1871, the date fixed by section 2938, when that Code should take ef fect, but did contain the following provision: "Sec. 2172. The several periods of limitation prescribed by this chapter shall commence from the date when it shall take effect, but the same shall not apply to any action commenced, nor to any cases where the right of action or of entry shall have accrued before that time, but the same shall be subject to the laws now in force; but this law may be pleaded in any case where a bar has accrued under the provisions thereof." It will appear from these provisions of the statute law that the absence of any limitation of actions upon contracts under seal, between October 1, 1873, and April 19, 1873, can have no effect upon the controversy in this case. When the cause of action in this case arose, as found by the court, to-wit, on April 1, 1871, article 6, p. 400, of the Code of 1857, above quoted, barring actions on sealed instruments in seven years, was in force, and this limitation was expressly continued by the Revised Code of 1871. The case of Furlong v. State, 58 Miss. 717, relied on by counsel for plaintiff in error, can have no application to the case, for in that suit the cause of action accrued after the Code of 1871 had taken effect. Nothing was decided in that case which has any bearing on this. Therefore, upon the facts specially found, namely, that the cause of action in this case accrued on April 1, 1871, and that this suit was not brought until December 21, 1878, it is apparent that the sixth plea of defendant is sustained, unless this case is saved by the averment in the declaration that the suit was brought within a year after a former suit for the same cause of action had been defeated for matter of form. It is, therefore, to be considered whether, upon the special findings, the plaintiff is entitled to the saving clause of section 2163 of the Code of 1871, which is as follows: "If, in any action duly commenced within the time allowed, the writ shall be abated or the action otherwise avoided or defeated by the death or marriage of any party thereto, or for any matter of forin, * * * the plaintiff may commence a new action for the same cause at any time within one year after the abatement or other determination of the original suit." The findings show that on March 26, 1877, an action, in all respects similar to this, was brought, on the same contract sued on in this case, by the plaintiff in error against the same defendants, and that, upon the trial of that suit, the court found that the plaintiff did not have a legal title to the claim sued on when the said action was commenced, and judgment was accordingly rendered in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff. Upon these findings the circuit court was of opinion in this case that the former action was not defeated for any matter of form, and therefore that the plaintiff's cause did not fall within the exception of section 2173 of the Code of 1871, and was barred by the limitation of seven years applicable to contracts under seal. We are of opinion that the facts thus specially found sustain the judgment of the circuit court in this case. The supreme court of Mississippi, in the case of M. & C. R. Co. v. Orr, 43 Miss. 279, has construed the phrase "for matter of form," in section 2163, and declared that it "relates to technical defects in the form of the action or pleadings or proof, or to variances between the one and the other." This case it is evident does not fall within this rule. The action brought by plaintiff on March 26, 1877, was defeated because it appeared from the proof that when it was brought the plaintiff had no cause of action. The issue was deliberately and squarely presented by the pleadings in that former suit whether at the time of its commencement the right of action was in the plaintiff. The defendant averred it to be in the plaintiff's assignee in bankruptcy. The plaintiff replied that the contract on which his action was based had been bought at the assignee's sale and assigned to Thomas Boyle, who, before the commencement of the action, to-wit, in January, 1877, had assigned and transferred it to him. On this the defendant took issue, and on that issue the cause was tried. Upon the trial it turned out that the assignment by Boyle to the plaintiff was not made until January 28, 1878, more than 10 months after the action was brought, and the finding and judgment on the issue submitted was against the plaintiff and for the defendant. Upon this state of facts we think the former suit was defeated, not for any matter of form, but for matter of substance. The plaintiff failed in his action because the legal title to the contract on which he brought his suit was in another, because the evidence did not sustain the issue upon which he had staked his cause. The present case, therefore, does not fall within the exception prescribed by section 2137 of the Code of Mississippi of 1871, and is barred by the limitation of seven years prescribed by the Code of 1851, applicable to contracts under seal. It follows that the judgment of the circuit court was right, and must be affirmed. (109 U. S. 421) FEIBELMAN, Adm'r, etc., v. PACKARD, Marshal, etc., and others. (December 3, 1883.) REMOVAL OF CAUSE-ACTION ON MARSHAL'S BOND FOR ILLEGAL SEIZURE-REV. An action on the bond of a United States marshal, to recover damages for the illegal seizure of goods under a writ or warrant issued from a district court in proceedings in bankruptcy, is an action arising under a law of the United States, and removable from the state court. Under the bankrupt act of 1867, the district court of the United States, sitting in bankruptcy, has jurisdiction to order the seizure and detention of goods, the property of the bankrupt, although in the possession of another, under claim of title; and in a subsequent action against the officer for obedience to such an order, he may justify the seizure by proof that the title to the property was at the time in the bankrupt. In Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Louisiana. John Ray, for plaintiff in error. J. R. Beckwith, for defendant in error. MATTHEWS, J. This action was originally brought by Nathan Feibelman, since deceased, and revived by his administrator, the plaintiff in error, by petition filed April 24, 1873, in the fourth district court for the parish of Orleans, in the state of Louisiana. Its object was to recover damages for unlawfully seizing and taking forcible possession of a stock of merchandise alleged by the plaintiff to have been his property and in his possession. The defendant Packard was alleged to be the marshal of the United States for the district of Louisiana, and the seizure and taking of the property is stated to have been under a claim of authority based upon a writ or warrant issued by the judge of the district court of the United States for the district of Louisiana in certain proceedings in bankruptcy instituted in that court by D. Valentine & Co. as creditors against E. Dreyfus & Co., but it is averred that the writ did not justify the acts complained of. The other defendants below were sureties on the official bond of Packard as marshal, and by an amendment to the original petition it is alleged "that all the acts charged and complained of in said original petition by which the petitioners suffered the damages. therein set forth were done by said Packard in his capacity of marshal aforesaid, and are breaches of the conditions of said bond, and give unto your petitioner this right of action on said bond against said marshal and his sureties." On April 7, 1865, the defendants filed in the state court their petition for the removal of the cause to the circuit court of the United States for that district, accompanied by a sufficient bond, conditioned according to law, upon the ground that the suit arose under a law of the United States, but the appli cation was denied; and thereafter, on April 22, 1875, they filed in the circuit court a petition for a writ of certiorari to remove the same into that court, which was granted. Thereafter the cause proceeded to final judgment in favor of the defendants in that court. The action of the circuit court in the removal of the cause from the state court is assigned for error, and is first to be considered. The suit was pending in the state court, but was not at issue, when the removal act of March 3, 1875, took effect, and the right of removal is regulated by its provisions. The ground of the removal was that the suit, being one of a civil nature at law, in which the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeded $500 in value, arose under the constitution and laws of the United States. It is clear that the circuit court did not err in directing the removal of the suit from the state court; for, if we look at the nature of the plaintiff's cause of action and the grounds of the defense, as set forth in his petition, it is apparent that the suit arose under a law of the United States. The action, as we have seen, was founded on the official bond of Packard as marshal of the United States for that district, his sureties being joined as co-defendants, and the acts complained of as illegal and injurious being charged to be breaches of its condition. The bond was required to be given by section 783, Rev. St., and section 784 expressly gives the right of action as follows: "In the case of a breach of the condition of a marshal's bond, any person thereby injured may institute, in his own name and for his sole use, a suit on said bond and thereupon recover such damages as shall be legally assessed, with costs of suit, for which execution may issue for him in due form. If such party fails to recover in the suit, judgment shall be rendered and execution may issue against him for costs in favor of the defendant; and the United States shall in no case be liable for the same.' " Sections 785 and 786 contain provisions regulating the suit, the latter. prescribing the limitation of six years after the cause of action has accrued, after which no such suit shall be maintained, with the usual saving in behalf of persons under disabilities. The counsel for plaintiff in error assumes in argument that the suit was to recover damages for alleged trespasses. It was plainly upon the bond itself, and therefore arose directly under the provisions of an act of congress. Gwin v. Breedlove, 2 How. 29; Gwin v. Barton, 6 How. 7. In McKee v. Rains, 10 Wall. 22, the removal of which was held to be unlawful, was made under the supposed authority of the act of March 3, 1863, and that of April 9, 1866. After the removal of the cause it was put at issue by the filing, on the part of the defendants, of an answer and an amended answer. In these answers it was alleged that in a proceeding in bankruptcy against Dreyfus & Co., duly commenced in the district court for that district by David Valentine & Co. as creditors, an order was made directing "that the marshal take provisional possession of all the property of the said defendants, real and personal, belonging to the said firm of E. Dreyfus & Co., or the individual members thereof, and particularly the merchandise pretended to have been transferred to Moses Feibelman, at Delta, Louisiana, and all of the books of account, bank-books, and papers of or relating to the business of said firm of E. Dreyfus & Co., and hold the same subject to the further orders of this court;" that a writ was issued in pursuance of that order to the defendant Packard, commanding him to execute said order, which is the writ mentioned in the plaintiff's petition; that, in obedience to the command of the said writ, the said mar shal did take into his possession and custody the goods and property therein described and referred to, and none other; and that the said goods and property so taken and held are the same as those mentioned in the plaintiff's petition, the same having come into the possession of the plaintiff in pursuance of a fraudulent conspiracy between the plaintiff and Moses Feibelman and the members of the firm of E. Dreyfus & Co., the bankrupts, the object of which was to prevent the same from coming into the possession of the assignee in bankruptcy of said bankrupts, and so to cheat and defraud their creditors, the said goods and property being, when so seized, the property of said bankrupts, and not of the said Moses Feibelman, nor of the plaintiff, neither of whom were entitled to the possession of the same. The plaintiff moved to strike from the answer the foregoing defense, which motion was overruled. This ruling of the court is assigned for error. The ground on which this assignment of error is predicated is, that by the law of Louisiana a person in possession of personal property as owner, claiming title, cannot be disturbed in that possession by a seizure under judicial process running against another person; that a transfer in fraud of creditors cannot be attacked by a seizure by the marshal or sheriff, under an execution against the debtor, of the property in the hands of a third possessor; and that, consequently, in this suit, in which it was admitted that the goods had been taken out of the possession of the plaintiff, it was not competent to set up as a defense actual title in the bankrupts. In support of this proposition, we are referred by counsel to various sections of the Revised Civil Code of Louisiana, and to numerous decisions thereon by the supreme court of that state; and the statement is made that the decision of this court in Hozey v. Buchanan, 16 Pet. 215, which, it is admitted, is not reconcilable with the conclusion insisted upon, was made without the point having been mentioned or considered as to the law of Louisiana, under which the case arose. But it is entirely immaterial, in our view of the case, what the law of Louisiana upon the point is, for the reason that that law has no application to it. The question relates, not to any law of that state, but to a law of the United States, and is, whether under the bankrupt act of 1867 the district court of the United States, sitting in bankruptcy, has jurisdiction to order the seizure and detention of goods, the property of the bankrupt, although in possession of another |