Opinion of the Court. each county, and each county's portion must bear to the whole rolling stock the same ratio which the number of miles of the road in such county bears to the whole number of miles of such road lying in this Territory." Under this territorial law all the franchises and rights, and the road-bed, track, rolling stock, etc., of the railroad company were assessed at a valuation of $7000 per mile for 24.16 miles of track. The corporation paid the tax on the mileage outside of the reservation, but refused to pay on the 6.24 miles situated within it. Statutory proceedings to compel the payment of the tax culminated in a decree against the company. From this an appeal was prosecuted to the Supreme Court of the Territory. There the decree below was substantially affirmed, and the corporation was ordered to pay $1212.39, with costs, this amount being recognized as a subsisting lien "upon all the property of said Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad Company, situated in said county of Maricopa, and described as follows, to wit: The 24.16 miles of main track, with franchises and right of way." In consequence of this recognition of lien, it was moreover ordered that a copy of the decree should authorize the tax collector to sell so much of the property as might be necessary to pay the taxes, penalties, and costs. The case was then brought here by appeal. Mr. Harvey S. Brown for appellant. No appearance for appellee. MR. JUSTICE WHITE, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. We consider that many of the points which are here pressed upon our attention are not necessarily involved in the decision of the cause. The matter in dispute not being above $5000, exclusive of costs, our jurisdiction depends upon whether "there is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of or an authority exercised under the United States." Act of March 3, 1885, c. 355, 23 Stat. 443. It is insisted that the Territory is without authority under its organic act to extend Opinion of the Court. its taxing power beyond its limits and over a reservation created by act of Congress, and that it has undertaken to do so, either directly, or by including the value of the property within the reservation in its general estimate of the amount for which the company ought to be assessed. This claim, we think, presents a question within our appellate jurisdiction. Clayton v. Utah, 132 U. S. 632. It is clear that such issues as involve the regularity of the tax, the sum of the penalties due, the extent of the lien given by the territorial law, etc., do not present any question of the exercise of authority under laws of the United States. Linford v. Ellison, 155 U. S. 503. It is conceded that there was no treaty with the Indians for whose benefit the reservation was established, limiting the power of Congress to grant to the railroad the rights conveyed. The consent of Congress to the railroad's entering on the land and using it, as therein provided, was, then, a valid exercise of power. Its necessary effect was, to the extent of the grant and for the purposes thereof, to withdraw the land from the operation of the prior act of reservation. And the immediate consequence of such withdrawal, so far as it affected the property and rights withdrawn, was to reëstablish the full sway and dominion of the territorial authority. Utah & Northern Railway v. Fisher, 116 U. S. 28; Harkness v. Hyde, 98 U. S. 476. There is no force in the contention that, because the consent of the Indians, to be given in a manner satisfactory to the President, was a condition attached to the grant, and it does not appear by the record that such consent was given, therefore the rights admittedly enjoyed by the corporation are to be treated as if obtained without the Indians' consent. In the first place, as the company has taken the rights granted by the statute, the legal presumption of duty performed (omnia rite, etc.) requires us to assume that the consent was given in accordance with law. And again, the company having assumed and exercised rights which it could possess only by virtue of such consent, cannot be permitted to aver its own wrongdoing, trespassing, and violation of the statute in order to escape its just share of the burden of taxation. Opinion of the Court. It is wholly immaterial whether the rights vested in the corporation by the act of Congress were rights of ownership or merely those which result from the grant of an easement. Whatever they were, they were taken out of the reservation by virtue of the grant, and came, to the extent of their withdrawal, under the jurisdiction of the territorial authority. The fact that Congress reserved the power to alter, amend, or repeal the statute in no way affected the authority of the Territory over the rights granted, although the duration of that authority may depend on the exercise by Congress of the rights reserved. The method of assessing railroads provided for in the statute was to treat each road as a unit, embracing the sum of its franchises, property, and rights. The division of the total amount of the one assessment of the property of the road, into certain sums per mile was a mere method of stating the assessment, and did not change the real unit forming the basis of taxation, the railroad, in its entirety, comprising every element entering therein, which could be made assessable. This being the case, it was clearly lawful for the taxing authorities of the Territory to consider the rights granted by the act of Congress and enjoyed by the railroad in making up the sum of the assessment upon its total property. The other errors alleged, which are four in number, may be briefly disposed of. Two are concluded by the foregoing views. The assessment being made as a unit, the description of the thing assessed as found in the assessment roll was adequate, and the tax being due as a unit was correctly held to be a lien upon all the property assessed. The territorial court, as such, had jurisdiction to enforce the territorial law on the subject of the collection of taxes. The complaint that a penalty on the delinquent tax was erroneously included in the judgment is, if correct, without merit here. It involves only an error of calculation for a small amount, and is hence controlled by the principle "de minimis," etc., and, apart from this, we do not enter into an analysis of the figures to ascertain whether error, in this regard, was committed, because, if it was, the fact should have been called to the attention of the Statement of the Case. court below, so as to have afforded an opportunity there to make the requisite correction. Motions for rehearing are expressly allowed by the statute law of Arizona. (Revised Statutes 1887, § 954.) Instead of availing himself of such a motion, the appellant, on the day the decree was entered, gave notice in open court of his intention to appeal, declaring therein that he excepted "only to such portion of said decision and judgment as decided that railroad property within the boundaries of an Indian reservation, within the Territory, is subject to taxation by the Territories or counties, and that such reservation is under the jurisdiction of the territorial courts." Affirmed. UNITED STATES ex rel. SIEGEL v. THOMAN. ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA. No. 125. Submitted December 18, 1894. Decided March 4, 1895. The provision in act No. 30 of the Louisiana Statutes of 1877 that the surplus of the revenues of parishes and municipal corporations for any year may be applied to the payment of the indebtedness of former years is not mandatory, but only permissory, and creates no contract right in a holder of such indebtedness of former years which can be enforced by mandamus. THE legislature of the State of Louisiana in 1877 passed an act which may be epitomized as follows: That no police jury of any parish or municipal corporation in the State should make appropriations or expenditures of money in any year which should, separately or together, with any appropriations or expenditures of the same year, be in actual excess of the actual revenue of the parish or municipality for that year; and that all the revenues of the parishes and municipalities of each year should be devoted to the expenditures of that year, provided "that any surplus of said revenues may be applied VOL. CLVI-23 Statement of the Case. to the payment of the indebtedness of former years." Extra Session Acts of 1877, p. 47. In 1879 (act No. 38 of that year) it was provided that it should be the duty of the board of administrators of the common council of the city of New Orleans, in December of each year, to propose a detailed statement exhibiting the amount of revenues for the ensuing year expected to be derived by the city from taxes and licenses, and that along with this estimate of receipts it should be likewise the duty of the city to prepare a detailed statement of the estimated expenditures, exhibiting the items of liability and expenses for the year, including the requisite amount for contingent expenses during that time. The act provided that the estimate of liabilities and expenses should not exceed four-fifths of the estimated amount of revenue. It made it the duty of the city to adopt a budget of revenues and liabilities, and to levy the taxes and collect the licenses provided in the estimate in order to pay the same. It directed that the detailed estimate of receipts and expenses should be considered as an appropriation of the amounts therein stated to the purpose therein set forth, and forbade the diversion of any of the receipts from the particular purposes to which they were then appropriated. In 1882, in an act reincorporating the city of New Orleans, the foregoing provision as to the annual estimate and budget was practically reënacted, with the direction that the budget. be published in the official journal. This law, in addition, provided as follows: "The council in fixing the budget of revenue and expenses as herein provided for shall not consider and adopt as a revenue miscellaneous or contingent resources and affix thereto either an arbitrary or nominal value or amount; but whenever such resources are considered and adopted they shall be estimated on a real and substantial basis, giving the source whence to be derived, a specific sum to be received from each item thereof, and no more. The council is hereby prohibited from estimating for expenditures to be derived from any uncertain or indefinite source, cause or circumstance; but the council shall, by proper ordinances, provide for the receipt |