for the use of Wm. H. Gasque, and that a suit is pending in the district court of the United States for that district, to collect the sum due; that the slaves are in the possession of Wm. P. Givan, to whom he sold them with a warranty of the title; that one Davis claims the slaves under a title paramount to that derived from Ridgway, and had brought a suit for them in the state court, which had proved ineffective, and now threatens to renew it. The object of the bill is to require the two Ridgways and Gasque, on the one part, and Davis, on the other, to interplead in the district court of the United States, to settle their right to the slaves, so that he may pay the purchase-money to the proper person. He alleges that the vendor, Ridgway, is insolvent.

The four defendants are citizens of Alabama. Notice of the motion for injunction was served on the attorneys for the plaintiff, in the suit in the district court, and upon the attorneys who prosecuted the suit against Givan for Davis in the state court. The attorneys for Davis disclaim any connection with him in this controversy, and move to dismiss the bill for want of jurisdiction. Gasque appears and demurs to the bill for the same cause, and no notice or appearance exists in the record for the vendor, Ridgway. The district court retained the bill twelve months, and then dismissed it on these motions.

The jurisdiction of the district court over parties is acquired only by a service of process, or their voluntary appearance. It has no authority to issue process to another state. In the present case the absent defendants decline to appear, and process can not be served, so that the court is without any jurisdiction over the essential parties to the bill. There was no course open to it except to dismiss it for the want of jurisdiction, upon the motion submitted for that object. Toland v. Sprague, 12 Pet. 300. There is no error in the record, and the decree is affirmed. Barrett v. United States (No. 1), 169 U. S. 218 (1897), contains a historical review of the legislation creating the federal districts.

That the process of the circuit court can not run beyond the district, see United States v. American Lumber Co., 85 Fed. 827.

b. Enforcing foreign judgment.

See Hilton v. Guyot, 159 U. S. 113, in which the court (Justice Gray) discusses at great length the enforcement of rules of international law,

judicial comity between nations, and specifically the enforceability of a judgment decreed by a court of France against American citizens.

c. Crimes.

Rosencrans v. United States, 165 U. S. 257, decides that there is jurisdiction to try in one district an indictment found in another district. CRIMINAL JURISDICTION: There are no common law crimes against the United States. The Criminal Code of the United States was enacted on March 4, 1909, see 35 Stat. L. 1088, and with some amendments is in force at the present time.

For criminal jurisdiction in general of the United States courts, see Judicial Code, Section 256, and Criminal Code, Sections 272, 282.

United States v. Rodgers, 150 U. S. 249, on criminal jurisdiction of United States, term "high seas" in R. S. U. S., 5346 (1878), and in present Criminal Code, 272, includes open, unenclosed waters of the Great Lakes.

Wayne v. United States, 217 U. S. 234, the words in R. S. U. S., 5339, "out of the jurisdiction of any particular state," mean State of the Union. (Here a harbor of Hawaii.)

In Ex parte O'Hare, 179 U. S. 662, it is decided that the term "haven," in Rev. Stat. U. S., Sections 5346, 5361, 5362, includes the waters inclosed between the shore and the government breakwater in Lake Erie at Buffalo.

For the jurisdiction of the United States commissioner, see United States v. Allred, 155 U. S. 591.

9. CONTEMPT.

The federal courts have inherent power to punish contempt, see United States v. Debs, 64 Fed. 724; In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564; United States v. Shipp, 203 U. S. 563, 214 U. S. 386; Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, distinguishing criminal and civil contempt.

Review of judicial history of contempt of court is found in Elliott v. Hovey, 167 U. S. 409.

Neither error nor appeal will lie against a judgment in contempt, but the remedy where court was without jurisdiction is the writ of habeas corpus. Ex parte Fisk, 113 U. S. 713; In re Ayres, 123 U. S. 443.

10. WRITS.

See Judicial Code, 1911, Section 262.

a. Mandamus.

EX PARTE BRADSTREET.

Reported in 7 Peters, 634, at page 648.
(1833.)

THE following mandamus was issued by order of the court. United States of America, ss. To the Honorable Alfred Conklin,

judge of the district court of the United States for the northern district of New York, greeting: Whereas, one Martha Bradstreet hath heretofore commenced and prosecuted, in your court, several certain real actions, or writs of right, in your court lately pending between the said Martha Bradstreet, demandant, and the following named tenants severally and respectively, to wit: Apollos Cooper and others (naming them). And whereas, heretofore, to wit, at a session of the supreme court of the United States, held at Washington, on the second Monday of January, in the year 1832, it appeared, upon the complaint of the said Martha Bradstreet, among other things, that at a session of your said court, lately before holden by you, according to law, all and singular the said writs of right then and there pending before your said court, upon the several motions of the tenants aforesaid, were dismissed, for the reason that there was no averment of the pecuniary value of the lands demanded by the said demandant in the several counts filed and exhibited by the said demandant against the several tenants aforesaid; which orders of your said court, so dismissing the said actions, were against the will and consent of demandant; whereupon the said supreme court, at the instance of said demandant, granted a rule requiring you to show cause, if any you had, among other things, why a writ of mandamus from the said supreme court should not be awarded and issued to you, commanding you to reinstate and proceed to try and adjudge, according to the law and right of the case, the several writs of right aforesaid, and the mises therein joined. And whereas, at the late session of the said supreme court, held at Washington, on the second Monday of January, in the year 1833, you certified and returned to the said supreme court, together with the said rule, that after the mises had been joined in the several causes mentioned in the said rule, motions were made therein, on the part of the tenants, that the same should he dismissed, upon the ground that the counts respectively contained no allegation of the value of the matter in dispute, and that it did not, therefore, appear by the pleadings that the causes were within the jurisdiction of the court; that, in conformity with what appeared to have been the uniform language

of the national courts upon the question, and your own views of the law, and in accordance especially with several decisions in the circuit court for the third circuit (see 4 W. C. C. 482, 624), you granted their motions; and assuming that the causes were rightly dismissed, it follows, of course, that you ought not to be required to reinstate them, unless leave ought also to be granted to the demandant to amend her counts: And whereas. afterwards, to wit, at the same session of the said supreme court last aforesaid, upon consideration of your said return and of the cause shown by you therein against the said rules being made absolute, and against the awarding and issuing of the said writ of mandamus, and upon consideration of the arguments of counsel, as well on your behalf, showing cause as aforesaid, as on behalf of the demandant, in support of the said rule, it was considered by the said supreme court, that you had certified and returned to the said court an insufficient cause for having dismissed the said actions, and against the awarding and issuing of the said writ of mandamus, pursuant to the rule aforesaid; the said supreme court being of opinion, and having determined and adjudged upon the matter aforesaid, that in cases where the demand is not made for money, and the nature of the action does not require the value of the thing demanded to be stated in the declaration, the practice of the said supreme court, and of the courts of the United States, is to allow the value to be given in evidence; that, in pursuance of this practice, the demandant in the suits dismissed by order of the judge of the district court, had a right to give the value of the property demanded in evidence, either at or before the trial of the cause, and would have a right to give it in evidence in the said supreme court; consequently, that she can not be legally prevented from bringing her cases before the said supreme court; and it was also then and there considered by the said supreme court, that the peremptory writ of the United States issue, requiring and commanding you, the said judge of the said district court, to reinstate and proceed to try and adjudge, according to the law and right of the case, the several writs of right and the mises therein joined, lately pending in your said court between the said Martha Bradstreet, demandant, and Apollos Cooper and others, the tenants aforesaid: Therefore,

you are hereby commanded and enjoined, that immediately after the receipt of this writ, and without delay, you reinstate and proceed to try and adjudge according to the law and right of the case, the several writs of right and the mises therein joined, lately pending in your said court between the said Martha Bradstreet, demandant, and the said Apollos Cooper and others, the tenants hereinabove named, so that complaint be not again made to the said supreme court; and that you certify perfect obedience and due execution of this writ to the said supreme court, to be held on the first Monday in August next. Hereof, fail not, at your peril, and have then and there this writ.

Witness the honorable John Marshall, the chief justice of said supreme court, the second Monday of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three.

W. T. CARROLL,

Clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States.

MCINTIRE v. WOOD.

Reported in 7 Cranch, 504.
(March 15, 1813.)

JOHNSON, J., delivered the opinion of the court as follows: I am instructed to deliver the opinion of the court in this case. It comes up on a division of opinion in the circuit court of Ohio upon a motion for a mandamus to the register of the land office, at Marietta, commanding him to grant final certificates of purchase to the plaintiff for lands to which he supposed himself entitled under the laws of the United States.

This court is of opinion that the circuit court did not possess the power to issue the mandamus moved for. Independent of the particular objections which this case presents, from its involving a question of freehold, we are of opinion that the power of the circuit courts to issue the writ of mandamus is confined exclusively to those cases in which it may be necessary to the exercise of their jurisdiction. Had the eleventh section of the Judiciary Act covered the whole ground of the constitution, there would be much reason for exercising this power, in many cases wherein some ministerial act is necessary to the completion of an individual right arising under laws of the United States, and the fourteenth section of the same act would sanction the