taken for the purpose of reviewing in this court a judgment of the Circuit Court, and that such rules and practice, embracing the preparation, perfecting, settling, and signing of a bill of exceptions, are not within the "practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding" in the Circuit Court which are required, by § 914 of the Revised Statutes, to conform "as near as may be" to the "practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding existing at the time in like causes in the courts of record of the State" within which the Circuit Court is held, "any rule of court to the contrary notwithstanding."

This court has had occasion several times to construe § 914. In Nudd v. Burrows, 91 U. S. 426, a state statute required a judge to instruct a jury only as to the law of a case, and provided that the written instructions of the court should be taken by the jury in their retirement and returned with the verdict, and that papers read in evidence might be carried from the bar by the jury. The court charged the jury upon the facts

Opinion of the Court.

and refused to permit them to take to their room the written instructions given by the court or papers read in evidence. This court held that this was not error, because the personal conduct and administration of the judge in the discharge of his separate functions was not practice or pleading, or a form or mode of proceeding, within the meaning of those terms in the act of Congress.

In Indianapolis Railroad Co. v. Horst, 93 U. S. 291, a state statute prescribed that the judge should require the jury to answer special interrogatories in addition to finding a general verdict. This court held that that provision did not apply to the courts of the United States; and that the act of Congress did not apply to a motion for a new trial, nor affect the power of the Circuit Court to grant or refuse a new trial in its discretion. This last point was again so ruled in Newcomb v. Wood, 97 U. S. 581.

In harmony with the foregoing decisions, we are of opinion that § 914 does not extend to the means of enforcing or revising a decision once made by the Circuit Court. Section 914 does not extend to proceedings to enforce a judgment, because by § 916 special provisions are made as to a remedy by execution or otherwise, to reach the property of a judgment debtor, by borrowing from the laws of the State only those remedies then already existing, or which should thereafter be adopted by general rules of the Circuit Court. Lamaster v. Keeler, 123 U. S. 376. The object of § 914 was to assimilate the form and manner in which the parties should present their claims and defence, in the preparation for the trial of suits in the Federal courts, to those prevailing in the courts of the State. As we have seen, it does not include state statutes requiring instructions to the jury to be reduced to writing, or those which permit such instructions and certain papers read in evidence, to be taken by the jury when they retire, or those which require the jury to be directed, if they return a general verdict, to find specially upon particular questions of fact involved in the issues; and, as it does not apply to a motion for a new trial, nor affect the power of the Circuit Court to grant or refuse a new trial at its discretion, so it does not cover any

Opinion of the Court.

other means of enforcing or revising a decision once made by the Circuit Court. The manner or the time of taking proceedings as a foundation for the removal of a case by a writ of error from one Federal court to another is a matter to be regulated exclusively by acts of Congress, or, when they are silent, by methods derived from the common law, from ancient English statutes, or from the rules and practice of the courts. of the United States. The only regulation made by Congress as to bills of exceptions is that contained in § 953 of the Revised Statutes, which provides that they shall be sufficiently authenticated by the signature of the presiding judge, without any seal.

These views were adopted by the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York, in Whalen v. Sheridan, 18 Blatchford, 324, and by the Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts, in United States v. Train, 12 Fed. Rep. 852.

In the present case, the defendant prepared and served its bill of exceptions within the forty days from January 25. The expression "prepare and serve," in the order allowing the forty days, clearly meant, in view of rules 67 and 69 of the Circuit Court, that the proposed bill was to be prepared and served on the opposite party within the forty days, so that he might propose amendments to it within the time prescribed by the rules. It was so prepared and served within the forty days. It was retained by the plaintiff for ten days after its service. He then obtained, by stipulation, from the defendant, ten days' more time to prepare and serve amendments. The proposed amendments were served on the tenth day and the notice of settlement was accepted, written admission of its service was given and it was retained. Under these and the other circumstances above detailed, we think the defendant was entirely regular in its practice and that the plaintiff was estopped from raising the objection which he made before Judge Shipman.

On the facts of the present case, the decision in Müller v. Ehlers, 91 U. S. 249, has no application. In that case, on a trial by the court, without a jury, of an action at law, there was a general finding for the plaintiff, and a motion for a new