persons to accept a specified private employment, lay down a test which absolutely prohibits other competent persons from entering that employment.

Smith vs. State of Texas, 233 U. S. Adv. Rep. 630

A statute which fixes the annual salary of a public officer at a designated sum without limitation as to time is not abrogated or suspended by subsequent enactments which merely apporpriate a less amount for that officer for particular years and which contain no words expressly, or by clear implication, modifying or repealing the previous law.

United States vs. Vulte, 233 Adv. Rep. 509

1. The guardianship of the United States over allottee Indians does not cease upon the making of the allotment and the allottee becoming a citizen of the United States. Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221 U. S. 286.

2. The United States has capacity to sue for the pur. pose of setting aside conveyances of lands allotted to Indians under its care where restrictions upon alienation have been transgressed. Heckman vs. United States, 224 U. S. 418.

3. A transfer of allotted lands contrary to the laws of Congress is a violation of governmental rights of the United States arising from its obligation to a dependent people, and no stipulations, contracts or judgments in suits to which the United States is not a party can affect its interest.

4. The authority of the United States to enforce a restraint lawfully created by it, cannot be impaired by any action. without its consent.

5. Restrictions on alienation imposed by acts of Congress such as that of March 2, 1889, regarding the allotments to the confederated tribes specified therein, are not mere personal restrictions operative upon the allottee alone, but run with the land and are binding upon his heirs as well for the specified term.

6. The intent of Congress in regard to its enactments (such as those relating to restrictions on alienation of

Indian allotted lands) may be indicated by subsequent enactments relating to the same subject-matter.

191 Fed. Rep. 19, affirmed.

Bowling and Miami Investment Co., vs. United States, 233 U. S. Page 528.

Note Well. While owners of a railroad constructed and operated for the public use, although with private property for private gain, are not, in the absence of negligence, subject to action in behalf of owners of neigh. boring private property for the ordinary damages attrib utable to the operation of the railroad, a property owner may be entitled to compensation for such special damages as devolve exclusively upon his property and not equally upon all the neighboring property.

2. In this case, held that an owner of property near the portal of a tunnel in the District of Columbia constructed under authority of Congress, while not entitled to compensation for damages caused by the usual gases and smoke emitted from the tunnel by reason of the proper operation of the railroad is entitled to compensation for such direct, peculiar and substantial damages as specially affect his property and diminish its value.

Richards vs. Washington Terminal Cʊ., 233 Adv. Rep, 546.

U. S. CIRCUIT COURT of APPEALS. Imprisonment in a penitentiary is an infamous pun. ishment" within the common law rule as to the compe⚫ tency of witnesses.-Maxey v. United States, 207 F.327. A witness convicted of felony and sentenced to imprison. ment in the penitentiary held incompetent; the common law rule not having been changed by Congress except as to civil suits. The "orimen falsi” of the common law not only involved the charge of falsehood but also is one which may injuriously affect the administration of jus tice by the introduction of falsehood and fraud.

A physician, who had taken down decedent's statement concerning the accident, having been permitted to read what he had written of the interview, including decedent's statement that the cause of the injury was the "truck fell on me," it was not error to refuse to permit evidence of further conversations between the physician and deceased as to the manner of the injury, as to which the witness had no recollection independent of the paper, Illinois Cent, R. Co., v. Porter, 207 F. 311,

Evidence of detectives employed to look up the reputa tion of a witness for truth and veracity is not admissible. Young v. Corrigan, 208. F. 431.

While persons, who by virtue of liens or otherwise have an existing interest in property to be sold at judi· cial sale, may lawfully combine together for the protection of their interests and may even expressly agree not to bid against each other, in furtherance of a plan to conserve their rights, in so doing their activities must not operate to exclude any part of the general public from bidding.

Investment Registry v. Chicago & M. Electric R. Co., 206 F. 488.

1. A vendor under an executory contract is a trustoa of the legal title to secure payment of the purchase price, And then convey to the purchaser.

2. Vendor's failure to return vendee's notes given for* part of the purchase price, after the same had been dishonored, held not to negative the vendor's intention to terminate the contract.

3. Where on the vendee's default the vendors elected to treat the contract as at an end and in a suit for specific performance asked no affirmative relief, there was no question of rescission within the rule that one seeking to rescind must restore to the other party the amount received in part performance.-Rexford v. Southern Woodland Co., 208 F. 295.

1. On a trial for murder, where evidence is introduced which in any degree tends to support the defense of insanity at the time of the commission of the homicide, the issue as to whether or not the defendant was then sans or insane is a question of fact for the jury to determine under proper instructions from the court.

Sec. 2094 of the Pensl code provides:

2. "All persons are capable of committing crime except those belonging to the following classe4: *

Fourth: Lunatica, insane persons, and all persons of unsound mind, including persons temporarily or partially deprived of reason, upon proof that at the time of committing the act charged against them they were incapable of knowing its wrongfulness.”

HELD, That under this provision the test of criminal responsibility for committing an act which is declared to be a crime is fixed at the point where the accused has mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, as applied to the particular act, and to understand the nature and consequence of such act.

Sec. 5902 of Procedure Criminal provides:

3. "Upon a trial for murder, the commission of the homicide by the defendant being proven, the burden of proving circumstances of mitigation, or that justify or excuse it, devolves npon him, unless the proof on the

part of the prosecution tends to show that the crime committed only amounts to manslaughter, or that the defendant was justifiable or excusable."

HELD, That where the defense sought to be established is insanity, that the legal presumption of sanity must be overcome by evidence which is sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt of the defendant's sanity at the time of the commission of the homicide. When that is done the presumption of sanity ceases and the burden of establishing the sanity of the defendant is upon the state, which is then required to prove his sanity as an element necessary to constitute the crime, and if upon consideration of all the evidence, together with all the legal presumptions applicable to the case, the jury have a reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant was mentally competent to distinguish between right and wrong, or to understand the nature of the not he was committing, he should be acquitted.

4. Chapter 113, Laws 1913, prescribes the punishment of death must be inflicted by electrocution", and substitutes the penitentiary for the county jail as the place where a judgment of death must be executed, and requires the court to appoint a day for the execution, not less than sixty, nor more than ninety days from the time of the judgment. The former statute required the court to appoint a day for the execution, not less than thirty, for more than sixty days from the time of the judgment, the punishment of death to be by hanging or by electrocution, as the trial court might order.

HELD, That the changes effected by the law relate solely to penal administration, and it was within the power of the legislature to make them applicable to offenses committed prior to its enactment. The extension of the time within which the execution may take place after sentence is a mitigation, and not an increase of punishment, and does not render the act EX POST FACTO, and substituting the penitentiary for the county jail as the place where the judgment of death must be executed, is not EX POST FACTO, when applied to a