its stockholders to enforce their statutory liability for its debts, the
court on an application made in June, 1887, enquired into the liability
of the stockholders to have the claim of the state bank enforced as
against them, in view of the transactions of August, 1874, and dis-
allowed that claim; Held, (1) It was proper to reexamine the claim;
(2) The judgment against the bank was not binding on the stock-
holders in the sense that it could not be reexamined; (3) The guar-
anty of the bank was released as to the stockholders by the release
of the maker of the notes; (4) The rights of the stockholders could
not be affected by the acts of the president done after the bank had
gone into liquidation. Schrader v. Manufacturers' Bank, 67.
2. After the passage of the act of June 30, 1876, 19 Stat. 63, savings banks
organized in the District of Columbia under an act of Congress, and
having a capital stock paid up in whole or in part, were entitled to
become national banking associations in the mode prescribed by Rev.
Stat. § 5154. Keyser v. Hitz, 138.

3. A certificate signed by the Deputy Comptroller of the Currency as
"Acting Comptroller of the Currency," is a sufficient certificate by
the Comptroller of the Currency within the requirements of Rev. Stat.
§ 5154. Ib.

4. A transfer of stock in a bank to a person without his or her knowledge
or consent, does not of itself impose upon the transferee the liability
attached by law to the position of a shareholder in the association;
but if, after the transfer, the transferee approves or acquiesces in it,
or in any way ratifies it, (as, for instance, by joining in an application
to convert the bank info a national bank,) or accepts any benefit aris-
ing from, the ownership of such stock, he or she becomes liable to be
treated as a shareholder, with such responsibility as the law imposes
in such case; and this liability is the same whether new certificates
have or have not been issued to the transferee after the transfer. Ib.
5. The endorsement, by the payee, of a check which appears on its face
to be drawn by the cashier of a bank in payment of a dividend due
the payee as a stockholder, estops him from denying knowledge of its
contents or ownership of the shares. Ib.

6. A married woman in the District of Columbia may become a holder of
stock in a national banking association, and assume all the liabilities
of such a shareholder, although the consideration may have proceeded
wholly from the husband. Ib.

7. The coverture of a married woman, who is a shareholder in a national
bank, does not prevent the receiver of the bank from recovering judg-
ment against her for the amount of an assessment levied upon the
shareholders equally and ratably under the statute; but no opinion is
expressed as to what property may be reached in the enforcement of
such judgment. lb.

8. When the previous proceedings looking to an increase in the capital
" stock of a national bank have been regular and all that are requisite,

and a stockholder subscribes to his proportionate part of the increase
and pays his subscription, the law does not attach to the subscription
a condition that it is to be void if the whole increase authorized be
not subscribed; although there may be cases in which equity would
interfere to protect him in case of a material deficiency. Aspinwall v.
Butler, 595.

9. The provision in Rev. Stat. § 5142, that no increase of capital in a
national bank shall be valid until the whole amount of the increase
shall be paid in, and the Comptroller of the Currency notified and his
consent obtained, was intended to secure the actual cash payment of
the subscriptions made, and to prevent watering of stock; but not to
invalidate bona fide subscriptions actually made and paid. Ib.
10. The Comptroller of the Currency has power by law to assent to an
increase in the capital stock of a national bank less than that orig-
inally voted by the directors, but equal to the amount actually sub-
scribed and paid for by the shareholders under that vote. Ib.
See ASSIGNMEnt for the BENEFIT OF CREDITORS, 4, 5, 7.

NEGLIGENCE.

See MASTER and ServANT.

PARTNERSHIP.

See ASSIGNMEnt for the Benefit of Creditors, 2, 7.

PARTY.

See EQUITY, 8, 9, 10.

PATENT FOR INVENTION.

1. The claim in letters patent No. 59,375, granted to Alexander F. Evory
and Alonzo Heston, November 6, 1866, for an "improvement in boots
and shoes" was for a manufactured article, and not for the mode of
producing it; and, as it was merely a carrying forward of the original
idea of the earlier patents on the same subject-simply a change in
form and arrangement of the constitutent parts of the shoe, or an
improvement in degree only-it was not a patentable invention.
Burt v. Evory, 349.

2. Not every improvement in an article is patentable, but the improve-
ment must be the product of an original conception; and if it is a
mere carrying forward, or more extended application of an original
idea, an improvement in degree only, it is not an invention. Ib.

3. The combination of old devices into a new article, without producing
any new mode of operation, is not invention. Ib.

4. The claim of letters patent No. 190,152, granted May 1, 1877, to
Alexander C. Martin, for an "improvement in furniture casters,"
namely, "The floor-wheels EE, the anti-friction pivot wheel F, the
housing B, the elliptical housing opening, or its mechanical equivalent,

and the rocker-formed collar bearing, or its mechanical equivalent, all
combined so as to allow the floor-wheel axis to oscillate horizontally,
substantially as and for the purpose specified," being a claim selected
by the patentee in obedience to the requirements of the Patent Office,
after an extended construction of it had been rejected, and being a
combination of specified elements, must be limited to a combination
of all such elements. Phoenix Caster Co. v. Spiegel, 360.

5. In view of the state of the art, the words in the claim, "the rocker-
formed collar bearing, or its mechanical equivalent," must be restricted
to such a bearing resting on a collar beneath the floor-wheel housing,
as is shown in the Martin patent; and the claim does not cover a
caster which does not have the collar of that patent, or its rocker-
formed collar bearing or an equivalent therefor. Ib.

6. S., by an assignment absolute in form and for an expressed sum and
"other valuable considerations," assigned to G. an interest in letters
patent. G., by a writing executed the following day, made a further
agreement with S. as to the times, and modes, and amounts of pay-
ments, and further agreed that if he should fail to carry out his said
agreements, the title was to revert to S. Held, that the transfer was
absolute, subject to be defeated by failure to perform the condition
subsequent. Boesch v. Gräff, 694.

7. When an invention patented in a foreign country is also patented in
the United States, articles containing it cannot be imported into the
United States from the foreign country and sold here without the
license or consent of the owner of the United States patent, although
purchased in the foreign country from a person authorized to sell them.
Ib.

8. When a plaintiff in a suit for the infringement of letters patent seeks
to recover because he has been compelled to lower his price in order
to compete with the infringing defendant, he must either show that
the reduction was due solely to the defendant's acts, or to what extent it
was due to them, and must furnish data by which actual damages may
be calculated. Ib.

PLEDGE.

R. loaned to a railroad company $100,000 upon its notes, and received from
it 1250 shares of paid-up stock as a bonus, and 200 mortgage bonds of
the company, and the practical control of the board of directors of the
corporation. After this he demanded of this board 100 more bonds,
as further collateral, and they agreed to it. Subsequently he proposed
to the board that he would make further advances if they would put
300 more bonds in his hands as collateral, and they assented to this
proposal; but he never made such further advances. These 400 bonds,
together with other bonds and property of the company, then came
into his hands at a time when he was acting as and claiming to be the
treasurer of the company. After the insolvency of the company took

place, R. claimed to hold these 400 bonds individually, as collateral for
his debt; Held, that as between him and the other creditors of the
company, he could not, under the circumstances, hold them as col-
lateral for his debt. Richardson's Executor v. Green, 30.

POLYGAMY.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, A, 4;

CRIMINAL LAW.

PRACTICE.

See COSTS.

PRO CONFESSO.

See EQUITY, 2, 3, 5.

PUBLIC LAND.

1. When a decree in equity in a suit relating to public land gives the
boundaries of the tract, the claim to which is confirmed, with pre-
cision, and has become final by stipulation of the United States and the
withdrawal of their appeal therefrom, it is conclusive, not only on the
question of title, but also as to the boundaries which it specifies.
United States v. Hancock, 193.

2. Proof that a surveyor of public land, who in the course of his official
duty surveyed a tract which had been confirmed under a Mexican land-
grant, accepted from the grantee some years after the survey a deed
of a portion of the tract, which he subsequently sold for $1500, though
it may be the subject of criticism, is not the "clear, convincing and
unambiguous" proof of fraud which is required to set aside a patent
of public land. Ib.

3. Doubts respecting the correctness of a survey of public land, which
was made in good faith and passed unchallenged for fifteen years,
should be resolved in favor of the title as patented. Ib.

4. There is an implied license, growing out of the custom of nearly one
hundred years, that the public lands of the United States, especially
those in which the native grasses are adapted to the growth and fat-
tening of domestic animals, shall be free to the people who seek to use
them where they are left open and unenclosed, and no act of the gov-
ernment forbids their use. Buford v. Houtz, 320.

5. During the progress of the settlement of the newer parts of the country
the rule that the owner of domestic animals should keep them confined
within his own grounds, and should be liable for their trespasses upon
unenclosed land of his neighbor, has nowhere prevailed; but, on the
contrary, his right to permit them, when not dangerous, to run at
large without responsibility for their getting upon such land of his
neighbor, has been universally conceded, and is a part of the statute
law of Utah. Comp. Laws, § 2234. Ib.

6. Where Congress has prescribed conditions upon which portions of the
public domain may be alienated, and has provided that upon the per-
formance of the conditions a patent shall issue to the donee or pur-
chaser, and all such conditions have been complied with, and the tract
to be alienated is distinctly defined, and nothing remains but to
issue the patent, then the donee or purchaser is to be treated as the
beneficial owner of the land, holding it as his own property, subject
to state and local taxation; but when an official executive act, pre-
scribed by law, remains to be done before the tract can be distinctly
defined, and before a patent can issue, the legal and equitable titles
remain in the United States, and the land is not subject to local taxa-
tion. Wisconsin Central Railroad Co. v. Price, 496.
7. The act of the Secretary of the Interior in approving the selection of
indemnity lands by a railroad land-grant company, to supply deficien-
cies in selections within the place limits, is judicial, and until it is
done the company has no equitable right in the selected tracts; and
this rule is not affected by the fact that such a refusal was given under
a mistake of law, and was subsequently withdrawn, and an assent
given. Ib.

8. The filing of a homestead entry of a tract across which a stream of
water runs in its natural channel with no right or claim of right to
divert it therefrom, confers the right to have the stream continue to
run in that channel, without diversion; which right, when completed
by full compliance with the requirements of the statutes on the part of
the settler and the issue of a patent, relates back to the date of the
filing and cuts off intervening adverse claims to the water.
Sturr v.
Beck, 541.

9. The legislation of Congress upon this subject reviewed. Ib.
10. Swamp lands located on a military land warrant prior to the passage
of the swamp-land act of September 28, 1850, but patented to the
locator subsequently to the passage of that act, were not included in
the lands granted by it to the several States. Culver v. Uthe, 655.
11. Section 891 of the Revised Statutes authorizes certified copies of
records of the land office at Washington, concerning the location of
land warrants to be introduced in evidence.

Ib.

12. The delivery of his warrant by the holder of a land warrant to the
proper officers of the government, with directions that it be located on
a designated tract of public land, constituted a sale of that tract
within the meaning of the act of September 28, 1850, 9 Stat. 519,
c. 84, granting the swamp lands to the States. Ib.