6. Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, 120 U. S. 489, affirmed.
Stoutenburgh v. Hennick, 141.
7. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U. S. 394. Min-
neapolis and St. Louis Railway v. Beckwith, 26.
8. Seibert v. Lewis, 122 U. S. 284, was very carefully and elaborately con-
sidered, and is adhered to. Seibert v. Harshman, 192.
9. Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U.
way v. Beckwith, 26.
S. 703. Minneapolis and St. Louis Rail-
Newcomb v. Almy, 96 N. Y. 308, disapproved. Carr v. Hamilton, 252.
CASES EXPLAINED, OVERRULED OR QUALIFIED.
1. Clement v. Packer, 125 U. S. 309, explained and distinguished. Schraeder
Mining Co. v. Packer, 688.
2. Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, and, 3, Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall.
333, examined and shown to differ materially from this case.
Dent v.
West Virginia, 114.
4. Hartog v. Memory, 116 U. S. 588, explained and qualified. Morris v.
Gilmer, 315.
See DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1, 2.
1. A railway company received cotton for transportation as a common
carrier giving the owner a bill of lading received and accepted by
him which contained a "stipulation and agreement" that the carrier
"should have the benefit of any insurance which may have been
effected upon or on account of said cotton." While in the carrier's
custody the cotton was destroyed by fire. The owner had open poli-
cies against loss by fire which covered this loss. These policies all
provided for the transfer of the owner's claim against the carrier to
the insurer on payment of the loss, and some of them contained fur-
ther provisions forfeiting the insurance in case any agreement was
made by the insured whereby the insurer's right to recover of the
carrier was released or lost. In case of loss these open policies were
to be kept good for their full amount by the insured paying to the
insurers four per cent of the insured loss, on receiving the amount
of it from the insurer. In the present case, instead of making these
mutual payments, the insurers adjusted the loss, and reinstated the
policies, charging the four per cent premium; and the parties agreed
VOL. CXXIX-45
that the owner should proceed against the carrier without prejudicing
his claim against the insurers, and that the insurers should allow him
interest on the claim until collected. The owner brought suit against
the carrier. Negligence on the carrier's part, although denied in the
pleadings, was not contested at the trial, but the defence rested on the
failure to give the carrier the benefit of insurance; Held, (1) That,
as the defendant's right to the benefit of the insurance depended upon
the maintenance of the plaintiff's cause of action, it could not be set
up in denial of the truth of the complaint; (2) that it could not be
set up as a counter-claim because no unconditional payments of insur-
ance had been made to the plaintiff; (3) that, as recovery could not
be had against the insurers except upon condition of resort over against
the carrier, any act to defeat which was to operate to cancel the insurers'
liability, the policies could not be made available for the benefit of the
carrier; (4) that the agreement made with the insurers subsequent to
the loss did not amount to a payment; (5) that the insurers were en-
titled under their contract to require the insured to proceed first against
the carrier, and to decline to indemnify him until the question and
the measure of the carrier's liability were determined. Inman v. South
Carolina Railway Co., 128.
2. The owner of a general ship, carrying goods for hire on an ocean voyage,
is a common carrier.
Liverpool and Great Western Steam Co. v. Pheniz
3. A common carrier by sea cannot, by any stipulation with a shipper of
goods, exempt himself from all responsibility for loss or damage by
perils of the sea, arising from negligence of the officers or crew. 1b.
4. Upon a question of the effect of a stipulation exempting a common
carrier from responsibility for negligence of his servants, the courts
of the United States are not bound by decisions of the courts of the
State in which the contract is made. Ib.
5. In a through bill of lading for carriage from an inland city in the
United States, by a railroad company and its connections, and a steam-
ship company, to an English port, signed by an agent of the companies,
"severally, but not jointly," and containing two separate and distinct
sets of terms and conditions, the one relating to the land carriage, and
the other to the ocean transportation, a stipulation, inserted in the first
set only, that in case of loss that company alone shall be answerable
in whose actual custody the goods are at the time, "and the carrier so
liable shall have the full benefit of any insurance effected upon the
goods," gives the steamship company no right to the benefit of any
insurance. Ib.
See CONTRACT, 5;
INSURANCE, 4.
CONGRESS.
See PUBLIC LAND, 7 (1).
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW.
A. OF THE UNITED STATES.
1. The provision in the Code of Iowa, § 1289, which authorizes the recovery
of "double the value of the stock killed or damages caused thereto "
by a railroad, when the injury took place at a point on the road where
the corporation had a right to erect a fence and failed to do so, and
when it was not “occasioned by the wilful act of the owner or his
agent," is not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Con-
stitution of the United States, either as depriving the company of
property without due process of law, or as denying to it the equal
protection of the laws. Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway v. Beck-
with, 26.
2. Corporations are persons within the meaning of the clauses in the Four-
teenth Amendment to the Constitution concerning the deprivation of
property, and concerning the equal protection of the laws. Santa
Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U. S. 394, and Pembina
Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 181, followed. Ib.
3. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution does not limit the sub-
jects in relation to which the police power of the State may be exer-
cised for the protection of its citizens. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S.
27, Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703, and Missouri Pacific Railway
v. Humes, 115 U. S. 512, considered and followed. Ib.
4. The statute of West Virginia, (§§ 9 and 15, c. 93, 1882,) which re-
quires every practitioner of medicine in the State to obtain a certifi-
cate from the State Board of Health that he is a graduate of a
reputable medical college in the school of medicine to which he be-
longs; or that he has practised medicine in the State continuously for
ten years prior to March 8, 1881; or that he has been found upon ex-
amination to be qualified to practise medicine in all its departments,
and which subjects a person practising without such certificate to pros-
ecution and punishment for a misdemeanor, does not, when enforced
against a person who had been a practising physician in the State for
a period of five years before 1881, without diploma of a reputable
medical college in the school of medicine to which he belonged, deprive
him of his estate or interest in the profession without due process of
law. Dent v. West Virginia, 114.
5. The State, in the exercise of its power to provide for the general wel-
fare of its people, may exact from parties before they can practise
medicine a degree of skill and learning in that profession upon which
the community employing their services may confidently rely; and,
to ascertain whether they have such qualifications, require them to
obtain a certificate or license from a Board or other authority com-
petent to judge in that respect. If the qualifications required are
appropriate to the profession, and attainable by reasonable study or
application, their validity is not subject to objection because of their
stringency or difficulty. 1b.
6. Legislation is not open to the charge of depriving one of his rights
without due process of law, if it be general in its operation upon the
subjects to which it relates, and is enforceable in the usual modes (s-
tablished in the administration of government with respect to kindred
matters; that is, by process or proceedings adapted to the nature of
the case, and such is the legislation of West Virginia in question.
Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, and Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall.
333, examined and shown to differ materially from this case. lb.
7. Under the authority conferred upon Congress by § 8, article 1 of the
Constitution, "to make all laws which shall be necessary or proper
for carrying into execution" the power "to exercise exclusive legisla-
tion in all cases whatsoever over" the District of Columbia, Congress
may constitute the District "a body corporate for municipal purposes,”
but can only authorize it to exercise municipal powers. Stoutenburgh
v. Hennick, 141.
8. The act of the Legislative Assembly of the District of Columbia of
August 23, 1871, as amended June 20, 1872, relating to license taxes
on persons engaging in trade, business or profession within the Dis-
trict, was intended to be a regulation of a purely municipal character;
but nevertheless the provision in clause 3, of § 21, which required
commercial agents, engaged in offering merchandise for sale by
sample, to take out and pay for such a license, is a regulation of in-
terstate commerce, so far as applicable to persons soliciting the sale of
goods on behalf of individuals or firms doing business outside of the
District, and it was not within the constitutional power of Congress
to delegate to that body legislative authority to enact a clause with
such a provision, nor did it in fact do so in a grant of power for
municipal purposes. 1b.
9. Section 4059 of the Code of Iowa, which provides that a person having
in his possession "Texas cattle," which have not been wintered north
of the southern boundary of Missouri and Kansas, shall be liable for
any damages which may accrue from allowing them to run at large
and thereby spread the disease known as "Texas fever," is not in con-
flict with the commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States;
nor is it a denial to citizens of other States of any rights and privileges
which are accorded to citizens of Iowa, and thus in conflict with sub-
division 1 of § 2 of article 4 of the Constitution, relating to the privi-
leges and immunities of the citizens of the several States. Kimmish
v. Ball, 217.
1 A constitution, or a statute, is construed to operate prospectively only,
unless, on its face, the contrary intention is manifest beyond reason-
able question. Shreveport v. Cole, 36.
2. A valid power to issue its bonds in aid of railroads, conferred upon a
municipal corporation of Tennessee by a statute of that State enacted
while the constitution of 1834-5 was in force, not having been accepted
and acted upon by the corporation at the time when the constitution
of 1870 came into operation, became subject to the conditions and
prohibitions of article 2, § 29, of that instrument, and could not be
exercised without further legislation in conformity therewith. Norton
v. Brownsville, 479.
3. A constitutional prohibition upon the legislature does not necessarily
affect past legislative action; but a similar prohibition upon a muni-
cipal corporation annuls unexecuted powers previously conferred upon
it. Ib.
4 The substitution of a new constitution for an old one abrogates the lat-
ter; and if the former contains provisions of the old constitution with
changes and additions, they are not to be treated as ordinary legisla-
tion in amendment of prior statutes. lb.
5. A clause in a new state constitution, designed to keep in force all laws
not inconsistent with the instrument, will not perpetuate a previous
law, enabling a municipality to do, under certain circumstances, that
which the new constitution forbids to be done, except under other cir-
cumstances. lb.
1. In a contract by which the owner of a quarry on an island on the coast
agrees to furnish and deliver at a public building in the interior the
granite required for its construction, at specified prices by the cubic
foot, and to furnish all the labor, tools and materials necessary to cut,
dress and box the granite at the quarry, the United States, under a
stipulation to pay "the full cost of the said labor, tools and materials,
and insurance on the same," are not bound to pay anything for insur-
ance, unless effected by the other party; nor are they, under a stipula
tion to "assume the risk of damage to cutting on said stone while
being transported to the site of said building," bound to pay any part
of the expense of raising granite sunk by a peril of the sea with its
cutting uninjured. Tillson v. United States, 101.
2. In October, 1874, Mrs. M. owned a tract of land consisting of four acres
on Kansas River in the town of Wyandotte, Kansas, called Ferry tract,
and the Kansas Pacific Railway Company owned a tract of 25 acres
lying north of Wyandotte. In that year negotiations were opened
between her and the company for an exchange of 2% acres of the
Ferry tract, valued at $2000, for the 251-acre tract, valued at $1500,
Mrs. M. offering to take for the difference in value a quarter section
of land estimated at $3 an acre. Negotiations for the exchange were
had between Mrs. M. and officers of that company. On February 26,
1878, the president of the company informed its general superintendent,
in substance, that the exchange would be made, and directed him to
proceed with the matter. The superintendent turned the matter over
to the attorney of the company, who acquainted Mrs. M. with the
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