appropriate proceedings to enforce or vacate the contract. Whit-
son v. Phonograph Co., 565.

6. Where on an appeal from an order granting a motion for a prelimi-
nary restraining order, it appears that the opposition to the mo-
tion was made before answer filed and upon affidavits only, and
that the complainant in his bill stated a case which entitled him
to the restraining order, this court will not disturb the discretion-
ary power exercised by the lower court and go into the merits of
the case. Id.

INSTRUCTIONS TO JURY. See CRIMINAL LAW, 1-4, 12-14.
INTEREST. See USURY.

INTERLOCUTORY APPEALS. See APPELLATE PRACTICE, 1, 2.
INTERPLEADER.

1. A bill of interpleader is not maintainable by a stakeholder against
the claimants of the fund in his hands when he has already con-
tested his liability to them in an action at law and judgment has
been rendered against him, and where there is nothing of an
equitable character involved upon which the court of law was not
competent to pass. Tralles v. Metropolitan Club, 588.

2. Where a stakeholder defends an action at law to recover the fund in
his hands upon the ground that the fund belongs to other claim-
ants who are not parties to the action, and judgment is rendered
against him, the fact that such other claimants are parties to a
bill of interpleader subsequently filed by him, will not add an ele-
ment of equity to the controversy which will render the bill of
interpleader maintainable. Id.

JOINT OBLIGATIONS. See CONTRACTS, 1-3.

The plaintiff, in a suit on an executor's bond, against the executor and
his sureties, by taking a judgment by default against the execu
tor, does not thereby release the sureties from further liability,
although in the declaration it is alleged that the bond is joint
while, in fact, it is joint and several; construing sec. 827, R. S.
D. C. Blagden v. United States, 370.

JUDGMENT. See HABEAS CORPUS, 2.

JUDICIAL DISCRETION. See INJUNCTIONS, 6.

JUDICIAL NOTICE.

The Supreme Court of this District is a court of general jurisdiction
and its terms are fixed by law, of which this court is bound to
take notice, and it is not necessary to the legality of the sessions
of its several branches that the minutes should recite the appear-

ance of the clerk and marshal at the opening of the term, or that
the sitting was in the District and in the building designated for
the purpose. Regularity in these respects is necessarily pre-
sumed. Lanckton v. United States, 348.

JURISDICTION. See CRIMINAL LAW, 19; EQUITY, 1; JUSTICES OF
THE PEACE, 1, 3.

JURY, DISAGREEMENT OF. See JUSTICES OF THE PEACE, 1-3.
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. See CERTIORARI.

1. When a jury empaneled on demand of the defendant in a justice of
the peace case, fail to agree, it is the duty of the justice to dis-
charge them, and the effect of such disagreement and discharge is
not to terminate the cause and oust the jurisdiction of the justice,
but to remit the parties to the position they held before the jury
was empaneled. Chamberlain v. Edmonds, 332.

2. Failure by a justice of the peace to continue a cause to a day certain
after a jury empaneled therein have disagreed and been discharged,
will not operate to discontinue the cause, but either party may
then at any time, upon motion and notice, call it up for trial. Id.
3. Where, after the disagreement and discharge of a jury empaneled
upon demand of the defendant in a justice of the peace case, in
response to a motion by the plaintiff to assign another day for
trial, the defendant objects to the jurisdiction, and, after the
overruling of the objection, the justice proceeds to try the case on
its merits, without the intervention of a jury, and renders judg-
ment for the plaintiff, he acts without jurisdiction and the cause
is properly removable by certiorari to the upper court. There
being a demand for a jury standing on his docket he should sum-
mon and empanel another jury for the trial of the issue, unless
such trial be waived. Id.

LABORERS AND MATERIALMEN. See BONDS; EQUITY, 3; PRIORI-

LACHES.

TIES.

1. The defense of laches will not be sustained upon a demurrer when
the bill clearly charges fraud, and it appears that the complain-
ants have instituted their proceeding within a reasonable time
after their discovery of the fraud. McGee v. Welch, 177.

2. An amended bill of complaint filed June 23, 1900, to vacate a deed of
certain real estate dated July 15, 1843, charged the fraudulent
procurement of the deed by the person under whom the defendants
claimed, from an imbecile, who was under his control; a fraudu-
lent combination between a niece of such person, one of the de-
fendants, and another person to divide the property of the im-
becile, after the latter's death, May 23, 1891, in fraud of her heirs-
at-law, the complainants; and fraudulent abstraction and con-

cealment by the defendants of papers from the files of the court in
an equity cause involving the same real estate. Complainants
stated that they only suspected the fraud within three years of
the commencement of their suit, and had no actual proof of it
until within one year. Held, reversing a decree dismissing the
amended bill on demurrer upon the ground of laches, that it should
not have been disposed of on demurrer, but that leave should
be reserved to the defendants to make the defense of laches in
their answer and at the hearing. Id.

LEASE.

See ESTOPPEL; TRUSTS AND TRUSTEES.

It is not necessary to the validity of a lease of land that the lessee
should have joined in its formal execution by signing it. Railroad
Co. v. Winslow, 438.

LEGISLATIVE REGULATION OF CALLINGS. See TELEPHONE SER-
VICE, 1-3.

1. The exercise of the legislative power to regulate callings affected with
a public interest, is not dependent upon notice and hearing and
it will be presumed that the legislature, in a given case, acted
with due knowledge and fair consideration of all the facts and
circumstances of the situation. Manning v. Telephone Co., 191.
2. One who invokes judicial relief against a statute regulating a calling
affected with a public interest and fixing charges for services ren-
dered, must show beyond a reasonable doubt that the enforcement
of the statute will be destructive of property rights.

LICENSE. See INJUNCTIONS, 2.

LICENSEE OF PATENT. See PATENTS, 20.

LIENS. See BONDS; EQUITABLE LIENS; PRIORITIES, 1, 2.

Id.

MANDAMUS. See BUILDING REGULATIONS, 3; EQUITY, 1; MILITARY
LAW; TAX SALE CERTIFICATES.

MARKET VALUE. See MEASURE OF DAMAGES, 3.

MARRIED WOMEN.

TRUSTEES.

See ESTOPPEL; HUSBAND AND WIFE; TRUSTS AND

1. Where, in a suit by a married woman on a note payable to her, her
uncontradicted testimony is that the money loaned was not ac-
quired by gift from her husband, but was her separate property
acquired from the sale of her real estate in Georgia, it will proba-
bly not be presumed, in the absence of proof of the law of Georgia
relating to the property rights of married women, that the com-
mon-law rule which would make the proceeds of such a sale the
property of the husband, prevails in that State; or that the hus-
band's acquiescence to the wife's claim to the money after its re-
ceipt makes it hers by gift or conveyance from him, within the
meaning of R. S. D. C., Secs. 727-729. Richards v. Bippus, 293.

2. Where one borrows money from a married woman and gives his prom-
issory note for it, payable to her and not to her husband, and is
given credit for payments made upon it, and has no pretense of
set-off or counterclaim against the husband, he is estopped to deny
her capacity to sue on the note for the sole purpose of avoiding
payment of the debt. Id.

1. Where the owner of a tract of land grants to a railroad company a
right of way through her land sixty feet wide and three feet deep,
thereby cutting the tract into two parts, and at the same time de-
livers her promissory note for $500 to the company, in considera-
tion of which the company agrees to construct and operate a
railroad over the right of way and to run its cars thereon at
certain specific hours day and night, and the company, after con-
structing the road and operating it for a time in accordance with
the agreement, wholly abandons it and refuses further to operate
it and run cars thereon, the measure of damages recoverable by
the owner for the breach of the contract, is the actual loss she
has suffered thereby, which is to be determined by the ascertain-
ment of the value of the land to its owner with the railroad upon
it and in operation and the value of the same land with the rail-
road abandoned and its operations ceased. Railway Co. v. Mc-
Devitt, 497.

2. In the absence of actual sales of the property, under such circum-
stances, it is proper to ascertain such value by the opinions and
estimates of persons conversant therewith. Id.

3. In an action against the marshal for an unlawful seizure of goods
under a writ subsequently quashed, in the absence of circum-
stances of oppression or willfulness, it is error for the trial court
to permit the plaintiff to introduce evidence as to what the goods,
bought by him to be sold at auction, would have realized at
auction at the time of the seizure, and to instruct the jury that
in ascertaining the damages they might take into consideration
the amount the goods would have realized at auction if sold by
the plaintiff in his usual course of business at the time of the
seizure; the measure of damages being the market value of the
goods at the time and place of seizure, less their market value at
the time of their return. Palmer v. Augenstein, 511.

MERGER. See EQUITABLE LIEN, 3.

MILITARY LAW.

Where an officer of the army during the war with Spain, after having
been acquitted by a court-martial of charges preferred against

MILITARY LAW - Continued.

him, was, by direction of his commanding general, retried by the
court-martial on the same charges, and was convicted and dis-
missed from the service, and thereafter, peace having been declared,
and its term of enlistment having expired, his regiment was
mustered out and discharged, it was held that mandamus would
not lie on his relation against the Secretary of War to compel the
respondent to cause the relator to be mustered out and discharged.
Brown v. Root, 239.

MISJOINDER OF COUNTS. See CRIMINAL LAW, 16.

"MONEY." See CRIMINAL LAW, 17.

MORTGAGE NOTES. See PROMISSORY NOTES, 2, 3.

MORTGAGOR AND MORTGAGEE. See EJECTMENT, 3, 4.

MOTIVE. See CRIMINAL LAW, 12.

MUNICIPAL ORDERS AND REGULATIONS. See BUILDING REGULA-

TIONS.

1. Where the Commissioners of the District ordered a railway company
to remove an electric switch and appliances, installed by it at the
intersection of certain streets without having obtained permission
to do so, and the company, in a suit for an injunction, obtained an
order temporarily restraining the Commissioners from executing
their official order, it was held, on an appeal from an order over-
ruling a motion by the Commissioners to dissolve the restraining
order, that, as it did not appear that they had exceeded their
powers or abused their discretion or acted oppressively in ordering
the removal of such construction, that the restraining order
should be dissolved. Macfarland v. Railroad Company, 456.
2. A statute or regulation looking to the public interest and safety
will be upheld by the courts unless it is plain that it has no real
or substantial relation to those objects, or is a palpable invasion
of rights secured by the fundamental law. Id.
MUNICIPAL RECORDS, RULE TO INSPECT.
PRACTICE, 3-5.

MURDER. See CRIMINAL LAW, 1-4, 12–15.

See PLEADING AND

NATIONAL BANKS. See AFFIDAVITS OF Defense, 3.

One who purchases from a national bank a number of shares of its
capital stock, paying part cash therefor and giving his promissory
note for the balance of the purchase price, and leaving the shares
of stock in the hands of the bank as collateral security for the pay-
ment of the note, cannot defeat a recovery by the bank upon the
note upon the ground that section 5201, R. S. U. S. prohibits
national banks from making any loan or discount on the security
of the shares of its own capital stock, and from becoming the pur-
chaser or holder of any such shares, unless such security or pur-