Opinion of the Court. street and Halstead street and Ashland avenue, in the city of Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, of which two hundred acres are covered by pens, which are made by fences surrounding and enclosing the same, there being alleys running through the yards separating the pens, into which alleys gates lead from the pens. The number of the pens is about five thousand and they are in size respectively from eight feet square to fifty feet square. Railway tracks belonging to and operated by the Chicago Junction Railway Company, which connect with all the lines of railway to the city of Chicago, extend into the yards, over which cattle, hogs and other live stock received at or shipped from the Union Stock Yards are carried. Upon the arrival of cattle, hogs or other live stock at the Union Stock Yards consigned to the commission merchant at the Union Stock Yards, such cattle, hogs or other live stock are placed by the owner or consignee thereof or his or its agents, in one or more of the pens, and are there cared for, fed and watered by such owner or consignee. Any person is at liberty to send, take or to receive cattle, hogs or other live stock into the Union Stock Yards, and there place or have the same placed in a pen or pens, care for the same, and there sell any cattle belonging to him or which he has the right to sell. Any person has access to the pens containing cattle, hogs or other live stock for the purpose of buying the same, and has liberty to purchase or negotiate for the purchase thereof. Sales of cattle, hogs and other live stock in the yards are at private sale. Commission merchants having cattle, hogs or other live stock in a pen or pens in the yards seek and solicit a buyer therefor, and when a proposed buyer is so found take him to the pens in which such live stock is contained, and there exhibit such live stock; and to such proposed buyer, or to any person who may come to said pen and who may desire to buy, such live stock is sold in the pen in which they are yarded. Sales of cattle, hogs and sheep in the yards are by weight, and upon a sale thereof being made such live stock is taken by the owner or commission merchant having charge thereof from the pen in which it is confined to a scale or scales in the yard and belonging to the Union Stock Opinion of the Court. Yard and Transit Company, and are there weighed by a weighmaster employed by the Union Stock Yard and Transit Company and in charge of the scale in which said live stock are weighed, and the weight of such live stock is thereby determined as the weight for which the purchaser pays upon his purchase, and the amount of the purchase price at the price per pound or per hundred pounds fixed in such sale is thereby determined." The corporation has nothing to do with the selling or purchasing of stock of any kind. The market at the Union Stock Yards is unquestionably the largest in the country. The plaintiff in error at these yards as agent for a corporation then carrying on the business of a live stock commission character and which was a dealer in live stock, sold to another as agent for the Eastman Company, also a corporation created for the purpose of dealing in live stock, a certain amount of merchandise for present delivery without affixing any stamp to the memorandum. We cannot see any real distinction sufficient in substance to call for a different decision between the Union Stock Yards and an exchange or board of trade. We think it is a "similar place" within the meaning of the statute under consideration. It is true that there are no sales or purchases of stock made by members of the stock yards company as such. Any one is accorded the right to bring his cattle to the stock yards upon payment of the regular fees and compliance with the regulations made by the company, and having brought his cattle he has the right accorded him by the company to have them kept, fed, watered, etc., and to sell them himself or by a commission merchant who need not be a member of the stock yards company. It is plain to be seen that the privilege or facility for a sale of the cattle or other stock at the yards of such company is of precisely the same nature and character as that which exists at an exchange or board of trade which is so described in terms. That the sales are made by the owners of the cattle or by commission merchants who are not members of the Opinion of the Court. The facilities for a stock yards company, is not material. sale exist and are made use of in each case, and are in truth the same in each. A perusal of the facts contained in the record in the case shows that those yards answer all the purposes of an exchange or board of trade, and that they in truth amount in substance to the same thing. The differences existing between them are unsubstantial so far as this point is concerned. The sales at that place are accomplished with a facility which it is plain could not exist but for the conditions. and advantages afforded by the use of those yards. The owner of the cattle who brings them to the yards and avails himself of the privilege of selling them at that place does without doubt make use of a privilege which every one knows is an advantage sufficient to constitute a material difference between a sale at the yards and a sale elsewhere. This advantage, although one which any person could use, is yet of precisely the same nature as that existing in the case of an exchange or board of trade, and it is therefore a similar place within the meaning of the statute. Being a similar place, the reasons stated in the foregoing cases apply with equal force here and demand the same judgment. For the reasons above stated, we make the following disposition or the cases before us: In Nos. 435 and 625, the orders of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois are affirmed. In No. 4 Original, the petition for a writ of habeas corpus is denied. In No. 636, the judgment of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois is affirmed. So ordered MR. JUSTICE BROWN and MR. JUSTICE WHITE Concurred in the result. Statement of the Case. GUTHRIE NATIONAL BANK v. GUTHRIE. ERROR TO AND APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF OKLAHOMA. No. 188. Submitted January 18, 1899. -Decided April 8, 1899. In ascertaining the jurisdictional amount on an appeal to this court, it is proper to compute interest as part of the claim. Whether a general law can be made applicable to the subject-matter, in regard to which a special law is enacted by a territorial legislature, is a matter which rests in the judgment of the legislature itself. The statute in question in this case creates a special tribunal for hearing and deciding upon claims against a municipal corporation, which have no legal obligation, but which the legislature thinks have sufficient equity to make it proper to provide for their investigation, and payment when found proper, and it does not in any way regulate the practice in courts of justice, and it is indisputably within the power of the territorial legislature to pass it, and it does not infringe upon the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution. The court has the power in the absence of statutory provisions for notice to parties, to make rules regarding it. THE President of the United States by proclamation dated March 23, 1889, 26 Stat. 1544, declared that the Territory of Oklahoma would be open for settlement on April 22, 1889, subject to the restrictions of the act, approved March 2, 1889, c. 412, 25 Stat. 980, 1004. By that act the lands were to be disposed of to actual settlers under the homestead laws only, and until the lands were open for settlement under the proclamation of the President no person was permitted to enter upon or occupy the same. By the act, approved May 2, 1890, c. 182, 26 Stat. 81, Congress provided a temporary government for the Territory, and by the act, approved May 14, 1890, c. 207, 26 Stat. 109, provision was made for townsite entries. From the opening of the Territory, under the proclamation of the President, down to the passage of the act of May 2, 1890, Congress failed to establish any government for it. During that period settlers had come into the Territory and a number Statement of the Case. of townsites had been located and settled upon by them. Many persons located and took up their residence upon the land contained in the present boundaries of the city of Guthrie. The lands were surveyed into streets, alleys, squares, blocks and lots, and what were known as provisional municipal governments were formed. By the general consent of these residents four distinct provisional municipal corporations or villages, denominated Guthrie, East Guthrie, Capitol Hill and West Guthrie, comprising some 320 acres each, were created. They were all without any law governing them, although officers were selected by the people occupying the lands, and a form of government was carried on by a kind of mutual understanding. The persons chosen as officers incurred indebtedness in administering the affairs of the municipalities, but there was no authority to raise the necessary revenues by taxation or otherwise to pay the same. These officers exercised in fact the powers usually delegated to municipal corporations. Public improvements, such as grading streets, constructing bridges, and erecting buildings were made, laws and ordinances were adopted, and offenders were punished. Schools were maintained, and the right of possession of the various claimants to town lots within their respective boundaries was regulated and certificates were issued by the local tribunals constituted by the municipal authorities for determining the rights of settlers and occupants of the various lots within the limits of the municipal governments, and the certificates thus issued were by the second section of the townsite act, above mentioned, 26 Stat. 109, to be taken as evidence of the occupancy of the holder thereof of the lot or lots therein described, except that where there was an adverse claim to the property the certificate was to be only prima facie evidence of the claim or occupancy of the holder. The claims mentioned in the act of the territorial legislature hereafte spoken of arose out of these circumstances and represented the expenditures of the provisional governments for some or all of the objects above enumerated. In December, 1890, a code of laws for the permanent government of the Territory was enacted by the territorial VOL. CLXXIII-34 |