the criminal laws of the United States," in which the judgment of
the Circuit Court of Appeals is made final by the act of March 3,
1891, c. 517, § 6. Hunt v. United States, 424.

4. The statute of New Hampshire providing for proceedings against mill-
owners to recover damages resulting from overflows of land caused by
dams erected by them, contained, among other things, a provision
that "if either party shall so elect, said court shall direct an issue to
the jury to try the facts alleged in the said petition and assess the
damages; and judgment rendered on the verdict of such jury, with
fifty per cent added, shall be final, and said court may award costs
to either party at its discretion." In this case both parties elected
trial by jury, which resulted in a verdict for damages for the defend-
ant in error. Held, that the plaintiff in error, by availing itself of
the power conferred by the statute, and joining in the trial for the
assessment of damages, was precluded from denying the validity of
that provision which prescribes that fifty per cent shall be added to
the amount of the verdict, as the plaintiff in error was at liberty to
exercise the privilege or not, as it thought fit. Electric Company v.
Dow, 489.

5. A bill brought solely to enforce compliance with the Interstate Com-
merce Act, and to compel railroad companies to comply with such
act by offering proper and reasonable facilities for interchange of
traffic with the company, complainant, and enjoining them from re-
fusing to receive from complainant, for transportation over their
lines, any cars which might be tendered them, exhibits a case arising
under the Constitution and laws of the United States of which a
Circuit Court has jurisdiction. In re Lennon, 548.

6. The plaintiff in his declaration described himself as a resident in
Texas, and the defendant as a railway company created and existing
under the laws of Texas. The railroad company was in fact a cor-
poration organized under and by virtue of acts of Congress, and in a
petition for the removal of the action from a state court of Texas to
the Federal court, set that forth as a ground for removal, and the
petition was granted, and the case was removed to the Circuit Court
of the United States, and tried and decided there. Held, that the
Circuit Court properly entertained jurisdiction. Texas & Pacific
Railway Co. v. Cody, 606.

See RAILROAD, 9.

D. JURISDICTION OF DISTRICT COURTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
See ADMIRALTY, 9.

E. JURISDICTION OF THE COURT OF CLAIMS.

The act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 505, c. 359, providing for the bringing
of suits against the Government, known as the Tucker act, did not
repeal so much of section 1069 of the Revised Statutes as provides

"that the claims of married women first accrued during marriage, of
persons under the age of twenty-one years first accrued during minority,
and of idiots, lunatics, insane persons and persons beyond the seas at
the time the claim accrued, entitled to the claim, shall not be barred
if the petition be filed in the court or transmitted, as aforesaid, within
three years after the disability has ceased; but no other disability
than those enumerated shall prevent any claim from being barred, nor
shall any of the said disabilities operate cumulatively." United States
v. Greathouse, 601.

See INTERNAL REVENUE TAXES;

RIPARIAN OWNERSHIP.

F. JURISDICTION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA.

The Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia was duly authorized by
§ 6 of the act creating the court, as well as by § 6 as amended by the act
of July 30, 1894, to make rules limiting the time of taking appeals to
the court from the decisions of the Commissioner of Patents; and
there was no restriction on this power by reason of Rev. Stat. § 4894.
In re Hien, 432.

1. The direction of the municipal authorities of Baltimore to the street rail-
road company to maintain but one track through Lexington street
from and to the points named, instead of a double track as originally

granted to the company, did not substantially change the terms of the contract (if there was one), between the city and the railroad as expressed in the original grant and was no more than the exercise by the city of its acknowledged power to make a reasonable regulation concerning the use of the street by the railroad company. Baltimore v. Baltimore Trust & Guarantee Co., 673.

2. An existing system of water supply in a municipality which is the property of private individuals and is operated under a contract with the municipal corporation for furnishing it with a portion of its needed supply of water under rates fixed by the contract, is private property which may be acquired by the public, in the exercise of the power of eminent domain, on the payment of a just compensation, including compensation for the termination of the contract. Long Island Water Supply Co. v. Brooklyn, 685.

3. In condemnation proceedings for that purpose, the assessment of damages may be made by commissioners where the statutes so provide, and there is no denial of due process of law in making their findings final as to the facts, leaving open to the courts the inquiry whether there was any erroneous basis adopted by the commissioners in their appraisal, or other errors in their proceedings. lb.

4. There was nothing in the statute under which the Long Island Water Supply Company was organized, nor in its contract with the town of New Lots for the supply of water, nor in the act of annexation to Brooklyn, which gave to that company rights exclusive and beyond the reach of such legislative action. Ib.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 13.

NAVIGABLE WATERS.

See RIPARIAN OWNERSHIP.

NEUTRALITY.

1. Neutrality, strictly speaking, consists in abstinence from any participation in a public, private or civil war, and in impartiality of conduct toward both parties but the maintenance unbroken of peaceful relations between two powers when the domestic peace of one of them is disturbed is not neutrality in the sense in which the word is used when the disturbance has acquired such head as to have demanded the recognition of belligerency; and, as mere matter of municipal administration, no nation can permit unauthorized acts of war within its territory in infraction of its sovereignty, while good faith towards friendly nations requires their prevention. The Three Friends, 1.

2. The word "people," as used in Rev. Stat. § 5283, forbidding the fitting out or arming of vessels with intent that they shall be employed in the service of any foreign people, or to cruise or commit hostilities against

the subjects, citizens or property of any foreign people with whom the
United States are at peace, covers any insurgent or insurrectionary
body conducting hostilities, although its belligerency has not been
recognized. Ib.

3. Although the political department of the government has not recog-
nized the existence of a de facto belligerent power, engaged in hostility
with Spain, it has recognized the existence of insurrectionary warfare,
prevailing before, at the time, and since the forfeiture sought to be
enforced in this case was incurred; and the case sharply illustrates the
distinction between recognition of belligerency, and recognition of a
condition of political revolt; between recognition of the existence of
war in a material sense, and of war in a legal sense. Ib.

4. The courts of the United States having been informed by the political
department of the existence of an actual conflict of arms, in resistance
of the authority of a government with which the United States are
on terms of peace and amity, although acknowledgment of the insur-
gents as belligerents has not taken place, the statute is applicable to
the case.
5. The order for the release of the vessel was improvidently made, as it
should not have been released.

Ib.

Ib.

NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY.

See PUBLIC LAND, 2.

PATENT FOR INVENTION.

1. When letters patent are surrendered for the purpose of reissue, they
continue valid until the reissue takes place, and if the reissue is
refused they stand as if no application had been made. Allen v.
Culp, 501.

2. Whether, if the reissue be void, the patentee may fall back on his origi-
nal patent, is not decided. Ib.

See JURISDICTION, C, 1.

PRACTICE.

Grayson v. Lynch, 163 U. S. 468, followed to the point that the special
finding of facts referred to in the acts allowing parties to submit
issues of fact in civil cases to be tried and determined by the court, is
not a mere report of the evidence, but a finding of those ultimate
facts, upon which the law must determine the rights of the parties;
and, if the finding of facts be general, only such rulings of the court
in the progress of the trial can be reviewed as are presented by a bill
of exceptions, and in such case the bill of exceptions cannot be used

to bring up the whole testimony for review any more than in a trial by jury. St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 388.

See ADMIRALTY, 1, 2, 8;

CERTIORARI;

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 1;

DAMAGES;
JURISDICTION B, 1, 2, 3; C, 1;
NEUTRALITY, 5;

RAILROAD, 11.

PROHIBITION, WRIT OF.

Applying to the facts as stated in the opinion of the court the settled rules in reference to writs of prohibition laid down in In re Rice, 155 U. S. 396, 402, it is held that a proper case is not made for awarding such a writ. Alix, Petitioner, In re, 136.

PUBLIC LAND.

1. Generally a patent is necessary for transfer of the legal title to public lands. Carter v. Ruddy, 493.

2. Lands were expressly excepted from the grant made in 1864 for the benefit of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which were not free from preemption "or other claims or rights" at the time the line of the road was definitely fixed and a plat thereof filed in the office of the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The general route of the railroad was fixed February 21, 1872, and its line of definite location on the 6th of July, 1882. After the company filed a map of general route, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the directions of the Secretary of the Interior, April 22, 1872, transmitted a diagram of that route to the register and receiver of the land office at Helena, Montana, with a letter of instructions directing the withdrawal from sale or location, preëmption or homestead entry, of all the surveyed and unsurveyed odd-numbered sections of public lands falling within the limits of forty miles as designated on that map. The lands in dispute are within the exterior lines of both the general and definite routes of the railroad. Prior to such definite location certain persons, qualified to purchase mineral lands under the laws of the United States, entered upon the possession of these lands, and did "file upon " them “as mineral lands,” applying for patents, and conforming in all respects to the provisions of Chapter 6 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, Title XXXII, relating to "Mineral Lands and Mining Resources." The company filed a protest against the perfection of any entry of the lands as mineral lands upon the ground that they were not mineral lands nor commercially valuable for any gold or other precious metals therein contained. At the time of the definite location of the Northern Pacific Railroad and of the filing of the plat and map thereof in the General Land Office, the applications for these lands as mineral lands were pending and undeter