23; Park v. Modern Woodmen of America, 181 Illinois, 227; Boehm v. Hertz, 182 Illinois, 156; Village of London Mills v. Edward White, 208 Illinois, 289; Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U. S. 155; Detroit v. Detroit Citizens' St. Ry., 184 U. S. 368; People v. Mellen, 32 Illinois, 181; Lockport v. Gaylord, 61 Illinois, 276; Jonesboro v. Cairo & St. L. R. R. Co., 110 U. S. 198; People v. Institution of Protestant Deaconesses, 71 Illinois, 229.

The incorporation by the act of the legislature of the town of Lake View did not deprive the North Chicago City Railway Company of its charter right to extend its street railway lines into the town of Lake View upon its streets and highways. Chicago Municipal Gas Light Co. v. Town of Lake, 130 Illinois, 54; City of Quincy v. Bull et al., 106 Illinois, 349; The People v. Blocki, 203 Illinois, 368.

MR. JUSTICE DAY, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

The jurisdiction of the Circuit Court to render the original judgments against the companies and to maintain the ancillary bill is challenged at the outset. These objections require notice before considering the controversy upon its merits. It is insisted that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction to render the judgments at law because of the provisions of the act of August 13, 1888, 25 Stat. 433, 434, providing that no Circuit Court shall have cognizance of any suit to recover the contents of any promissory note in favor of any assignee, or subsequent holder if such instrument be payable to bearer, unless such suit might have been prosecuted in such court to recover, if an assignment or transfer had not been made. As the notes were made payable to the order of "Markham B. Orde, Treas.," and there is no allegation that Orde was not a citizen of the State of Illinois, of which State the defendant companies were corporations and citizens, it is insisted that the jurisdiction must fail, under the provisions of the statute just referred to. Assuming without deciding that this ques

tion could be raised by way of defense to the ancillary bill, we think the objection must fail, for under the allegations of the declaration the money was furnished directly to the defendants by the Guaranty Trust Company, and that company was the first taker of the notes. In Falk v. Moebs, 127 U. S. 597, it was held that notes made in this form, payable to the treasurer, indorsed before delivery by him, are the notes of the company. And when it appears that the indorser is not in fact an assignee of the paper, suit may be brought in a Federal court by a holder having the requisite diverse citizenship, notwithstanding the indorser might have been a citizen of the same State with the defendant. Holmes v. Goldsmith, 147 U. S. 150.

It is further argued that the entire proceedings were fraudulent and collusive; that no money was in fact loaned, and that they were the result of a conspiracy between corporations of Illinois to obtain the jurisdiction of the Federal court, and its decision on the controverted rights of the parties under the statutes of the State. We have examined the supplemental records submitted since the argument in this court, on this branch of the case, and think the charges of bad faith and conspiracy are not sustained. We have no doubt that the money was loaned by the Guaranty Trust Company to these corporations and that the original judgments were bona fide. As to the conspiracy to get the case into the Federal court, with a view to the decision of the rights of the parties therein, we are not aware of any principle which prevents parties having the requisite citizenship and a justiciable demand from seeking the Federal courts for redress, if such be their choice of a forum in which to have contested rights litigated. Having a proper cause of action and the requisite diversity of citizenship confers jurisdiction upon the Federal courts, and in such cases the motive of the creditor in seeking Federal jurisdiction is immaterial. South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286, 310; Dickerman v. Northern Trust Company, 176 U. S. 181, 190; Lehigh Mining and Manufacturing Com

pany v. Kelly, 160 U. S. 327, 336; Crawford v. Neal, 144 U. S. 585; Cheever v. Wilson, 9 Wall. 108, 123; Smith v. Kernochen, 7 How. 198, 216.

It is true that the judgments were taken and the receivers appointed on the same day, and it is quite likely that the receiverships were in view when the judgments were taken, and that preparations had been made in that direction, but we perceive in this no legal objection to the jurisdiction of the court. It is further insisted by the counsel for the city that the ancillary bills cannot be sustained upon their merits. But we think a case was made out by the allegations of the bills, especially when considered with reference to the admissions of the answer, which showed that the extent and character of the property rights of the corporations whose rights and franchises were, the subjects of the receivership were in direct and serious controversy between the company and the receiver on the one hand and the city on the other. While it may be that there would have been no interference on the part of the city with the property while it was in the hands of the court's receivers, still the record shows that the city strenuously contested the asserted rights of the corporations to the franchise to use the streets of the city for ninetynine years, the term claimed to have been granted to them by the act of February, 1865. It was the claim of the city that as to many of the ordinances granting rights in a number of the streets, the right to the use and occupancy of them would expire July 30, 1903. The city had asserted in a number of ways its purpose to treat the rights of the companies and whatever franchises they had as terminated at that date. It declared its purpose to resume possession of the streets and resort to all legal means to protect its rights against what were deemed the unfounded claims of the companies as to the extended franchises. Without going into further detail upon this branch of the case, we think that the attitude and claims of the city cast a cloud upon the title to this property which was in the hands of the receivers to be administered VOL. CCI-29

under the orders of the court, and that in such case the receivers may, with the authority of the court, proceed by ancillary bill to protect the jurisdiction and right to administer the property, and to determine the validity of the claims of the parties which cast a cloud upon the franchises and rights claimed by the companies and the receivers, and that in such case it was proper to grant an injunction until the rights of the parties could be determined. Detroit v. Detroit Citizens' Street Railway Co., 184 U. S. 368; In re Tyler, 149 U. S. 164; Rouse v. Letcher, 156 U. S. 47; White v. Ewing, 159 U. S. 36. We think, then, that the court had jurisdiction of the case made in the ancillary bills.'

A further preliminary question is made in the contention + that the leases under which the various transfers were made, and which are supposed to have vested title in the Chicago Union Traction Company, are void for want of corporate power in the companies to make or receive the same. We do not think the city of Chicago is in a position to raise that question. The corporations have undertaken to transfer the rights of the lessor companies, and the lessees have gone into possession thereof, and the same are now in possession of the receivers under authority of the court. All of the companies are parties to the suit, and the rights and franchises of all are by order of the court vested in the receivers. They hold the title to all these rights to be sold at judicial sale, or otherwise dealt with as the court may direct. In this view we cannot see that it is material to inquire into the validity of the intermediate transfers between the companies. No contract is undertaken to be enforced with the city of Chicago which depends upon the validity of these transfers. The city has no power to invalidate them, and the State has not attempted to inquire into their validity by a proceeding in quo warranto. In such case, we think, the principle laid down in Fritts v. Palmer, 132 U. S. 282, 293, is controlling: "The question whether a corporation having capacity to purchase and hold real estate for certain defined purposes, or in certain quantities,

has taken title to real estate for purposes not authorized by law, or in excess of the quantity permitted by its charter, concerns only the State within whose limits the property is situated. It cannot be raised collaterally by private persons unless there be something in the statute expressly or by necessary implication authorizing them to do so."

Passing now to the merits of the case, we will first notice the objection that the acts of 1859, 1861 and 1865 are unconstitutional. The Illinois constitution of 1848 contained the provision that no private or local law shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title. The acts are attacked upon the ground that they are violations of this requirement. But we do not think that these objections are tenable. The title of the act of February 14, 1859, is “An act to promote the construction of horse railways in the city of Chicago;" the title of the act of February 21, 1861, is "An act to authorize the extension of horse railways in the city of Chicago;" the title of the act of February 6, 1865, is "An act concerning horse railways in the city of Chicago. In People v. People's Gas Light Company, 205 Illinois, 482, the Illinois cases were reviewed and the conclusion reached that the purpose of the constitutional provision is accomplished if the title is comprehensive enough as reasonably to include within the general subject or the subordinate branches thereof, the several objects which the statute seeks to effect. And it was held that the generality of the title is no objection to a law so long as it is not made to cover legislation incongruous in itself and which by no fair intendment can be included as having necessary or proper connection. In the case of Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U. S. 147, a statute of New Jersey was before this court which was claimed to be unconstitutional, because it embraced more than one subject, not expressed in its title. The provision of the New Jersey constitution was "To avoid improper influences which may result from intermixing in one and the same act, such things as have no proper relation to each other, every law shall embrace but one object,