Opinion of the court.

judgment revived by scire facias, the execution is a nullity, and all proceedings under it are void.*

The order of the court of Ogle County, that another execution should issue, does not in our judgment affect the case. Upon the death of Galbraith, the jurisdiction of the court as to him terminated. He was no longer before the court. When the order was made he had been dead more than four years. It does not appear that his legal representatives were present, or had any knowledge of the proceedings. The order was proper, and the execution was valid as to the surviving defendants. As to them, the process might have been executed. We cannot understand from the order, that the court intended to affect the estate of Galbraith, or those claiming under him. If such were the intention, the order having been made against parties not shown to have been actually or constructively before the court, was, so far as they are concerned, clearly void.

The authorities which require the fact of competent jurisdiction to be presumed in certain cases have no application here. The statute is in contravention of the common law, and hence to be construed strictly. The notice is a substitute, and the only one permitted for the proceeding, otherwise indispensable, by scire facias. The provision is plain and imperative in its language, and it is the duty of a court called upon to administer it, not lightly to interpolate a qualification which the statute does not contain.

The deed from Galbraith contains a special covenant against the "claims of all persons, claiming, or to claim, by, through, or under him." If the premises in controversy should be lost to the defendants, his estate would be liable .n damages; and his legal representatives were entitled to all the time which the statute allowed them after notice, to show, if they could, that the collection of the judgment ought not to be enforced.

It is contended that it was incumbent on the defendants

*Picket v. Hartsock, 15 Illinois, 279; Brown v. Parker, Id. 307; Finch et al. v. Martin et al., 19 Id. 111.

Opinion of the court.

to show that the proper notice had not been given. We cannot take that view of the subject. The judgment survived only for the preservation of its liens, and as the basis of future action. The statutory notice, or its alternative-a scire facias-was necessary to give it vitality for any other purpose. Upon the death of the defendant being shown, any execution issued upon it was, as to him, primâ facie void. This presumption could be overcome only by showing, either that no legal representative had been appointed, or that the notice required by the statute had been given. The plaintiff asserted a title, and it was for him to show everything necessary to maintain it. The rule on this subject is thus laid down by Chief Justice Marshall:* “It is a general principle, that the party who sets up a title must furnish the evidence necessary to support it. If the validity of a deed depends upon an act in pais, the party claiming under that deed is as rauch bound to prove the performance of the act, as he would be bound to prove any matter of record on which its vitality might depend. It forms a part of his title: it is a link in the chain which is essential to its continuity, and which it is incumbent on him to preserve. These facts should be examined by him before he becomes a purchaser, and the evidence of them should be preserved as a necessary muniment of title." We understand the Supreme Court of Illinois to have ruled this point in the same way.t

The instructions given in the Circuit Court were, in our opinion, correct, and the

JUDGMENT IS AFFIRMED WITH COSTS.

* Williams v. Peyton, 4 Wheaton, 79; see, also, Thatcher v. Powell, 6 Id. 127.

Finch et al. v. Martin et al., 19 Illinois, 110.

Statement of the case.

CASE V. BRown.

A claim for a combination of several devices, so combined together as to produce a particular result, is not good as a claim for "any mode of combining those.devices which would produce that result," and can only be sustained as a valid claim for the peculiar combination of devices invented and described. Burr v. Duryee, 1 Wallace, 553, affirmed and applied.

AMONG the inventions of our country that have assumed great value-especially in the regions of the West, where Indian corn is largely produced-are those known as CORNPLANTERS. The machine consists of a mechanism resembling somewhat, in external appearance, and in section view, a high plough on wheels. It is drawn by a horse, while a man walks behind and manages it. The object is to plant corn at spots, which spots shall be both equidistant and in

rows.

The corn to be planted is placed in a hopper or sort of box, which is fixed in the body of the machine; and, at proper intervals, as the machine is drawn by the horse, the grains are permitted to enter and fall through a valve, at the base of a short vertical spout, to the ground, another valve being at the top of the spout. If the grains were permitted to fall through the full length of the spout as the machine passed on, by a valve at the top only of the spout, they would not reach the ground exactly under the place at which the valve was opened; inasmuch as in the interval of time that the grain was descending through the spout, the machine would have passed over a certain space of ground in being. drawn along by the horse. But, by employing two valves, one opening into the upper end of the spout from the hopper, and one at the bottom of the spout in close proximity with the ground, correct dropping is insured; the forward motion of the machine being compensated for by the double valves.

A certain Jarvis Case had invented one of these cornplanters, and took a patent for it in January, 1845. In this patent he limited his claim to the particular combination of parts which constituted his machine. In November, 1858,

Statement of the case.

he surrendered his patent and obtained a reissue with a more expanded claim. That claim was thus:

"I claim, in combination with a corn-planting machine that is constantly moved over the ground, and drops the grain intermittently, the so combining of two slides, one of which is at or near the seed-hopper, and the other at or near the ground, or their equivalents, with a lever, as that the operator or attendant on the machine can open said slides at the proper time to deposit the seed and prepare a new charge by the double dropping herein specified."

The cut below shows in section the combination or arrangement.

A is the hopper which carries the corn, B the seed-slide or valve leading from the hopper to the seed-tube E, C is the seed-cup in the seed-slide, D is the cut-off in the hopper, E is the seed-tube, F is the slide or valve to seed-tube, G is the hand lever by which the tubes are opened and closed in the plaintiff's machine, H the recoil-spring by which the slide-valves B and the valve F are simultaneously closed when the hand is removed from lever G.*

*This recoil-spring, H, relieved the operator from replacing or pushing back the lever with his extended arm; a matter which, when to be performed many hundred times a day, makes a large demand on muscular strength. With the recoil-spring, one muscular effort did the work of two.

Statement of the case.

In this machine of Case's a lever G, of a peculiar form, was used, which, by being pressed down, effected two operations, viz.: it carried the charge of grain out of the seedbox, and dropped it into the tube E, and it raised the slide F to let out the previously dropped charge. Thus the same operation that planted one charge put the next succeeding charge in close proximity to the ground, so that it had but a few inches to fall when the valve or slide F was opened.

About the same time that Case originally invented his machine, a person named Brown invented one also, and got a patent in May, 1855. The parties were independent inventors. In its essential features, Brown's machine differed from Case's in not employing a lever having a weight or a spring or automatic device to return it to its position and close the valves, although the same final result, namely, the simultaneous double dropping of the seed was accomplished by one motion of the hand of the operator in both cases. The cut below will exhibit the combination and arrangement in this second invention.

A

B

E

A here represents the hopper carrying the grain, B the slide-valve, and C the seed-cup between the hopper and the seed-tube E, and F the slide-valve which permits the seed to pass from the lower end of the seed-tube to the ground.