navy who served in the regular or volunteer army or navy, so as to
give him credit in the grade held by him, prior to their passage, for
the time he served in the army or navy before reaching that grade.
United States v. Foster, 435.

MAGNA CHARTA.

See CONTEMPT, 3.

MANDAMUS.

1. The courts will not interfere by mandamus with the executive officers
of the government in the exercise of their ordinary official duties, even
where those duties require an interpretation of the law; no appellate
power being given them for that purpose. Dunlap v. Black, Commis-
sioner, 40.
2. When an executive officer of the government refuses to act at all in a
case in which the law requires him to act, or when, by special statute,
or otherwise, a mere ministerial duty is imposed upon him, that is, a
service which he is bound to perform without further question, if he
refuses, mandamus lies to compel him to do his duty. Ib.

3. In this case a mandamus was issued, commanding the judge of a Cir-
cuit Court of the United States to settle a bill of exceptions according
to the truth of the matters which took place before him on the trial of
an action before the court, held by him and a jury, and to sign it,
when settled, he having refused to settle and sign it on the ground
that the term of the court at which the action was tried had expired,
and the time allowed for signing the bill had expired. Chateaugay
Ore and Iron Co., Petitioner, 544.

See COMMISSIONER OF PENSIONS, 2;

JURISDICTION, D, 1.

MANDATE.

See PRACTICE, 3.

MASTER AND SERVANT.
See COURT AND JURY, 1, 3.

MASTER'S REPORT.

See COPYRIGHT, 25.

MINERAL LAND.

See PUBLIC LAND, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

MISSOURI.

See MUNICIPAL BOND, 1, 5;

PUBLIC LAND, 5, 6.

MORTGAGE.

See EQUITY, 3, 4, 5, 6;
LOCAL LAW, 6, 7.

MOTION TO DISMISS OR AFFIRM.

1. 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. Walston v. Nevin, 578.

2. 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. Ib.
3. 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. Ib.

1. In this case bonds issued by Livingston County in Missouri, on behalf
of Chillicothe township, in payment of a subscription to the stock of
the Saint Louis, Council Bluffs and Omaha Railroad Company were held
valid. Livingston County v. First National Bank of Portsmouth, 102.
2. The vote of the township, given in May, 1870, was in favor of the issue of
the bonds to the Chillicothe and Omaha Railroad Company, a Missouri
corporation. Afterwards, under a statute existing at the time of the
vote, that company was consolidated with an Iowa corporation, under
the name of the corporation to which the bonds were subsequently
issued: Held, that the consolidation was authorized and that the
privilege of receiving the subscription passed to the consolidated com-
pany. Ib.

3. The vote having contemplated the construction of the railroad which
the consolidated company built, there was no diversion from the pur-
pose contemplated by the vote, in the fact that the stock was sub-
scribed, and the bonds issued, to the consolidated company. Ib.

4. The doctrine of Harshman v. Bates County, 92 U. S. 569, and County of
Bates v. Winters, 97 U. S. 83, that a County Court in Missouri could
not, on a vote by a township to issue bonds to a corporation named,
issue the bonds to a corporation formed by the consolidation of that
corporation with another corporation, would not be, if applied here, a
sound doctrine. Ib.

5. On the recitals in the bonds, and the other facts in this case, the county
was estopped from urging, as against a bona fide holder of the bonds,

the existence of any mere irregularity in the making of the subscrip
tion or the issuing of the bonds. Ib.

6. Bonds issued by Franklin County, Illinois, to the Belleville and Eldo-
rado Railroad Company, in November, 1877, held invalid.

Savings Bank v. Franklin County, 526.

German

7. The vote of the people of the county in favor of subscribing to the stock
of the company was taken in September, 1869, the subscription to be
payable in bonds, which were to be issued only on compliance with a
specified condition, as to the time of completing the road through the
county. At the time of the vote, the act of April 16, 1869, was in
force authorizing the county to prescribe the conditions on which the
subscription should be made, and declaring that it should not be valid
until such condition precedent should have been complied with. The
bonds were issued without a compliance with the condition: Held,
that, under the constitution of Illinois, which took effect July 2, 1870,
the issuing of the bonds was unlawful, because it had not been author-
ized by a vote of the people of the county taken prior to the adoption
of the constitution. Ib.

8. Before the bonds were issued the Supreme Court of Illinois, in Town of
Eagle v. Kohn, 84 Ill. 292, had decided the meaning of the act of April
16, 1869, to be that bonds issued without a compliance with such con-
dition precedent were invalid, even in the hands of innocent holders
without notice.

Ib.

9. The fact that the bonds were registered by the state auditor, under the
act of April 16, 1869, did not make them valid. Ib.

10. The bonds of the town of Lansing in the State of New York, issued
to aid in the construction of the New York and Oswego Midland Rail-
road, having been put out without a previous designation by the com-
pany of all the counties through which the extension authorized by
the New York act of 1871, c. 298, would pass, were issued without
authority of law, and are invalid. Purdy v. Lansing, 557.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATION.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 11;
MUNICIPAL BOND.

NATIONAL BANK.

See EQUITY PLeading, 1.

NEGLIGENCE.

See COURT AND JURY, 1, 3.

NEW TRIAL.

See EXCEPTION, 2.

OFFICER OF THE NAVY.

See CLAIMS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES;
LONGEVITY PAY.

PARTIES.

See ESTOPPEL, 2.

PARTITION.

1. The difference between distribution and partition of real estate among
heirs pointed out. Robinson v. Fair, 53.

2. The jurisdiction of a Probate Court to make partition of real estate of
a decedent among his heirs is not defeated by the fact that the pro-
ceedings for it were originated by a petition of the administratrix,
who was also an heir-at-law, asking for a settlement of her accounts
as administratrix, and for the adjudication of her rights as heir-at-law,
by partition of the real estate; the record showing that the court
made the decree for the final settlement and distribution of the estate
before it entered upon the question of partition. Ib.

See JURISDICTION, B, 1.

PARTNERSHIP.

When a partner retires from a firm, assenting to or acquiescing in the re-
tention by the other partners of the old place of business and the
future conduct of the business by them under the old name, the good-
will remains with the latter of course. Menendez v. Holt, 514.

See TRADE-MARK, 4, 5.

PATENT FOR INVENTION.

1. Claim 1 of letters patent No. 42,580, granted May 3d, 1864, to J. F. T.
Holbeck and Matthew Gottfried, for an "improved mode of pitching
barrels," namely, "The application of heated air under blast to the
interior of casks by means substantially as described, and for the pur-
poses set forth," is a claim to an apparatus, and is void for want of
novelty. The process carried on by means of the apparatus was not
new, as a process. Crescent Brewing Co. v. Gottfried, 158.

2. In respect to the apparatus, the patentees, at most, merely applied an
old apparatus to a new use. Ib.

3. Claim 2 of the patent held not to have been infringed. 1b.
4. A bill in equity which assails two patents, issued nearly a year apart,
but to the same party, and relating to the same subject, both held by
the same corporation defendant, and used by it in the same operations,
is not multifarious. United States v. American Bell Telephone Co.,

315.

5. Where a patent for a grant of any kind, issued by the United States,
has been obtained by fraud, by mistake, or by accident, or where there

is any error in the patent itself capable of correction, a suit by the
United States against the patentee is the appropriate remedy for re-
lief. This proposition is supported by precedents in the High Court
of Chancery of England, and in other courts of that country. lb.
6. The more usual remedy, under the English law, to repeal or revoke a
patent, obtained by fraud from the king, was a writ of scire facias,
returnable either into the Court of King's Bench or of Chancery;
though it has been said that the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery
arises, not from its general jurisdiction to give relief for fraud, but
because the patents issuing from the king were kept as records in the
petty bag office of that court. The case, however, of The Attorney
General v. Vernon, 1 Vernon, 277, and other cases seem to indicate
that, by virtue of its general equity powers, the Court of Chancery
had jurisdiction to give relief against fraud in obtaining patents. Ib.
7. In England grants and charters for special privileges were supposed to
issue from the king, as prerogatives of the crown; and the power to
annul them was long exercised by the king by his own order or de-
This mode of vacating charters and patents gradually fell into
disuse; and the same object was obtained by scire facias, returnable
into the Court of King's Bench, or of Chancery. Ib.

cree.

8. In this country, where there is no kingly prerogative, but where patents
for lands and inventions are issued by the authority of the govern-
ment, and by officers appointed for that purpose, who may have been
imposed upon by fraud or deceit, or may have erred as to their power,
or made mistakes in the instrument itself, the remedy for such evils is
by proceedings before the judicial department of the government. Ib.
9. Both the Constitution and the acts of Congress organizing the courts of
the United States have, in express terms, provided that the United
States may bring suits in those courts; and they are all very largely
engaged in the business of affording a remedy where the United
States has a legal right to relief. Ib.

-

10. The present suit-a bill in Chancery in the Circuit Court of the
United States for the District of Massachusetts, wherein the United
States are plaintiffs, brought against the defendant to set aside patents
for inventions on the ground that they were obtained by fraud — is a
proper subject of the jurisdiction of that court, as defined in § 1, c.
37, act of March 3, 1875, 18 Stat. 470; and is well brought under the
direction of the Solicitor General on account of the disability of the
Attorney General to take part in the case; and its allegations of fraud
and deception on the part of the patentee in procuring the patents are
sufficient, if sustained, to authorize a decree setting aside and vacating
the patents as null and void. Ib.

11. Section 4920 of the Revised Statutes, which enumerates five grounds
of defence to a patent for an invention that may be set up by any one
charged with an infringement of the rights of the patentee, was not
intended to supersede, nor does it operate as a repeal or withdrawal of