Territory, at the time those Territories should become a State, not transferred to the United States Circuit Court or District Courts in the State of Oklahoma, should be proceeded with, held and determined by the courts of the State, with rights of appeal to the final appellate court of the State and to the Supreme Court of the United States. And it is provided that "all criminal cases pending in the United States courts in the Indian Territory not transferred to the United States circuit or district courts in the State of Oklahoma shall be prosecuted to a final determination in the state courts of Oklahoma under the law now in force in that Territory." March 4, 1907, Chap. 2911, 34 Stat. 1286.

The argument is that by certain acts of Congress, explained in In re Johnson, 167 U. S. 120, the United States courts in the Indian Territory were given jurisdiction of offences committed in the Territory against the laws of the United States, and that the laws which conferred jurisdiction on the United States courts held in Arkansas, Kansas and Texas outside of the limits of the Territory were repealed. But we have seen that by § 29 of the act of June 28, 1898, a change of venue of cases in the United States courts of the Territory could be invoked by a member of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, and that under the statute the venue of the pending case was, on the motion of Hendrix, changed to the District Court at Paris, Texas. It is, however, contended that the power of the court to make the order "had been taken away and repealed by the act of Congress known as the 'Enabling act,' and the State of Oklahoma had been erected and the state courts had succeeded to the jurisdiction of the United States courts in the Indian Territory." The "Enabling act," it is urged, "makes no exception or provision saving cases pending in the United States court in the Indian Territory, nor any provision saving cases then pending in any of the United States courts" at Paris,

Texas, or in the Eastern District of Texas, on change of venue, and, therefore, the court had no jurisdiction to try Hendrix. To support the contention it is argued that when the jurisdiction of a cause depends upon a statute the repeal of the statute takes away the jurisdiction and causes pending at the time fall, unless saved by provision of the statute. Many cases are cited to support the proposition and other cases to sustain the view that, "if an act conferring jurisdiction is repealed, without reservation as to pending cases, they fall with it.". The effect would have to be admitted if the imputed cause existed. The act of June 28, 1898, under which the change of venue was ordered, was not repealed. The conditions of its future application, of course, disappeared with the admission of the State into the Union, but what had been done before that time was not abrogated, nor was the statute repealed. It had performed its office as to the pending case, but even if we should consider it necessarily as a continuing power, not completely fulfilling its purpose by the transfer simply of a case from one court to another, we cannot regard it as having been repealed nor that jurisdiction had been taken from the District Court at Paris, Texas. The "Enabling act" provides only for

the transfer of cases to the courts of Oklahoma which were pending in the District Court of the Territory of Oklahoma and in the United States courts of Indian Territory. That this case was so pending was the conception of counsel when the motion was made to transfer it to the District Court of Garvin County, Oklahoma, and the same conception is expressed in the argument. And it is necessary to meet the words of the enabling act, which embraced, as we have seen, only cases pending in the courts of Oklahoma and Indian Territories. The foundation of the conception seems to be that the venue of the case was not legally changed to the District Court at Paris, Texas, and that it was still pending in the United States court in

the Indian Territory when the enabling act was passed and was transferred by the act to the courts of the State. To this operation of the act we cannot assent. The act is explicit in its terms and provisions. It was careful in its accommodations for the new conditions-the change of the Territories into a State, and in the adjustments made necessary by the creation of new jurisdictions, state and Federal. There was no such necessity for cases transferred to other jurisdictions still adequate to dispose of them. The contention is therefore untenable.

It is assigned as error that the wife of Hendrix was not allowed to testify in his behalf to certain matters which, it is contended, were "vitally material to his defense." The ruling was not error. Logan v. United States, 144 U. S. 263.

On the motion for new trial affidavits of four jurors were offered, stating with some detail that they did not understand the legal effect of the verdict. Only one of the affidavits is in the record. The maker states that, by finding the defendant guilty, as charged in the indictment, without capital punishment, "he did not understand what the punishment would be on such a verdict, and agreed to it on the understanding that the punishment would only be two years in the penitentiary." He further states that he was in favor of a verdict for manslaughter, and would never had consented to the verdict had he thought or believed it "would carry with it a life penalty." The motion for new trial, as we have said, was denied. We see no error in the ruling. Mattox v. United States, 146 U. S. 140.

The other errors assigned are not pressed in the argument.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissents.

Judgment affirmed.

WEST SIDE BELT RAILROAD COMPANY v. PITTSBURGH CONSTRUCTION COMPANY.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

No. 681. Motion to dismiss or affirm. Submitted December 5, 1910.Decided January 3, 1911.

When plaintiff in error asserts that the state court has not given due faith and credit to a prior judgment of a Federal court between the same parties, he asserts a right under the Constitution of the United States and a Federal question is raised, and, unless manifestly frivolous, the writ of error will not be dismissed.

In this case the consideration given to the Federal question by the state court demonstrates that it is not so far frivolous as to sustain a motion to dismiss.

Where the action is based on counts upon a contract and also upon quantum meruit and the evidence to sustain the latter is ruled out, the action rests solely on the contract and the right to maintain it is determined as though brought solely on the contract.

Where an action was dismissed by the Circuit Court of the United States on the sole ground that plaintiff, a foreign corporation, could not sue owing to non-compliance with a state statute, the effect to be given to that judgment in a subsequent action between the same parties in the state court after a curative statute has been enacted raises a Federal question.

Where the State by statute gives a person the right to avoid a contract for a purpose of its own and not because of the merits of the obligation, it may, so long as the matter remains in fieri, take that right away; and so held that a curative statute allowing foreign corporations who had not complied with the registration statute to sue, on complying therewith, on contracts made before registration, is within the power of the State, and a judgment entered in an action on a contract in the state court brought after the curative statute does not deny full faith and credit to a judgment of the Federal court entered in an action between the same parties dismissing the complaint on same cause of action solely on the ground that plaintiff had not complied with the registration laws.

219 U. S.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

The act of Pennsylvania of May 23, 1907, P. L. 205, validating contracts made by foreign corporations which had not complied with registration laws, was within the power of the State and in this case was held to apply to a contract which the courts theretofore had refused to enforce on account of the non-compliance with such registration laws.

227 Pa. St. 90, affirmed.

THE facts, which involve the validity of a statute of Pennsylvania validating contracts made by foreign corporations and the effect to be given to a judgment of the Federal court, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. Thomas Patterson, for plaintiff in error, in opposition to the motion:

The effect to be given a Federal judgment in any subsequent proceeding in a state court, where such judgment is pleaded, raises a Federal question that is reviewable here. Pittsburgh R. R. Co. v. Loan & Trust Co., 172 U. S. 493; Deposit Bank v. Frankfort, 191 U. S. 499.

The judgment of a court of record in Pennsylvania being conclusive upon the parties, and not open to collateral attack or inquiry, the effect necessarily to be given by the court of Pennsylvania to the judgment of the Federal court, is that of a judgment which is as a plea a bar and as evidence conclusive in any further litigation between the parties. Hancock National Bank v. Farnum, 176 U. S. 640; Stevens v. Hughes, 31 Pa. St. 384.

Full force and effect was not given in the case at bar to the judgment of the Circuit Court of the United States for the reason that the contract, which was the basis of the suit in the Federal court and by it declared void, was held valid and binding in the later suit in the state court. The contract was the same as that sued on in the Federal court, the parties the same, and the judgment of the state court was a direct reversal of that of the Federal court.

The defendant in error has never sued solely for its