tion of the injunction order, and, in view of the absence of any attempt in the answer to explain it or account for its presence there, common sense and reason must treat it and the other damaging facts alluded to as fairly establishing the responsibility of Fredlock for all the proceedings in Mineral county, which were manifestly prosecuted for no other purpose than to try to obtain advantage by withdrawing the Fredlock interest in the loan association from the jurisdiction of the circuit court of Ohio county. The evidence found in the record, while circumstantial, discloses the motive for the commission of the act charged, previous conduct on the part of the plaintiff in error tending to show an intent on his part to commit it, and the actual accomplishment of the thing which was forbidden. All this is indisputable.

But there is an intimation in the brief that the circuit court of Mineral county, having before it the decree and injunction order made by the circuit court of Ohio county, by allowing plaintiff in error to proceed as he did, adjudicated his right to so proceed and thus took out of the act the element of disobedience. It is well known that the action of the court in restraining a party to a cause pending in one court from prosecuting a suit in another court, does not, in any way, affect the jurisdiction of such other court. Therefore, the circuit court of Mineral county, being required to look no further than to ascertain its own jurisdiction in the premises and the rights of the parties as determined by the pleadings and evidence in the cause pending in it, had no ground upon which to refuse the relief asked. The injunction order laid before it did not restrain the court from proceeding. It was not the duty of that court to determine whether Fredlock was bound to obey the order of the other court. That question was not submitted to that court. It related to Fredlock only and not to the court. Hence, the action of the court in entering the decree determined nothing as between Fredlock and the state or the circuit court of Ohio county. "The injunction is directed, not to the court, but to the litigant parties, and in no manner denies the jurisdiction of the legal tribunal. It merely seeks to control the person 248 to whom it is addressed, and to prevent him from using the process of courts of law where it would be against conscience to allow him to proceed. It is granted on the ground that an unfair use is being made of the legal forum, which, from circumstances of which equity alone can take cognizance,

should be restrained lest an injury be committed wholly remediless at law”: High on Injunctions, sec. 45; 10 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, 910, note 1. While this relates to injunctions against proceedings in courts of law, the extent to which one court of equity restrains a party to a suit pending in it from proceeding in another court of equity must be exactly the same, for the same reasoning applies.

Based upon this decree is the further argument that the element of intent to disobey the injunction order or to contemn the court is lacking. Where the act of contempt is disobedience of an order of the court, the contemnor is not permitted to say his violation of the mandate of the court was unintentional. In such case he cannot purge the contempt in that way: 4 Ency. of Pl. & Pr. 791, and cases cited in note 3. The averment of want of intention only serves to mitigate the punishment: 4 Ency. of Pl. & Pr. 791. There are, no doubt, contempts which may be purged in that way, where the facts and circumstances support the averment and negative the idea of intentional wrong, but in cases of this kind the gist of the offense is the doing of the act forbidden, and not the intent with which it is done.

Upon the evidence the circuit court has found for the state, and it cannot be said that there is not sufficient evidence to support the finding. No ground upon which a reasonable doubt of guilt could be predicated is perceived. The judgment must be affirmed.

Jurisdiction.-As between courts of coequal authority, the one first acquiring jurisdiction is allowed to pursue it to the end, to the exclusion of all others, and it will not permit its jurisdiction to be impaired or subverted by a resort to some other tribunal: Ewing v. Mallison, 65 Kan. 484, ante, p. 299, 70 Pac. 369; Leigh v. Green, 62 Neb. 344, 89 Am. St. Rep. 751, 86 N. W. 1093.

A Court of Equity May Restrain persons within its jurisdiction from prosecuting suits in the courts of other states or of foreign countries: Hazen v. Lyndonville Nat. Bank, 70 Vt. 543, 67 Am. St. Rep. 680, 41 Atl. 1046; Kendall v. McClure Coke Co., 182 Pa. St. 1, 61 Am. St. Rep. 68, 37 Atl. 823; Miller v. Gittings, 85 Md. 601, 60 Am. St. Rep. 352, 37 Atl. 372; Hawkins v. lreland, 64 Minn. 339, 58 Am. St. Rep. 534, 67 N. W. 73; monographic note to Eingatner v. Illinois Steel Co., 59 Am. St. Rep. 881-885.

The Power to Punish for Contempt is inherent in every court of justice: Bradley v. State, 111 Ga. 168, 78 Am. St. Rep. 157, 36 . E. 630.

WALL V. NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILROAD CO. [52 W. Va. 485, 44 S. E. 294.]

ATTACHMENT-Corporate Rolling Stock.-Under a state constitutional provision making the rolling stock and other movable property of any railroad, or other corporation within the state, subject to execution and sale in the same manner as the personalty of individuals, the rolling stock of a railroad, or other corporation, whether foreign or domestic, within the state, is subject to the process of attachment. (p. 952.)

ATTACHMENT-Measure of Garnishee's Liability.-Plaintiff by garnishment cannot place himself in a superior position as regards a recovery to that occupied by the principal defendant. The garnishee's liability is measured by his responsibility and relation to such defendant, and he can be charged only in consistency with the subject of his contract with the defendant. (p. 954.)

ATTACHMENT-Garnishment as Affecting Contract Rela tions. If the right of an attachment defendant is subject to the right of the garnishee under a contract between them, the right of the plaintiff in attachment is likewise subject to the right of the garnishee. The service of a garnishment neither changes, interrupts, nor terminates the contractual relations existing between the principal defendant in attachment and the garnishee. (p. 954.)

ATTACHMENT-Garnishment of Railroad Rolling Stock Un der Contract.-A railroad company is not liable to garnishment for cars received of a connecting line under running arrangements and a contract between the two companies, whereby, instead of unloading and transporting their freight from the cars of one company to the cars of the other at the points of connection, each receives from the other loaded cars and hauls them to the point of destination on its own line, and after discharging the freight, returns the cars as soon as practicable. (p. 955.)

ATTACHMENT and Garnishment-Interstate Commerce.— Railroad cars engaged in carrying freight from another state into the state, to be returned loaded to the former state in the transaetion of interstate commerce, are not subject to attachment in the hands of the owner or to garnishment in the hands of a connecting carrier within the latter state. (p. 959.)

J. M. Mason, Sr., and J. W. Daniels, for the appellees.

M. McCormick, C. Moore and J. Doran, for the appellants.

486 BRANNON, J. C. F. Wall brought an attachment in equity against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in the circuit court of Jefferson county to recover damages for some cattle killed and others injured while being carried over the line of the defendant in state of Pennsylvania, and sued out an attachment and levied the same on a freight-car of said company found at Shepherdstown, in Jefferson county, the car being in the possession of the Norfolk and Western Railway Company, and served the attachment also on the latter company as

a garnishee on account of its having the car in its possession. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company is a foreign corporation. That company did not appear in the suit, but the Norfolk and Western company filed an answer, which stands as taken for true and uncontroverted as to its statement of facts. That answer, after stating that both railroad companies are common carriers of goods by railroad, states "that at the time of the issue and service of the writs of attachment herein upon the garnishee, and ever since that time, an arrangement and understanding existed between the defendant and garnishee companies, according to the universal custom in such cases among railroad lines throughout the United States in the management of their freight business, by which, instead of unloading and transferring their freight from the cars of one company to the cars of another at a point of connection, each company receives the loaded cars of the other from and throughout connecting lines or direct, hauls them to the place of destination on its own line, and after discharging the freight under the implied agreement to return them as soon as and when practicable in the due course of business, reloaded 487 with freight to some point on or near or reached by the line of the company owning them. That, under the arrangement and understanding existing as aforesaid the Norfolk and Western Railway Company, the garnishee, had the right to use in its business the cars aforesaid, the cars owned by it while on the lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company being similarly in current and constant use of the Pennsylvania Railroad at all times, and each company paying the other, by wheelage or mileage of such cars. The method aforesaid of receiving and returning railroad cars of other lines by railroads facilitates traffic, and is a great accommodation to the shipping public, and has become a part of the general system of freight transportation throughout the United States; that it would be practically impossible for the garnishee to carry on its business with arrangements and understanding of this character with other lines; and that the garnishee, under the arrangements and understanding aforesaid, is entitled to hold and use as aforesaid the cars for said business free and discharged of and without interference from attachment or garnishment proceedings herein; and that the maintenance of such proceeding would nullify the rights of the garnishee with the defendant under the arrangement and understanding afore said, and interfere seriously with the proper movement of traf

fic and accommodation of the shipping public." The car levied upon had been loaded beyond Hagerstown, Maryland, with sacks of patent plaster consigned to Shepherdstown, and when levied upon was standing upon a sidetrack loaded with plaster to be delivered in said town, according to said bill, and according to the answer was being unloaded when the garnishee was served with the attachment. The case resulted in a decision by the circuit court holding the attachment and garnishment valid, and a decree was rendered against the Norfolk and Western Railway Company for four hundred and thirty-two dollars and twenty-five cents, on account of its liability by reason of its possession of said car, and company has appealed to this court.

The question is raised, Is this car subject to attachment? Upon the question whether the property of a quasi public corporation essential to its operation is so liable there is much conflict of authority, as will appear from the authorities cited: Brady v. Johnson, 75 Md. 445, 26 Atl. 46; Gooch v. McGee, 83 N. C. 59, 35 Am. 488 Rep. 558; Ammant v. New & Co., 3 Serg. & R. 210, 15 Am. Dec. 593, note 595. All admit that the property of a purely private corporation not serving the general public, though ever so essential to its use, is liable to execution; but as to those corporations created to carry on business valuable to the public, such as a railroad corporation, which is a common carrier, this conflict of cases exists. On the one side it is said that such a corporation would be disabled from performing its public duties if its property essential in so doing could be seized and sold away from it, and thus the public would suffer great harm. On the other side, to exempt so much property cripples the power of the law to enforce payment of debts, and exempts from its scope a great mass of property. If we say that such property is not wholly free from subjection to debt for the reason that it may be reached by sequestration of earnings, or by the sale of the whole property, the reply is that the ordinary and ready remedy by execution upon judgments is abortive, and that relief is practically denied to small debts. Between these adverse interests the courts have greatly conflicted. All the cases say that unless statute authorizes, the franchise itself cannot be sold under excution, and the major part of legal authority says also that property of such corporations essential to the exercise of such franchise is also not subject to execution. In Gue v. Tide Water Canal Co., 24 How. 257, the United States supreme