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Opinion of the Court.

uniform taxation on the part of the several States. Thus, by holding that the States possess the power claimed in this case to exist, not only will a wrong be committed, but that\ wrong will be permanently and without remedy engrafted into our constitutional system.

I am authorized to say that MR. JUSTICE FIELD, MR. JUSTICE HARLAN and MR. JUSTICE BROWN Concur in this dissent.

AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY v. INDIANA.

ADAMS EXPRESS COMPANY v. INDIANA.

UNITED STATES EXPRESS COMPANY v. INDIANA.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF MARION COUNTY, INDIANA.

Nos. 469, 470, 471. Argued December 10, 11, 1896. Decided February 1, 1897. Adams Express Co. v. Ohio, ante 194, followed, and held to govern this

case.

THE case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Lawrence Maxwell for the express companies. Mr. Clarence A. Seward for the Adams Express Company, and Mr. Frank H. Platt for the United States Express Company, were on his brief.

Mr. Attorney General and Mr. William A. Ketcham, Attorney General of the State of Indiana, for defendant in error. Mr. Alonzo Greene Smith, Mr. Merrill Moores and Mr. Leon O. Bailey were on their brief.

Mr. James C. Carter for the American Express Company.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the

court.

Dissenting Opinion: White, Field, Harlan, Brown, JJ.

These were three actions instituted by the State of Indiana, in the Circuit Court of Marion County in that State, against the American Express Company, the Adams Express Company and the United States Express Company, to recover unpaid taxes for the years 1893 and 1894.

The defendants filed answers, setting up, among other defences, that the act under which the taxes were assessed was invalid because in contravention of the Constitution of the United States.

The causes were consolidated and tried by the Circuit Court, which made a special finding of facts and stated conclusions of law thereon in favor of the defendants, and entered judg ment accordingly. The consolidated cause having been carried on appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, the judgment below was reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to restate the conclusions of law and to enter judgment against the defendant in each case as specifically directed. 42 N. E. Rep. 483. This was done, and from the judgments so entered writs of error were sued out from this court.

The legislation of the State of Indiana, the validity of which is attacked in these cases, so far corresponds with that of the State of Ohio, that the. questions presented upon this record are the same, in effect, as those considered in Adams Express Co. v. Ohio State Auditor, and other cases, just decided, 165 U. S. 194, and require no reëxamination. For the reasons there given the judgments are

MR. JUSTICE WHITE dissenting.

Affirmed.

MR. JUSTICE FIELD, MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, MR. JUSTICE BROWN and myself dissent from the judgment of the court in these cases. As there is no substantial difference between the legal questions presented in the Ohio cases and those in the present cases, the reasons stated in the dissent announced in the former are relevant here, and are referred to as furnishing the reasons for this dissent.

Statement of the Case.

ROSENCRANS v. UNITED STATES.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF MONTANA.

No. 522. Submitted January 11, 1897. Decided February 1, 1897.

Under the act of July 20, 1892, c. 208, the grand jury in the southern division of the District of Montana had jurisdiction to find the indictment which forms the subject of discussion in this case; and, after such indictment had been found, the court had authority to remit it to the other division for trial.

Where Congress has expressly legislated in respect to a given matter, that express legislation must control, in the absence of subsequent legislation equally express, and is not overthrown by any mere inferences or implications to be found in such subsequent legislation.

The indictment of a person employed in the postal service for secreting, embezzling or destroying a cheque or draft in a letter delivered to him as such agent need not give a full description of the cheque or draft; but it is sufficient to say that, the instrument having been destroyed, the grand jury is unable to give any further description than is found in the indictment.

THE act of February 22, 1889, c. 180, 25 Stat. 676, 682, admitting Montana into the Union, provided that the State should constitute one judicial district, and that the sessions of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States should be held at Helena, in Lewis and Clarke County, that being the capital of the State. On July 20, 1892, the following act (c. 208) was passed, 27 Stat. 252:

"That the territory embraced within the following counties in the District of Montana, to wit: Beaverhead County, Madison County and the county of Silver Bow shall hereafter constitute and be known as the southern division of the District of Montana, and regular terms of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States for said district may be held at Butte City, Montana, on the first Tuesday in February and the first Tuesday in September of each year; and the said courts so sitting at Butte shall have and exercise the same jurisdiction and authority in all civil actions, pleas or pro

VOL. CLXV-17

Statement of the Case.

ceedings, and in all prosecutions, informations, indictments, or other criminal or penal proceedings conferred by the general laws on the District and Circuit Courts of the United States; and where one or more defendants in any civil cause shall reside in said division, and one or more defendants to such cause shall reside out of said division, but in said district, then the plaintiff may institute his action either in the court having jurisdiction over the latter or in the said division. That this act shall not affect the jurisdiction, power and authority of the court as to actions, prosecutions and proceedings already begun and pending in said district, but the same will proceed as though this act had not been passed, except that the court shall have power, which it may exercise at discretion, to transfer to the court in said division such of said. pending actions, prosecutions and proceedings as might properly be begun therein under the provisions of this act."

On March 18, 1895, an indictment in five counts was presented in the Circuit Court, charging the defendant with violating section 5467 of the Revised Statutes, which reads:

"Any person employed in any department of the postal service who shall secrete, embezzle or destroy any letter, packet, bag or mail of letters intrusted to him, or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any mail carrier, mail messenger, route agent, letter carrier or other person employed in any department of the postal service, and which shall contain any

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draft, cheque, warrant,

. or any other article of value, or writing representing the same, . . shall be punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for not less than one year nor more than five years."

The fourth count, upon which alone the defendant was found guilty, charged that on the 13th day of July, 1894, "in the State and District of Montana and within the jurisdiction of this court," the defendant, "a person employed in the postal service of the United States, to wit, a railway postal clerk, and in the discharge of the duties of that position on the Great Northern Railway, between the station of

Opinion of the Court.

Havre, in the county of Choteau, and the station of Kalispell, in the county of Flathead, in said State of Montana," did destroy a registered letter and the contents thereof, which letter had "come into his possession as such railway postal clerk, and which was intended to be and was then and there being conveyed by United States mail, and which said registered letter had been deposited in the mail at the United States post office at Sacramento," directed to "Mrs. Emilie Heistans Greitzer, Gasthaus etzel b. Einsedeln Ct. Schwizz, Schweizerland, which said registered letter contained a draft for fifty francs, D. O. Mills & Co., No. d.08250, on Paris, France (a more particular description of which is to the grand jurors aforesaid unknown).”

The term of the Circuit Court for the District of Montana, at which the grand jury was empanelled and at which this indictment was presented, was held at the city of Butte, in the southern division of the district. Thereafter, the defendant having been arrested, on motion of the United States District Attorney, the indictment was remitted for trial to the term of court to be held at Helena, in Lewis and Clarke County, in the other division of the district. No objections to this transfer were made by the defendant. Trial being bad, the jury found the defendant guilty, as heretofore stated, under the fourth count. A motion in arrest, in which for the first time the question of jurisdiction was raised, having been made and overruled, the defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for the term of one year; whereupon this writ of error was sued out.

Mr. Thomas H. Carter and Mr. S. S. Burdett for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Solicitor General for defendants in error.

MR. JUSTICE BREWER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

Counsel for defendant state that the main question for determination is one of jurisdiction: First, of the grand jury

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