Sampson et al. v. Peaslee.

controlled by different interpretations and instructions which may have been given by his predecessors to the words, "at the period of the exportation to the United States." Though, as we have read the circulars of the Secretaries of the Treasury in respect to those words in the revenue act, as to the time when duties shall be assessed upon the value of imports, we do not perceive any difference in them, which may not be readily accounted for by the different acts to which the instruction or direction to the collector was meant to be applied. The same remark may be made of the decisions made by this court, whenever it has been necessary for it to determine at what date duties should be assessed upon imported merchandise, subject to an ad valorem rate of duty.

Nor have we been able to bring ourselves to the conclusioningeniously put, and ably urged by the plaintiffs' counsel here that Congress, in passing the tariff act of March 3, 1851, meant to use the words "period of exportation" in the sense in which they had been understood by the Treasury Department in its construction of previous revenue acts, and as that construction may have been sanctioned by this court. There had been uncertainties of opinion and in practice in the Treasury Department, and also in several ports of the United States, in respect to the time when the dutiable value of imported goods should be estimated. Some of the collectors made the estimate at the date of the purchase, whenever that may have been. Other collectors made their estimate at the date of the shipment. Mr. Secretary Walker, in his circular of July 6, 1847, meaning to establish a uniform rule, states the varying practice, and directs the valuation to be made "a the date of the shipment." He says it is the true construction of the law, long since declared by the Department, and adopted generally throughout the Union. He adds, that the proviso of the 16th section of the act of August 30, 1842, is clear and emphatic upon the subject, and prescribes the date, with reference to which the value is to be estimated, as the period of exportation to the United States. But Mr. Secretary Meredith, three years afterwards, in his circular of the 5th July, 1850, eight months before the act of the 3d March, 1851, was passed, observes, that the appraisers had been restrained in the discharge of their duties by the result of frequent appeals from their decisions. And in order to secure a just, faithful, and impartial appraisal of all goods, wares, and merchandise, imported into the United States, he declares

1. That the period of the exportation of merchandise is the time at which the value of any article is to be fixed by the appraisers.

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Sampson et al. v. Peaslee.

2. That in ordinary cases the date of the bill of lading may be regarded as the "period of exportation."

This court decided, in the cases Greely v. Howard, 10 How., 225, and in Maxwell v. Griswold, 10 How., 242, in the year 1850, before the act of the 3d March, 1851, had passed, that under the sixteenth and seventeenth sections of the tariff act of 30th August, 1842, 5 Stat. at L., 563, the value of merchan dise at the time of procurement is to be ascertained, not its value at the time of exportation. Congress, with these differences in view, and particularly in consequence of the decision of this court in the cases just before cited, passed the act of March 3d, 1851. This court in 1855, in Stairs et al. v. Peaslee, 18th Howard, 521, 524, 525, in considering the act, uses this language, which is decisive of the time when the value of goods subject to an ad valorem duty is to be estimated: "The language of this act of Congress is general, and embraces all importations of goods that are subject to an ad valorem duty, and directs that their value shall be estimated and ascertained by the wholesale price at the period of exportation to the United States in the principal markets of the country from which they are imported. The time and the place to which the appraisers are required to look when making their appraisement are both distinctly specified in the law, the time being the period of exportation, and the place the country from which they were imported into the United States. It makes no reference to their value in the country of production or the time of purchase. And as there is no ambiguity in the language of the act, and it embraces all goods subject to an ad valorem duty, the court would hardly be justified in giving a construction to it narrower than its words fairly import.' Though this extract was written with reference to the first point certified in that case, which was, whether the act of the 3d March, 1851, repealed so much of all former laws as provided that merchandise, when imported from a country other than that of production or manufacture, should be appraised at the market value of similar articles at the principal markets of the country of production and manufacture "at the period of the exportation to the United States," the court adds, that the law, taken by itself, will admit of but one construction; and that is, the appraisement must be made by the value of the goods in the principal markets of the country from which they are exported, at the time of such exportation to the United States.'

The case of Stairs v. Peaslee, considered in connection with what this court had decided under the revenue acts in Greely v. Howard, and in Maxwell v. Griswold, 10 How., 242, shows, whatever may have been the practice in computing the time

Sampson et al. v. Peaslee.

for the assessment of duties, that this court viewed the act of the 3d March, 1851, as having fixed the rule to be the time or date of the exportation, as that might be shown by the day of the vessel's sailing from the foreign port to the United States. Indeed, from the phraseology of the act, without reference to preceding acts upon the same subject, or what had been their construction, the same conclusion must be reached.

The word period has its etymological meaning, but it also has a distinctive signification according to the subject with which it may be used in connection. It may mean any portion of complete time, from a thousand years, or less, to the period of a day; and when used to designate an act to be done, or to be begun, though its completion may take an uncertain time, as, for instance, the act of exportation, it must mean the day on which the exportation commences, or it would be an unmeaning and useless word in its connection in the statute.

The ruling of the court upon the first prayer of the plaintiffs is not subject to the exception taken.

We proceed to the second exception taken by the counsel of the plaintiffs to the ruling of the court upon their prayer. It was, that the court would instruct the jury, upon the facts proved, that all the hemp imported by the plaintiffs was to be taken to be one entire entry, for the purpose of declaring and appraising the value for the levy of duties.

No facts in the case were proved, upon which such an instruction could have been given. The proof is, that the plaintiffs were purchasers in Manilla of four thousand bales of hemp, which were put by them into two invoices for their own convenience; one containing two thousand five hundred and twenty bales, the other one thousand five hundred and twenty, and a quantity of loose hemp; the first valued at $58,772.69, the second at $36,367.03, for each of which a separate bill of lading was taken. The plaintiffs entered them separately at the custom-house, and they were separately appraised without any objection at the time from the defendant. But it turned out, upon the appraisement, that the appraised value of the first exceeded by ten per centum the value of it declared upon the entry, which made it liable, under the eighth section of the act of the 30th July, 1846, to the additional duty of twenty per centum ad valorem on the appraised value. But the appraisement of the second invoice of one thousand five hundred and twentyeight bales did not exceed by ten per centum the value declared on the entry of it; nor did the appraised value of the two invoices, constituting the importation of four thousand bales, exceed by ten per centum the aggregate of their separate values declared in the entries of them.

Sampson et al. v. Peaslee

Now, the plaintiffs seek to be released from the twenty per cent. additional upon the appraised value of the first invoice, because the second invoice was not subject to it, and because the aggregate of the values of both, as declared upon the entries of them, were not exceeded by ten per cent. upon the appraisement. Upon such a state of facts, the court rightly instructed the jury, that each invoice and entry was to be deemed and treated as a separate transaction for appraisement, and for the assessment of duties.

An importer of merchandise is bound by the law to make his entry at the custom-house according to his invoice, either by himself, the consignee, or their agent, and not otherwise than by invoice verified by oath, unless it shall be done conditionally, either under the tenth section of the act of March 1st, 1823, or under the second section of the same act, permitting entries to be made of imported merchandise, subject to ad valorem duties upon appraisement without invoice. (3 Stat. at L., 729.)

When an entry has been made, it is conclusive upon the importer as to the contents, and declared value of the invoice; and for all of those consequences which the law may impose upon the examination and appraisement of it, and for any deficiency or non-compliance with the revenue laws regulating the entries of imported merchandise, or for any violation or substantial departure from directions which may have been given by the Secretary of the Treasury for the entry and appraisement of foreign goods, and for the collection of duties upon the same. See general regulations under United States revenue laws, by Mr. Secretary Guthrie, of February 1, 1857.

As to the third exception taken by the plaintiffs to the rulings of the court, we think it was right in telling the jury, that if the examination of the hemp made by the merchant appraiser was such as is usually made in buying and selling the article, and was satisfactory to the merchant appraiser, it was not open to the plaintiffs to show that he adopted a mode of examínation insufficient to detect fraudulent packing or diversities in the qualities of the different parts of the bales of hemp.

The importance of this case in respect to the collection of the revenue under the act of the 3d March, 1851, and under the regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury upon it, have induced us to give to the different points in the case our mature consideration, and we are of the opinion that the judgment of the Circuit Court should be affirmed.

It is ordered accordingly, and that the appellants shall pay the costs which have been incurred in the prosecution of their writ of error.

Mr. Justice GRIER dissented.

Ex parte Ransom et al. v. City of New York.

EX PARTE IN THE MATTER OF FRANKLIN RANSOM AND UZZIAH WEEMAN V. THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN, AND COMMONALTY, OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

Where there was an order of the Circuit Court to set aside a judgment upon payment by the defendant of the costs which had accrued up to that time, the plaintiffs' counsel, by not insisting upon the payment of such costs, thereby impliedly waived the condition upon which the judgment was to be vacated, and cannot proceed upon the judgment as being still in force.

Other circumstances lead to the opinion that it was the understanding of both sides that the judgment should be vacated.

This court therefore overrule a motion for a mandamus directing the court below to set aside the order vacating the judgment, or for a rule to show cause why a mandamus should not issue.

THIS was a motion made by Mr. Keller to issue to the Circuit Court of the United States for the southern district of New York a peremptory writ of mandamus, commanding it to carry into execution a judgment which had been entered upon the records of the court, or to issue an alternative writ of mandamus, commanding the judgment to be carried into execution, or cause to be shown why it was not done.

There were numerous affidavits filed in the case, to show the course pursued by counsel, and arrangements between them; but a brief statement of facts will serve to explain the ground upon which the motion rested.

On the 24th of December, 1856, a verdict was rendered in the Circuit Court in favor of Ransom and Weeman, against the corporation of New York, for twenty thousand dollars, and one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twentyfive cents costs. The ground of recovery was the infringement of a patent right. During the trial, several exceptions were taken by the defendants to the rulings and charge of the court. Notes were taken by reporters, and a memorandum stated, that to set aside the verdict and obtain a new trial this case was made, with leave to convert the same into a bill of exceptions. Things remained in this condition, without any very material change, until the 12th of December, 1857, when the plaintiffs entered up judgment for the amount of the verdict and costs. On that day, the judge, in consequence of an affidavit, ordered that all proceedings in the suit should be stayed till the 15th of December, and until the decision of any motion which may be then made, or at such other time as said court may direct, to vacate any judgment which may be entered in this action, and allow the defendants an opportunity to make a motion for a new trial therein.

On the 19th of December, the court, after argument, passed