THE TARIFF LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES. NOTE. -The use of common type signifies that the language used is the same in the former as in the new law; italics, that the language is that of the new law alone; type enclosed in brackets, that the language is that of the former law alone, and, therefore, not to be read as part of the new law. S. means Synopsis of the Decisions of the Treasury Department. These synopses begin with the year 1868, are numbered consecutively from that time, and are published each month. AN ACT TO REDUCE INTERNAL REVENUE TAXATION, AND FOR [The first five sections relate solely to Internal Revenue.] SECT. 6. That on and after the first day of July, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, the following sections shall constitute and be a substitute for Title thirty-three of the Revised Statutes of the United States: " TITLE XXXIII. DUTIES UPON IMPORTS. SECT. 2491. All persons are prohibited from importing into the United States, from any foreign country, any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing, or other representation, 'It will be noticed that the acts passed since the revision of the statutes, changing the rates of duty, are not specifically repealed. The department takes the ground "that the act of March 3, 1883, has the effect of repealing all previous enactments imposing rates of duty."-Letter of April 24, 1883. S. 5676. 1 figure or image on or of paper or other material, or any cast, instrument, or other article of an immoral nature, or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever, for the prevention of conception, or for causing unlawful abortion. No invoice or package whatever, or any part of one, in which any such articles are contained shall be admitted to entry; and all invoices and packages whereof any such articles shall compose a part are liable to be proceeded against, seized, and forfeited by due course of law. All such prohibited articles in the course of importation shall be detained by the officer of customs, and proceedings taken against the same as prescribed in the following section: Provided, That the drugs herein before mentioned, when imported in bulk and not put up for any of the purposes herein before specified, are excepted from the operation of this section. SECT. 2492. Whoever, being an officer, agent or employee of the Government of the United States, shall knowingly aid or abet any person engaged in any violation of any of the provisions of law prohibiting importing, advertising, dealing in, exhibiting, or sending or receiving by mail obscene or indecent publications or representations, or means for preventing conception or procuring abortion, or other articles of indecent or immoral use or tendency, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall for every offence be punishable by a fine of not [less than one hundred dollars] [and not] more than five thousand dollars or by imprisonment at hard labor for not [less than one year nor] more than ten years, or both. SECT. 2493 [2492]. Any judge of any district or circuit court of the United States, within the proper district, before whom complaint in writing of any violation of the preceding sections [section] is made, to the satisfaction of such judge, and founded on knowledge or belief, and, if upon belief, setting forth the grounds of such belief, and supported by oath or affirmation of the complainant, may issue, conformably to In U.S. v. One Case Stereopticon Slides, Sprague, 467, the Court refused to take judicial notice that a case was a package, and, the information filed against a case of slides alleging them to be indecent and obscene, while the jury found a part indecent and the rest not so, it was held that those not indecent could not be forfeited. the Constitution, a warrant directed to the marshal, or any deputy marshal, in the proper district, directing him to search for, seize, and take possession of any such article or thing hereinbefore mentioned, and to make due and immediate return thereof to the end that the same may be condemned and destroyed by proceedings, which shall be conducted in the same manner as other proceedings in case of municipal seizure, and with the same right of appeal or writ of error. SECT. 2494 [2493]. The importation of neat cattle and the hides of neat cattle from any foreign country into the United States is prohibited: Provided, That the operation of this section shall be suspended as to any foreign country or countries, or any parts of such country or countries, whenever the Secretary of the Treasury shall officially determine, and give public notice thereof, that such importation will not tend to the introduction or spread of contagious or infectious diseases among the cattle of the United States; and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and empowered, and it shall be his duty, to make all necessary orders and regulations to carry this law into effect, or to suspend the same as therein provided, and to send copies thereof to the proper officers in the United States, and to such officers or agents of the United States in foreign countries as he shall judge necessary. [Sect. 2494 Rev. St., authorizing the President to declare the provisions of the preceding section inoperative when importations can be made without danger from infection, is not reënacted.] SECT. 2495. Any person convicted of a wilful violation of any of the provisions of the [two] preceding section [sections] shall be fined not exceeding five hundred dollars, or imprisoned not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court. SECT. 2496. No watches, watch-cases, watch-movements, or parts of watch-movements, or any other articles of foreign manufacture, which shall copy or simulate the name or trademark of any domestic manufacturer, shall be admitted to entry at the custom-houses of the United States, unless such domestic manufacturer is the importer of the same.1 And in order to aid the officers of the customs in enforcing this prohibition, any domestic manufacturer who has adopted trade-marks may require his name and residence and a description of his trade-marks to be recorded in books which shall be kept for that purpose in the department of the Treasury, under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe, and may furnish to the department fac-similes of such trade-marks; and thereupon the Secretary of the Treasury shall cause one or more copies of the same to be transmitted to each collector or other proper officer of the customs. SECT. 2497. No goods, wares, or merchandise, unless in cases provided for by treaty, shall be imported into the United States from any foreign port or place, except in vessels of the United States, or in such foreign vessels as truly and wholly belong to the citizens or subjects of that country of which the goods are the growth, production, or manufacture; or from which such goods, wares, or merchandise can only be, or most usually are, first shipped for transportation. All goods, wares, or merchandise imported contrary to this section, and the vessel wherein the same shall be imported, together with her cargo, tackle, apparel, and furniture, shall be forfeited to the United States; and such goods, wares, or merchandise, ship or vessel, and cargo shall be liable to be seized, prosecuted, and condemned, in like manner, and under the same regulations, restrictions, and provisions, as have been heretofore established for the recovery, collection, distribution, and remission of forfeitures to the United States by the several Revenue Laws. SECT. 2498. The preceding section shall not apply to vessels, or goods, wares, or merchandise, imported in vessels of a foreign nation which does not maintain a similar regulation against vessels of the United States.2 1 Collectors are directed neither to admit to entry nor to seize such importations, but to detain them, and to notify the Department of the facts. (S. 899.) 2 A vessel built in Canada, and owned wholly by citizens of the United States, cannot, under the Registry act of 1792, be a vessel of the United States; nor can she be a foreign vessel wholly belonging to citizens of Canada or Great Britain. Such a SECT. 2499. There shall be levied, collected, and paid on each and every non-enumerated article which bears a similitude, either in material, quality, texture, or the use to which it may be applied, to any article enumerated in this title as chargeable with duty, the same rate of duty which is levied and charged on the enumerated article which it most resembles in any of the particulars before mentioned; and if any non-enumerated article equally resembles two or more enumerated articles on which different rates are chargeable, there shall be levied, collected, and paid on such non-enumerated article the same rate of duty as is chargeable on the article which it resembles paying the highest duty; and on all articles manufactured from two or more materials the duty shall be assessed at the highest rates at which [any of its component parts] the component material of chief value may be chargeable.1 If two or more rates of duty should be applicable to any imported article, it shall be classified for duty under the highest of such rates: Provided, that non-enumerated articles similar in material and quality and texture, and the use to which they may be applied, to articles on the vessel, therefore, engaged in transporting the products of Canada into ports of the United States, may be forfeited, in the absence of proof that she is a British ship, and that neither Canada nor Great Britain have adopted a regulation similar to that of the United States. (The Merritt, 17 Wall. 582.) The department holds that a remission of forfeiture relieves the goods from all disability, and makes them subject to entry, excepting always goods especially prohibited by law from importation. (S. 3480.) Vessels belonging to the subjects of the Argentine Confederation, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Bolivia, Borneo, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, the German Empire, Great Britain and her possessions, Greece, Guatemala, the Hawaiian Islands, Hayti, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Madagascar, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Orange Free State, the Ottoman Empire, Paraguay, Peru, Russia, Salvador, Sweden and Norway, and the Island of St. Bartholomew, Tripoli, Tunis, and the United States of Colombia, do not maintain the regulation mentioned in Section 2498, and their vessels are, therefore, exempt from the provisions of Section 2497, and are admitted into the ports of the United States with the produce or manufactures of their own or other countries on the same terms, as regards both tonnage and import duties, as vessels of the United States. The cargoes of vessels of Costa Rica and Portugal, when consisting of the products or manufactures of their own countries respectively, and merchandise brought in Spanish vessels from places other than Cuba or Porto Rico are exempt from discriminating impost duties. Merchandise from Switzerland is to be treated, as regards discriminating duty, as though it were the produce or manufacture of the nation to which the importing vessel belongs. Merchandise imported by citizens or subjects of Persia and of China is exempt from discriminating impost duty. 1 The component material of chief value (the term frequently occurring in the tariff acts) is held by the department, under the advice of the attorney-general, to be the component material of greater value than any one of the other materials; it need not be of greater value than all. (S. 5207.) This decision of April 28, 1882, is the latest official expression of opinion, varying views having been expressed at different times. |