(9840.)

Manufactures in part of metal-Leather whips with a metal whistle attached dutiable as.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 5, 1890.

SIR: The Department is in receipt of your letter of the 17th ultimo, submitting the appeal (7010 x) of Messrs. L. S. Friedberger & Co. from your assessment of duty, at the rate of 25 per cent. ad valorem on steel watch chains, 35 per cent. ad valorem on certain whips, and 45 per cent. ad valorem on certain dog leaders, imported by them per La Champagne, October 7, 1889.

Your assessment of duty on the steel watch chains and the dogleaders classified respectively as "jewelry" and "manufactures of metal and leather" under T. I., 216 and 459, being in accordance with Department's decisions, Synopses 8515 and 8830, is hereby affirmed.

66

In view of the report of the appraiser that the whips in question, which are composed of leather with a metal whistle, are properly dutiable at the rate of 45 per cent. ad valorem as manufactures in part of metal" under T. I.,, 216, and the Department's decisions, Synopses 6257 and 9061, and your report that the entry will be reliquidated at that rate, the claim of the appellants that they are entitled to entry at the rate of 30 per cent. ad valorem as "manufactures of leather" under T. I., 463, is hereby rejected.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 6, 1890.

SIR: The Department is in receipt of your letter of the 21st ultimo, submitting the application of Messrs. J. H. Walker & Co. for reconsideration of its decision of November 11 last, affirming your assessment of duty, at the rate of 50 per cent. ad valorem, on certain silktrimmed hats, imported by them and covered by their appeal (765 x). The hats in question, it appears, were classified as manufactures of which silk is the component material of chief value, under the provision

therefor in T. I., 383, and the Department's decision of May 10, 1889 (Synopsis 9374), while the appellants claim that they were entitled to entry at the rate of 30 per cent. ad valorem under the provision for "bonnets, hats, and hoods, for men, women, and children, composed of chip, grass, palm leaf, willow or straw, or any other vegetable substance, hair, whalebone or other material, not specially enumerated or provided for in this act," in T. I., 400.

The articles being "hats" not of wool, and as such specifically pro vided for as claimed by the appellants, are, under the principlesenunciated by the United States Supreme Court, in its recent decision in the case of Edelhoff vs. Robertson, dutiable at the rate of 30 per cent. ad valorem (under T. I., 400).

You are therefore authorized to reliquidate the entry accordingly, and to pursue the same course with respect to other entries involving the same question, in which the requirements of law as to protest, appeal, institution of suit, etc., have been fully complied with.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 6, 1890.

SIR: Referring to your letter of the 24th ultimo, relative to the refusal of the collector of customs at New York to accept any security from you in the matter of the lien for freight filed by the steamship company on one package imported for you per Rotterdam, I have to state that a report in the matter has been received from the collector, from which it appears that his action is in accordance with the rulings of this Department, which are to the effect that the security mentioned in section 2981, Revised Statutes, should run to the party who is to receive the payment, and that it is not the business of customs officers to embarrass themselves by taking a bond in such cases, against which action parties filing a lien for freight would have good ground for complaint.

This rule may seem, in cases like yours, where the steamship company refuses, according to your statement, to accept any security what

ever, to be a hardship, but nevertheless the Department is unable to afford relief.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 7, 1890.

SIR: The Department is in receipt of your letter of the 17th ultimo, submitting the appeal (7011 x) of Messrs. A. Strauss & Co. from your assessment of duty, at the rate of 45 per cent. ad valorem, on certain key-chains, imported by them per La Bourgogne, October 14, 1889, and claimed to be dutiable at the rate of 2 cents per pound, under the provision in T. I., 171, for "chain or chains of all kinds, made of iron or steel, less than of an inch in diameter."

The appraiser reports that the merchandise consists of steel chains with a loop on one end and a catch on the other, intended for use in securing bunches of keys to the person.

In view of the Department's decision of March 20, 1888 (Synopsis 8740), in which it was held that certain surveyor's chains were entitled to entry under the provision in T. I., 171, for "chain or chains of all kinds, made of iron or steel," above quoted, the Department is of the opinion that the chains in question, which are in fact and commercially known as chains, are entitled to entry as claimed by the appellants.

You are therefore authorized to readjust the entry accordingly, and to take the necessary steps for refunding the excess of duty. GEORGE C. TICHENOR,

Respectfully yours,
(7011 x.)

COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS, New York, N. Y.

Assistant Secretary.

(9844.)

Final withdrawals-Settlement of balances due on warehouse bond.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 7, 1890.

SIR Referring to your letter of the 16th ultimo, reporting in the matter of the complaint of G. W. Patton & Co., relative to your re

fusal to allow exportation of certain wool waste now in warehouse at your port without payment of additional duty claimed to be due on certain noils, imported at the same time and warehoused under the same bonds, I have to state that the matter has been given careful consideration and an opinion obtained from the Solicitor of the Treasury, who advises that this wool waste can not be properly held for a deficit of duties on the noils, and that the only remedy consists in a suit for the recovery of the debt on the noils, either against the importers or on the bond, such as has already been instituted.

Inasmuch as the Solicitor intimates a doubt as to the legal sanction of your proposed course, although apparently authorized by the Regulations, and further expresses the view that the warehousing bond should be, and doubtless is, a sufficient security for unpaid duties on the noils, you are authorized to allow the withdrawals for export as requested without exacting the payment of the balance claimed to be due on the noils.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 7, 1890.

GENTLEMEN: The Department is in receipt of your letter of the 30th ultimo, in which you request permission to file an application for damage allowance on three hundred bales of wool, imported into New York per Ludgate Hill, on the 25th ultimo, which merchandise now remains under "general order" as unclaimed at that port.

In reply, you are informed that as the merchandise still remains unclaimed, no entry having been made at the custom-house, the Department must decline to grant your request.

Applications for damage allowances can only be received and acted upon under the statute (see section 2927, Revised Statutes) when the goods have been duly entered at the custom-house, and their ownership thus made known to the collector.

Respectfully yours,

(3984 f.)

GEORGE C. TICHENOR,

Assistant Secretary.

Messrs. OELRICHS & Co., New York, N. Y.

(9846.)

Fees for drawback entries.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 7, 1890.

SIR: The Department is in receipt of your letter of the 24th ultimo, further in relation to the difference between the fee of $1 prescribed in paragraph 37 of the fee-list of 1886 and the fee of 50 cents prescribed by paragraph 65 of the fee-list of September 4, 1889 (Synopsis 9606), for "transportation entry for exportation for drawback."

You inquire whether, in view of the fact that the transportation and export entry is generally recognized throughout other parts of the new fee-list as a combined entry, for which a fee of $1 is chargeable, the amount of the fee in said paragraph 65 should not also have been $1 instead of 50 cents.

In reply, you are informed that the entry for transportation for exportation for drawback is, in the opinion of the Department, a single entry, liable to a single entry fee, which is 50 cents, and that a double fee for such entry appears to have been erroneously introduced into the fee-list of 1886 by the revisers of the fee-list of 1884, wherein a single fee was prescribed.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 7, 1890.

SIR: The Department is in receipt of your letter of the 31st ultimo, reporting on the application of Dr. G. Futterer for the free entry of nine cases of furniture and other household effects imported by him at your port on December 24 last.

The applicant states that he came to this country on December 31 last; that the effects in question have been in his possession for more than one year, some of them for many years, but that they have not been in actual use, as he has not been keeping house, but has been traveling, and the effects have been stored away.