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TAXATION.

It is not competent to provide by law that sewer taxes shall be assessed upon lots and lands benefited according to their superficial area. If such an assessment was lawful there would be ground for a bill in equity to remove a cloud upon title. Thomas v. Gain, 1.

See MUNICIPAL BONDS, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

TRADE-MARK.

1. The numerical symbol, printed in large, bold, red characters, in a certain form and style, had been used since 1873 by the complainant as one of his trade-marks on the packages and boxes of certain classes of cigarettes manufactured by him, and was registered in the United States Patent Office in June, 1875. This symbol was originally employed to indicate the idea that the cigarettes were composed of two kinds of tobacco in the proportion of half and half; but except so far as it indicates this idea, which it does not really express, it is a merely arbitrary device. On a bill brought to enjoin against another's use of this symbol: Held, that the complainant had not a right to the exclusive use of the numerical character, written in any ordinary manner; but that he had a right to the exclusive use of it in the particular form, size, color, and style in which he had used and registered it. Kinney v. Allen & Co. 258. 2. Plaintiff, a manufacturing company, had long applied its corporate name, The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company," to numerous kinds of cotton goods, which were widely known as "Amoskeag goods, but had never made prints." Defendant used the word "Amoskeag" on prints: Held, that plaintiff was entitled to an injunetion restraining defendant from such use of its corporate name. Amoskeag Manufacturing Co. v. Garner, 176.

TROVER.

6.

After

The plaintiff employed one M. to buy a horse for him. M. bought the horse, paying for it with the plaintiff's money and took a bill of sale in his own name. wards he informed the plaintiff of what he had done, and showed him the bill of sale; but the plaintiff permitted him to go away with the horse and bill of sale still in his possession. M. thereupon went to the defendant, who had no knowledge of the agency, showed him the bill of sale, sold him the horse for cash, and absconded. Held, that the plaintiff could not recover in an action of trover for the horse. Nixon v. Brown, 187.

USURY.

1. Where a commission merchant in Baltimore advanced to a pork packer in Peoria $100,000, for which he was to receive interest at the rate of ten per cent. per annum, and a fixed commission for the sale of the product, to be paid whether it was sold by the commission merchant or not, it was properly left to the jury to decide, on all the facts, whether or not the commissions were a cover for usury, or were an honest contract for commission business in connection with use of money. The express agreement of ten per cent. is not usurious, because lawful in Illinois, though not so in Maryland. Cockle v. Flack, 184.

2. The lex loci contractus determines the nature, validity, and construction of contracts; the lex fori determines the remedies for their enforcement. In order to render a con

tract void for usury, it must be tainted with that offence in its inception. The contracts and mortgage in this case, not being usurious in their origin, did not become "illegal and void "under the usury law of New Brunswick, where they were executed, by the receipt of usurious interest thereon. Lindsay v. Hill, 319.

WILL.

1. The burden of proof is on a party, seeking to establish a lost will by parol evidence of its contents, to prove the contents by evidence strong, positive, and free from doubt. Newell v. Homer, 88.

2. If a will, once known to exist, is not found at the death of the testator, it is presumed to have been revoked. Ib.

3. On an appeal from a decree of the judge of probate refusing to approve and allow an instrument alleged to be a copy of a will, the original being alleged to be lost, sup

pressed, or destroyed since the death of the testator, issues were framed for the jury, covering these questions. Held, that an issue proposed by the appellant, and which the judge who tried the case refused to submit to the jury, as to specific parts of the alleged will, was immaterial.

Ib.

4. If this court has power, on a probate appeal, to revise the discretion of the judge presiding at the trial of issues of fact before a jury, in refusing to grant a delay in the trial on account of the absence of a witness, no affidavit of the testimony expected nor any statement of the grounds of such expectation having been made, it will only do so where the circumstances connected with the absence of the witness, and his alleged relation to the case, are so peculiar as to require that the ordinary rule should be dispensed with. Ib.

5. To establish by copy a will alleged to have been destroyed or suppressed by parties having an adverse interest thereto, evidence of a conspiracy by such parties to suppress the will is immaterial, unless accompanied with evidence sufficient to justify a jury in finding the execution and contents of the will, and its loss since the testator's death. Ib.

THE

AMERICAN LAW TIMES.

PUBLISHED IN CONNECTION WITH THE

AMERICAN LAW TIMES REPORTS.

EDITED BY

ROWLAND COX.

NEW SERIES, VOLUME 4.

NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON.

Cambridge: The Riverside Press.

1877.

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:

PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

THE AMERICAN LAW TIMES.

NEW SERIES.-JANUARY, 1877.- VOL. IV., No. 1.

NOTES OF OPINIONS, DECISIONS, AND ORDERS

OF THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

DECEMBER TERM, 1876.

Monday, November 13, 1876.

No. 82. James A. Lovejoy et al., plaintiffs in error, v. Carroll C. Spofford et al. In error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Minnesota. Mr. Justice Hunt delivered the opinion of the court, reversing the judgment of the said circuit court, with costs, and remanding the cause, with directions to award a new trial.

In this case it is held that to discharge a member of a firm from the claim of one who has had no dealing with it prior to its dissolution, but who knew of its existence, and who were its members, it is not necessary that either actual notice or public notice in a newspaper be shown, but only that the notice of dissolution was so generally communicated to the business men of the vicinity as to be likely to come to the knowledge of all, and a judgment, based on a refusal to charge the jury that if such notice was given the jury were at liberty to infer knowledge, is reversed.

No. 48. Horace B. Claflin, plaintiff in error, v. Julius Houseman, assignee, &c. In error to the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Mr. Justice Bradley delivered the opinion of the court, affirming the judgment of the said supreme court, with costs.

In this case the court affirm a judgment recovered against the plaintiff in error by the assignee in bankruptcy in the state court for the amount of a judgment obtained by him against bankrupts four months prior to the commencement of proceedings in bankruptcy, holding that an assignee in bankruptcy, under the Act of 1867, as it stood before the revision, had authority to bring suit in the state courts wherever these courts are invested with appropriate jurisdiction suited to the nature of the case.

No. 61. The United States, plaintiff in error, v. Bernard Lariviere et al. In error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Minnesota. Mr. Justice Davis delivered the opinion of the court, reversing the judgment of the said circuit court, and remanding the cause with directions to overrule the demurrer and to proceed in accordance with law and justice.

The defendants in error in this case were indicted for selling liquor in the Indian country. As it appeared that the territory where the offence was committed was a portion of the State of Minnesota, the court below sustained a demurrer to the indictment, holding that the effect of the admission of Minnesota into the Union was to withdraw this territory from the Indian country. It is here said that as the prohibition was extended to the lands when ceded by the Indians to the United States, the provisions of the treaty still apply to them. The fact that the ceded territory is within the limits of Minnesota is a mere incident and not the foundation of the prohibition. The act of Congress, imported into the treaty, applies alike to all Indian tribes occupying a particular country, whether within or without the state lines, and, as it is based exclusively on the federal authority over the subject matter, there is no disturbance of the principle of 1

VOL. IV.

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