purpose on the part of the seller merely because he failed to avail himself of an opportunity of making investigation which, if made, would have revealed the purpose. State ex rel. Pierce v. Merritt, 70 Mo.. 275. Where a debtor sold his entire stock of goods to a purchaser with the intent to defraud his creditors, a full consideration paid by such purchaser will not protect him if he has notice, actual or constructive, that the vendor is selling to hinder and delay his creditors. Singer v. Jacobs, 11 Fed. Rep. 559. On this point the court said (p. 561); "A full consideration paid in cash will not protect a purchaser who has notice, actual or constructive, that the vendor is selling to hinder and delay his creditors; and the reason is, that by aiding the debtor to convert his visible and bulky property, which cannot readily be concealed from creditors, into money which it is easy to put beyond their reach, he knowingly assists the debtor to carry out his fraudulent purpose." Tantum v. Green, 21 N. J. Eq. 364.

On the question of fraudulent intent the

insanity; but is a statement of the "state of mind," which the law regards as relieving from responsibility. This state of mind may be different in different jurisdictions as, (a) a state such that the defendant is unable to distinguish right from wrong, or to know the wrongfulness of his act; (b) a state such that defendant is unable to perceive the consequences of his act; (c) a state in which the defendant had not the power of self-control, is moved by an uncontrollable impulse; or in a given jurisdiction, any one of several states of mind may be considered as relieving from responsibility.

66

Testimony, then, should be directed to the question, was the defendant, at the time he did the act, in the state of mind which the law of the given jurisdiction says relieves from responsibility?" The question, 'was he then insane?" is confusing and misleading, because too broad.

Expert testimony should be directed to the question, "In your opinion, founded on your knowledge of this man's life, of the act charged, of the circumstances connected with it, or his conduct before and since, of his antecedents, of his present appearance, together with your previous conclusions as to the states of mind of persons under circumstances, and conducting themselves in a manner analogous to the

fendant, was the defendant, at the time of doing the act, in the state of mind which (as the law of this jurisdiction says), “relieves from responsibility?"

NOTICE TO AGENT IS ΤΟ PRINCIPAL.- When notice to an attorney will be imputed to client see Fairfield Savings Bang v. Chase, 72 Me. 226; S. C. 39 Am. Rep. 319, 322, note. Notice to an agent of an unrecorded deed is notice to the principal. Drake v. Barker, 54 Vt. 372. Whatever information an attorney acquires in relation to the subject-matter of a suit he will be presumed to have communicated the same to his client, and notice to him is constructive notice to his client. Bierce v. Red Bluff, 31 Cal. 160. A principal is not affected by information imparted to the agent (attorney) before the agency existed, and which has not been retained in mind by the agent. Yerger v. Barz, 56 Iowa, 77. Notice to an agent of facts arising from or connect with the sub-matter of the agency is constructive notice to the principal where the notice comes to the agent while he is acting for the principal and in the course of the very transaction. Bierce v. Red Bluff, 31 Cal. 160.

RESPONSIBILITY—WITH A FORECAST.

I. Insanity being offered as a defense in a criminal action, the question for the judge to present to the jury is not, "was the defendant insane when he did the act charged?" but "was he then in such a condition that the law, as it is, regards him as not responsible therefor?"

The question then of course arises, "what conditions are those of which the law says, that the fact of being in such, renders a man not responsible?"

The answer to this question, not being an answer to the question, "was the defendant insane?" is not a "test of insanity," in the medical sense of the word

Plainly, the" definition of insanity" is not a duty for the witness, expert or others; but it is as suggested, for the judge to declare what the law lays down as the state of mind, by which a defendant is relieved from responsibility.

II. In considering the legal aspects and relations of crime and insanity; two things, as appears from the above statement, need definition and explanation: (a) Responsibility, and

(b) The states of mind which the law regards as relieving from responsibility.

Responsibility is that condition a person is in when he is declared to be punishable. A person is not responsible until he has done or omitted something which brings him under the law. He may become responsible at any moment; but an act, or an omission, which may for present purposes be considered an act,is necessary before the term responsibility is properly applicable. After the act, the law presumes, i. e., declaring on the strength of the common knowledge, that men are similar, that the doer of the act is responsible; or that presumption being met by evidence, declares him responsible on the strength of evidence, additional to that which the general knowledge of the similarity of men furnishes. This declaration that he is responsible is, so far as the legal significance of the word is concerned, the declaration that he is subject or amenable to the law, punishable.

Punishable is the condition a person is in when he has done, with intent, an act (an omission, or criminal negligence may be shown to be subject to the same considerations as an act), which the law declares to be a crime.

A crime is an act which society finds to be so detrimental to its welfare, as to make it seem expedient to attempt to deter individuals from a commission of it, by inflicting on those who commit it, certain burdens known to be displeasing to mankind.

Intent is the consciousness or knowledge accompanying the commission of an act, that is of the primary movement of the body following the determination, that under the circumstances known to the actor, the act will probably be followed by a certain result.

All acts, then, are criminal, so far as intent alone is concerned, except those strictly automatic or uncon

scious. Lack of knowledge of right and wrong, the presence of an overpowering impulse, or other "states of mind" generally considered as relieving from responsibility do not so relieve.

It does not assist in restricting responsibility, to add to the elements necessary to form criminality that of motive. The motive added being a desire that the probable resulting act should take place. For the knowledge which we have defined as intent, and which is present in all except automatic or unconscious acts, necessarily includes a desire that the act be done. The muscular system cannot be directed to the execution of a conscious, non-automatic act, if the desire for accomplishment of that act be not present.

III. Our consideration of responsibility leads to the conclusion, that every one is responsible for all except automatic or unconscious acts, which is in violation of the criminal law. Next as to the states of mind which the law regards as relieving from responsibility: Ignorance of the consequences of the act does not so relieve, except in so far as it is a state of automatonism, or unconsciousness as to the act charged, and that state relieves from all the elements of responsibility. Ignorance of the quality of the act does not so relieve, for the ignorance is either that the act is contrary to the law, and ignorance of the law excuses no man, or that the act is contrary to prevailing rules of morality, and the fact that one follows the dictates of his own conscience is no excuse under the law, whether he disregards the prevailing rules of morality from choice or from ignorance.

IV. So it appears that logically no abnormal or unusual state of mind relieves from responsibility, because no such state removes the element of intent from conscious, non-automatic acts. But that the presence, or supposed presence, of certain states of mind does absolve from responsibility, in the opinion of judges and jurors, is plain from the almost daily acquittals on the ground of insanity. Whence comes this inconsistency? It may be shown to arise from the dim recognition of the fact that the determinations, and hence the resulting acts, of men are, like all other natural phenomena, subject to law, and in the sense that they are caused, are necessary. The average mau, if questioned, asserts that he is free, thinking that he means thereby more than the simple fact that generally he is at liberty to carry out his determinations; but, being conscious at the same time that he is not blameworthy, in the sense of being a creator of siu, for much of his wrong conduct, he feels that another man may be so constituted or so situated as to be relieved from responsibility, not only in the moral but also in the legal sense. Hence the acquittals by reason of insanity in tribunals of justice, and the excuses, on the ground of temperament or temptation, in daily life.

V. The idea of the essential wickedness of man, of original sin, is a necessary corollary of the prevalent views of man's place in the universe, as the child of a God who is but a magnified man, and as having in himself the liberty to choose the wrong in opposition to the right, even though the motives to each be of equal weight. This supposed power of preferring evil, of creating sin, is thought of as something which every man has, and which he can exercise or not, at pleasure. Exercising it, he is sinful, blameworthy, and in law as well as in daily life, responsible; refraining from its exercise, he is good and praiseworthy. But as suggested above, most men are so constituted that they feel themselves not only not altogether praiseworthy for their good determinations, but often not blameworthy for their evil ones; recognizing that in some of their determinations this element of primary choice, which they suppose is generally present, is altogether wanting. Hence they can, without much difficulty,

be persuaded that other men, under circumstances and conditions which seem peculiar only because they are exaggerated, may not have had the opportunity to exercise this power of choice at all, and as fellow citizens, they excuse them, as jurors they acquit them.

Now that sin is seen to be the natural result of the necessary failure of the conduct of the individual to conform to the standards of the environing society; society always establishing standards, seen to be necessary for its own well-being, to which the individual is unable to conform; and now that the determinations, the so-called choices of individuals are shown to be embraced in the chain of causality, and in that sense to be necessary, it seems proper that we reject the common, the biblical significance of the words blame, responsible, and the like, and limit them to the meaning, simply, that the person to whom they are applied is the one in whom the determination resulting in the act under consideration, has arisen. The common acceptance of this view, that constitution and evironment are the only factors in conduct, would not make laws useless, but would lead to their more rational enactments, for it would be perceived that their great value is that of motives to right conduct, with the lesser one of improving the individual coming under them; it would not remove the moral quality from acts, for the moral quality would be seen to consist in conformity or want of conformity to acknowledged standards of conduct, and those standards would be as necessary and as elevated, resulting as they do from the felt necessity of a conduct in individuals advantageous to society as a whole, as they are at present; it would not prevent our praising and loving the good and dispraising and hating the evil man, for then as now the former would be seen to be the best thing that society could encourage or that individuals could imitate; it would not remove any incentives to right living, for all the present motives to such would still exist; it would not remove the discouragements to vice, for the punishment of the law and the disapprobation of society would still be present. In daily life such a view of wrong doing, of non-conforming conduct, would extend infinitely our charity. The evil disposed man would be thought of as one to whom all the motives for good, present to most men, had not come, or as one on whom, through his constitution, such motives had not their usual influence. Each man's conduct would be directed to the adding motives for good conduct to the influences bearing on others, not to prejudiced, unreasoning disapprobation of them. Realizing that we are all of necessity what we are, but that we may ourselves improve, that we may aid others in bettering themselves, and that our posterity may be made still an advance upon us, our efforts would be intelligently directed to self and mental improvement.

VI. The adoption of such a view of man's nature, would have an effect upon the law, perhaps ultimately a great effect. I will venture on a forecast, of course merely tentative, of what the proceedings will be at and after the trial of a person accused of a crime, at some future day:

1. The fact of the commission of the deed constituting the crime is established.

2. The question, "did the accused commit it?" is answered in accordance with the evidence, as now. 3. If the answer be no, the accused is, of course, discharged.

question.

In this sense the acts of a drunken man are not necessarily unconscious, he being presumed to know that his drinking might result in the commission by him of the act charged.

5. Again, if the answer to this question be yes, the accused is discharged.

6. If the answer to the question in (2) be "yes, and with knowledge," a further examination is had of the accused and of the circumstances of the crime, before a permanent commission established for the purpose, who make detailed discovery in regard to the following facts:

(a) The ancestry or pedigree of the accused.

(b) His past life, including his education and surroundings.

(c) His character as to criminality, as shown by his reputation in the broad sense of that word.

(d) His physical condition at the time of the commission of the act and the time of the examination.

(e) The circumstances of the act and those leading up to it, including herein the temptations, the direct ultimate motives to it.

(f) The mental state of the accused.

7. The result of this inquiry being laid before a judge or jury, decision is by them made as to the mental condition of the accused, the condition in which they declare him to be, together with the nature of the act, being the guide to his treatment nnder the law.

8. He may be declared to belong, as to his criminality, to

Class A. Meaning thereby that he has no abnormal or unusual tendency to crime, but committed the act charged under peculiar circumstances, not likely again to arise. Of this class the treatment is such as may chiefly act as a restraining motive to others; or to

Class B. Meaning that the accused has an abnormal tendency to crime, but a tendency largely if not wholly acquired from life surroundings. Of this class the treatment, in addition to the feature mentioned in (A) and common to those that follow, is directed mainly to moral education; or to

Class C. Meaning that the accused has an abnormal, probably inherited, tendency to crime, strong, but not plainly ineradicable. Of this class the treatment is long confinement, with subsequeut supervison possibly extending through life, and at last until the criminal tendency has been apparently eradicated; or to

Class D. Meaning that the accused belongs to the group, already recognized as existing, of persons having an inherited, ineradicable criminal nature. The treatment of this class is confinement for life, with the purpose of rendering them as little injurious to society as possible, while not causing them to suffer unnecessarily. Of each class the treatment varies somewhat with the nature of the crime, but depends in large part on the ascertained character of the individual. The presumption is always present that every man is of normal character, and the mere fact of the commission of a forbidden act, without reference to attendant circumstances, is not considered as overthrowing the presumption.

JOHN CATTON DANA.

STATE LEGISLATION IN RELATION TO CORPORATE CHARTERS.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. FEBRUARY 4, 1884.

SPRING VALLEY WATER WORKS V. SCHOTTLER. A water company was created under the authority of a Statute of California to supply water to the city of San Francisco. The statute provided that water should be fur

nished to consumers at reasonable rates to be fixed by an impartial tribunal designated therein.

The Constitution of California reserved the power to the State to alter and amend and control charters of corporations created by it. After the water company had made large expenditures, the people adopted a new Constitution which provided that the rates for supplying water to a city or county should be fixed by the county supervisors or city council. Held, that this provision was not in violation of the Federal Constitution.

IN

N error to the Supreme Court of California. The defendants constituted the board of supervisors of the city and county of San Francisco. The opinion states the case.

WAITE, C. J. Article 4, section 31, of the Constitution of California adopted in 1849 is as follows:

"Corporations may be formed under general laws, but shall not be created by special act except for municipal purposes. All general laws and special acts passed pursuant to this section may be altered from time to time, or repealed."

Acts were passed by the Legislature under this authority on the 14th of April, 1853, and the 30th of April, 1855, providing for the formation of corporations for certain purposes, and on the 22d of April, 1858, these acts were extended so as to include the formation of corporations for the purpose of suplying cities, counties, and towns with water. Under this extension water companies were empowered to acquire lands and waters for their works by purchase and condemnation, and subject to the reasonable direction of the public authorities, to use streets, ways, alleys, and public roads for laying their pipes, but it was expressly provided, by an amendment enacted in 1861, "that all canals, reservoirs, ditches, pipes, aqueducts, and all conduits * ** * shall be used exclusively for the purpose of supplying any city or county, or any cities or towns, in this State, or the inhabitants thereof with pure, fresh water." Section 4 is as follows:

"All corporations formed under the provisions of this act, or claiming any of the privileges of the same, shall furnish pure, fresh water to the inhabitants of such city and county, or city or town, for family uses, so long as the supply permits, at reasonable rates, and without distinction of persons, upon proper demand therefor, and shall furuish water to the extent of their means, to such city and county, or city or town, in case of fire or other great necessity, free of charge. And the rates to be charged for water shall be determined by a board of commissioners, to be selected as follows: Two by such city and county, or city or town authorities, and two by the water company; and in case that four cannot agree to the valuation, then in that case, the four shall choose a fifth person, and he shall become a member of said board; if the four commissioners cannot agree upon a fifth, then the sheriff of the county shall appoint such fifth person. The decision of a majority of said board shall determine the rates to be charged for water for one year, and until new rates shall be established. The board of supervisors, or the proper city or town authorities, may prescribe such other proper rules relating to the delivery of water, not inconsistent with this act and the laws and Constitution of this State." The Spring Valley Water Works Company was formed under this act on the 19th of June, 1858, and since that time has expended a very large amount of money in the erection of extensive and substantial works for the supply of the city and county of San Francisco with water. In January, 1878, the board of supervisors of the city and county appointed Isaac B. Friedlander and H. B. Williams, and the company appointed W. F. Babcock and Charles Webb Howard, and these four afterward appointed Jerome Lincoln, to constitute a board of commissioners to determine, under the provisions of section 4, the rates to be

charged by the company for water. This board met and fixed a tariff of rates to go into effect on the 1st of June, 1878. In July, of the same year, Friedlander, one of the commissioners appointed by the supervisors died. By his death a vacancy was created in the board which has never been filled.

In 1779 the people of California adopted a new Constitution, which went into effect on the 1st of January, 1880. Article 14, sections 1 and 2 of this Constitution are as follows:

"ARTICLE 14.

"Water and Water Rights. "Section 1. The uses of all water now appropriated, or that may hereafter be appropriated, for sale, rental, or distribution, is hereby declared to be a public use, and subject to the regulation and control of the State, in the manuer to be prescribed by law: Provided, that the rates or compensation to be collected by any person, company, or corporation in this State for the use of water supplied to any city and county, or city or town, or the inhabitants thereof shall be fixed, annually, by the board of supervisors, or city and county or city or town council, or other governing body of such city and county, or city or town, by ordinance or otherwise, in the manner that other ordinances or legislative acts or resolutions are passed by such body, and shall continue in force for one year and no longer. Such ordinances or resolutions shall be passed in the month of February of each year,and take effect on the first day of July thereafter. Any board or body failing to pass the necessary ordinances or resolutions fixing water rates, where necessary, within such time, shall be subject to peremptory process to compel action at the suit of any party interested, and shall be liable to such further processes and penalties as the Legislature may prescribe. Any person, company, or corporation collecting water rates in any city and county, or city or town in this State, otherwise than as so established, shall forfeit the franchises and water works of such person, company, or corporation to the city and county, or city or town where the same are collected for the public use.

"Section 2. The right to collect rates or compensation for the use of water supplied to any county, city and county, or town, or the inhabitants thereof, is a franchise, and cannot be exercised except by authority of and in the manner prescribed by law."

Under this provision of the Constitution and the legislation based thereon, the board of supervisors claim the right and power to fix the rates to be charged by the company for water, and refuse to appoint a member to fill the vacancy in the board of commissioners occasioned by the death of the former incumbent. This suit was begun in the Supreme Court of the State for a writ of mandamus requiring the board of supervisors to take action in the matter and fill the vacancy. The court on final hearing refused the writ and dismissed the petition. This writ of error was brought by the company to review that judgment.

The general question involved in this case is whether water companies in California, formed under the act of 1858 before the adoption of the Constitution of 1879, have a right, which the State is probibited by the Constitution of the United States from impairing or taking away, to charge their customers such prices for water as may from time to time be fixed by a commission made up of two persons selected by the company, two by the public authorities of the locality, and if need be, a fifth selected by the other four, or by the sheriff of the county. The Spring Valley Company claims no rights of this character that may not also be claimed by every other company formed under the same act.

That the companies must sell at reasonable prices all the water they are able to furnish consumers, and that

the prices fixed for the time being by the honest judgment of such a commission as was specially provided for in the act, must be deemed reasonable, both by the company and the public, is not denied. The dispute is as to the power of the State, under the prohibitions of the Constitution of the United States, to substitute for this commission another, selected without the cooperation of the company, or some other tribunal of a different character, like the municipal authorities of the locality. The Spring Valley Company claims that it has, under its charter, a right to the maintenance of the commission which was created by the requisite appointments in 1878, aud the object of this suit is to compel the board of supervisors to perpetuate that commission by filling the vacancy that exists in its membership. So that the whole controversy here is as to the right of water companies that availed themselves of the privileges of the act of 1858 to secure a virtual monopoly of trade in water at a particular place, to demand the appointment of the commission provided for in that act, notwithstanding the Constitution of 1879, and the legislation under it.

The Spring Valley Company is an artificial being created by or under the authority of the Legislature of California. The people of the State, when they first established their government, provided in express terms that corporations, other than for municipal purposes, should not be formed except under general laws, subject at all times to alteration or repeal. The reservation of power to alter or repeal the charters of corporations was not new, for almost immediately after the judgment of this court in the Dartmouth College case (Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518), the States, many of them, in granting charters acted on the suggestion of Mr. Justice Story in his concurring opinion (p. 712) and inserted provisions by which such authority was expressly retained. Even before this decision it was intimated by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Wales v. Stetson, 2 Mass. 143, that such a reservation would save to the State its power of control. In California the Constitution put this reservation into every charter, and consequently this company was from the moment of its creation subject to the legislative power of alteration, and if deemed expedient, of absolute extinguishment as a corporate body.

Water for domestic uses was difficult to be got in some parts of the State. Large amounts of money were needed to secure a sufficient supply for the inhabitants in many localities, and as a means of combining capital for such purposes the act of 1858 was passed. Other statutes had been enacted before to effect the same object, but it is said they were not such as a company with capital enough to supply San Francisco was willing to accept. The act of 1858 was thought sufficiently favorable, and the Spring Valley Company, after organizing under it, expended a large amount of money to provide the means of supplying the territory on which San Francisco is built, and make it possible to support a great population there. All this was done in the face of the limitations of the Constitution on the power of the Legislature to create a private corporation and put it beyond the reach of legislative control, not only as to its continued existence, but as to its privileges and franchises. One of the obligations the company assumed was to sell water at reasonable prices, and the law provided for a special commission to determine what should be deemed reasonable both by the consumers and the company, but there is nowhere to be found any evidence of even a willingness to contract away the power of the Legislature to prescribe another mode of sec tling the same question if it should be considered desirable. In the Sinking Fund cases, 99 U. S. 721, it was said that whatever rules for the government of

the affairs of a corporation might have been put into the charter when granted could afterward be established by the Legislature under its reserved power of amendment. Long before the Constitution of 1879 was adopted in California, statutes had been passed in many of the States requiring water companies, gas companies, and other companies of like character to supply their customers at prices to be fixed by the municipal authorities of the locality; and as an independent proposition, we see no reason why such a regulation is not within the scope of legislative power, unless prohibited by constitutional limitations or valid contract obligations. Whether expedient or not is a question for the Legislature, not the courts.

It is said however that appointing municipal officers to fix prices between the seller and the buyers is in effect appointing the buyers themselves, since the buyers elect the officers, and that this is a violation of the principle that no man shall be a judge in his own case. But the officers here selected are the governing board of the municipality, and they are to act in their official capacity as such a board when performing the duty which has been imposed upon them. Their general duty is, within the limit of their powers, to administer the local government, and in so doing to provide that all shall so conduct themselves, and so use their own property, as not unnecessarily to injure others. They are elected by the people for that purpose, and whatever is within the just scope of the purpose may properly be intrusted to them at the discretion of the Legislature. That it is within the power of the government to regulate the prices at which water shall be sold by one who enjoys a virtual monopoly of the sale, we do not doubt. That question is settled by what was decided on full consideration in Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. As was said in that case, such regulations do not deprive a person of his property without due process of law. What may be done if the municipal authorities do not exercise an honest judgment, or if they fix upon a price which is manifestly unreasonable, need not now be considered, for that proposition is not presented by this record. The objection here is not to any improper prices fixed by the officers, but to their power to fix prices at all. By the Constitution and the legislation under it, the municipal authorities have been created a special tribunal to determine what, as between the public and the company, shall be deemed a reasonable price during a certain limited period. Like every other tribunal established by the Legislature for such a purpose, their duties are judicial in their nature, and they are bound in morals and in law to exercise an honest judgment as to all matters submitted for their official determination. It is not to be presumed that they will act otherwise than according to this rule. And here again it is to be kept in mind that the question before us is not as to the penalties to be inflicted on the company for a failure to sell at the prices fixed, but as to the power to fix the price; not whether the company shall forfeit its property and franchises to the city and county if it fails to meet the requirements of the Constitution, but whether the prices it shall charge may be established in the way provided for in that instrument. It will be time enough to consider the consequences of the omissions of the company when a case involving such questions shall be presented.

But it is argued that as the laws in force before 1858, for the formation of water companies, which provided for fixing the rates by the municipal authorities, were not accepted by the Spring Valley Company, and that of 1858, without such a provision, was, it is to be inferred that the State contracted with this company not to subject it to the judgment of such authorities in a matter so vital to its interests. If the question

were one of construction only, this argument might have force, but the dispute now is as to legislative power, not legislative action. The Constitution of California adopted in 1849 prohibited one Legislature bargaining away the power of succeeding Legislatures to control the administration of the affairs of a private corporation formed under the laws of the State. Of this legislative disability the Spring Valley Company had notice when it accepted the privileges of the act of 1858, and it must be presumed to have built its works and expended its moneys in the hope that neither a succeeding Legislature, nor the people in their collective capacity when framing a Constitution, would ever deem it expedient to return to the old mode of fixing rates, rather than on any want of power to do so, if found desirable. The question here is not between the buyer and the seller as to prices, but between the State and one of its corporations as to what corporate privileges have been granted. The power to amend corporate charters is no doubt one that bad men may abuse, but when the amendments are within the scope of the power, the courts cannot interfere with the discretion of the Legislatures that have been invested with authority to make them.

The organization of the Spring Valley Company was not a business arrangement between the State and the company as contracting parties, but the creation of a new corporation to do business within the State and to be governed as natural persons or other corporations were or might be. Neither are the chartered rights acquired by the company under the law to be looked upon as contracts with the city and county of San Francisco. The corporation was created by the State. All its powers came from the State and none from the city or county. As a corporation it can contract with the city and county in any way allowed by law, but its powers and obligations, except those which grow out of contracts lawfully made, depend alone on the statute under which it was organized, and such alterations and amendments thereof as may, from time to time, be made by proper authority. The provision for fixing rates cannot be separated from the remainder of the statute by calling it a contract. It was a condition attached to the franchises conferred on any corporation formed under the statute and indissolubly connected with the reserved power of alteration and repeal.

It follows that the court below was right in refusing to award the writ of mandamus which was prayed, and its judgment to that effect is affirmed. Field, J., dissented.

Congress has the constitutional power to make the treasury notes of the United States a legal tender in payment of private debts, in time of peace as well as in time of war. Under the act of May 31, 1878, chapter 146, which enacts that notes of the United States, issued during the war of the rebellion under acts of Congress declaring them to be a legal tender in payment of private debts, and since the close of that war redeemed and paid in gold coin at the treasury, shall be reissued and kept in circulation, notes so reissued are a legal tender.