Opinion of the Court.

adjust contradictory pretensions. All these questions were left to be decided by the judicial tribunals."

p. 601.

The court also said: "The claims of these old villages to their common field lots, and the peculiar customs regarding them, were well known. Congress, therefore, did not require that any documentary evidence should be filed, nor a report of commissioners thereon. A survey was considered unnecessary, because the several boundaries of each claimant of a lot, and the extent of his possession, were already marked by boundaries, well known among themselves. They required no record in the land office to give validity to the title. The act is certainly not drawn with much regard to technical accuracy. It is without that certainty, as to parties and description of the property granted, which is required in formal conveyances. But a title by statute cannot be thus criticised. It sufficiently describes the lands intended to be granted, and the class of persons to whom it is granted. Besides, it is not a donation, or mere gift, requiring a survey to sever it from other lands of the donor; but, rather, a deed of confirmation to those who are admitted to have just claims. It passes a present title, proprio vigore, of the property described to the persons designated; a patent to another afterwards, for any of these lands, would be void, because the government had already released all title and claim thereto. If Congress could not grant them to another, much less could the arbitrary edict, or imperfect performance of a neglected duty by a ministerial officer, operate to divest a clear title by statute." pp. 600, 601.

The land in question had been in the possession of the original defendant, Peter Lindell, for the time which would be required to bar this action by the statute of limitations before it was brought, and, extending as it does over a period of thirty or forty years, it is only prevented from thus operating by the principle which does not permit time to run against the government. But it cannot lose its force or value in the consideration of the question, whether the act of 1820 is to be construed as granting lands to the State of Missouri for the use of public schools which had already passed to others under

Opinion of the Court.

the act of 1812 by virtue of prior occupation, cultivation, or possession. When the defendants have proved that the land in controversy either belonged to the "Grand Prairie Common Field of Saint Louis," or that the lots in dispute had been inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior to 1803, it would be a very harsh rule to require one who claims to have purchased the title arising from such occupation, cultivation, or possession, to prove with certainty and precision the time when, and the person who, cultivated or occupied that precise property eighty or ninety years ago. Those who could testify from actual knowledge are perhaps all dead; the population of that time has passed away, and the memories of any who may be living would be very imperfect. Neither the spirit of the statute, nor justice can require anything more than satisfactory proof that according to the terms of the statute such lots, and all the land within the Grand Prairie Common Field, had been inhabited, cultivated, or possessed prior to the year 1803.

Such was the decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri in this case, reported in 50 Missouri, 60, again in 72 Missouri, 441, and finally in 85 Missouri, 559, which is now under review. Such is also the spirit of all the decisions which this court has made upon the subject, the substance of which is found in Glasgow v. Hortiz, supra, which had relation to one of the same class of lots in dispute here.

If we had any doubt as to the views above expressed, the reasons for which seem to be very plain, the three decisions above referred to of the Supreme Court of Missouri would be entitled to very great consideration. They were made at times so far apart that upon each occasion when a decision was rendered the court probably consisted of an entirely different body of judges; and they were arrived at by a court especially familiar with this class of questions, lying, as they do, at the foundation of much of the most valuable property in that State.

Other questions have been argued by counsel in this case, and we have been urged in the brief to decide them; but as this proposition is a broad one, which covers the whole case, and is sufficient to dispose of it, we pursue our uniform course

VOL. CXXVIII-37

Counsel for Parties.

of declining to consider other matters not necessary to a determination of the issue. If the plaintiff in this action had no title under the act of 1820, because the United States had none to give, he had no right of action, and the case was properly decided against him.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Missouri is therefore Affirmed.

WALSTON v. NEVIN.

ROACH v. NEVIN.

ERROR TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF

KENTUCKY.

Nos. 1129, 1160. Submitted November 26, 1888. Decided December 10, 1888.

On motion to dismiss or affirm it is only necessary to print so much of the record as will enable the court to act understandingly, without referring to the transcript.

The party objecting that enough of the record is not printed to enable the court to act understandingly, on a motion to dismiss should make specific reference to the parts which he thinks should be supplied.

The Kentucky statute of March 24, 1882, which authorizes the city government of Louisville to open and improve streets and assess the cost thereof on the owners of adjoining lots, does not deprive such owners of their property without due process of law, and does not deny them the equal protection of the laws, and is not repugnant to Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. When on a motion to dismiss a writ of error or an appeal for want of jurisdiction or affirm the judgment below, it appears that there was color for the motion to dismiss, and that the contention of the plaintiff in error or the appellant has been often pressed upon the court and as often determined adversely, the motion to affirm will be granted.

THESE were motions to dismiss or affirm, under Rule 6, Paragraph 5, 108 U. S. 575. The case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. J. K. Goodloe, for the motion.

Mr. B. F. Buckner opposing.

Opinion of the Court.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the

court.

Judgment was rendered in the Louisville Chancery Court in favor of the defendants in error in the first of the abovenamed causes, directing the enforcement of a lien given by a statute of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, approved March 24, 1882, entitled "An act to amend the charter of the city of Louisville," by a sale of certain lots in the city of Louisville owned by plaintiffs in error, to pay the amounts assessed against such lots for a local improvement, and, upon appeal, was affirmed by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

In the second case, which arose upon another local improvement, but involves the same questions here, the Louisville Chancery Court denied the defendants in error relief because in its opinion the proceedings for the improvement had not been properly taken; but the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the Chancellor and remanded the cause "with directions to enforce the lien and for proceedings consistent with the opinion herein, which is ordered to be certified to said court."

Writs of error were thereupon prosecuted to this court, to dismiss which motions are now made, united with motions to affirm under the rule.

A preliminary objection is raised that defendants in error should have caused the entire record to be printed. But we only require the printing of so much of the record as will enable us to act understandingly without referring to the transcript; and if, in the judgment of counsel opposing the motions, more in that respect was needed, he might have made such specific reference thereto as would have enabled counsel for the moving parties to have supplied it. As the cases stand, we have apparently been furnished with quite enough for the disposition of the questions involved. The parts of the statute necessary to be considered upon these motions are as follows:

"§ 1. Public ways as used in this act shall mean all public streets, alleys, sidewalks, roads, lanes, avenues, highways, and thoroughfares, and shall be under the exclusive manage

Opinion of the Court.

ment and control of said city, with power to improve them by original construction and reconstruction thereof as may be prescribed by ordinance. Improvements as applied to public ways shall mean all work and material used upon them in the construction and reconstruction thereof, and shall be made and done as may be prescribed either by ordinance or contract, approved by the general council.

"§ 2. When the improvement is the original construction of any street, road, lane, alley, or avenue, such improvement shall be made at the exclusive costs of the owners of lots in each fourth of a square, to be equally apportioned by the general council according to the number of square feet owned by them respectively, except that corner lots (say thirty feet front and extending back as may be prescribed by ordinance) shall pay twenty-five per cent more than others for such improvements. Each subdivision of territory bounded on all sides by principal streets shall be deemed a square. When the territory contiguous to any public way is not defined into squares by principal streets, the ordinance providing for the improvement of such public way shall state the depth on both sides fronting said improvement to be assessed for the cost of making the same according to the number of square feet owned by the parties respectively within the depth as set out in the ordinance. A lien shall exist for the cost of original improvement of public ways, for the apportionment and interest thereon, at the rate of six per cent per annum against the respective lots and payments may be enforced upon the property bound there for by proceedings in court; and no error in the proceedings of the general council shall exempt from payment after the work has been done as required by either the ordinance or contract; but the general council, or the courts in which suits may be pending, shall make all corrections, rules, and orders to do justice to all parties concerned.

"4. made,

When improvements in public ways have been and the contract therefor completed, the city engineer shall, by one insertion in one of the daily newspapers published in Louisville, give notice of the time and