class of cases appeal or writ of error was to this court direct. In the second class of cases the writ of error or appeal was to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Under § 505 the judgments of the Circuit Court of Appeals were made final in all cases coming to it from the district court, with the provision that the Circuit Court of Appeals might certify propositions of law to this court in any cases pending before it upon writs of error or appeals. The like provision as to the finality in the Circuit Court of Appeals was, we think, carried into the Judicial Code in § 134 thereof, and a writ of error or appeal to this court was allowed where the Federal Constitution was involved, under the provisions of § 247. In § 134, as in the Alaska Code from which we have quoted, the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals was made final "in all such cases," that is, in cases in which the section permitted appeals or writs of error to the Circuit Court of Appeals.

It is true that § 134 begins by reference to cases other than those which may come to this court, and might be construed to allow appeals to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit only in cases which could not be brought directly to this court. But, bearing in mind the sources of the legislation which was enacted into the Judicial Code and the interpretation which this court has placed upon the Circuit Court of Appeals Act of 1891, we are led to the conclusion that it was not the intention of Congress to give practically two appeals in the class of cases which we are now considering. Under § 5 of the Circuit Court of Appeals Act, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, direct appeals might be taken from the district courts or circuit courts to this court in cases which involved the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States, and where such was the only matter involved, an appeal could not be taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Carolina Glass Co. v. South Carolina, 240 U. S. 305, 318. But in cases wherein issues were involved affecting the

53.

Opinion of the Court.

construction and application of the Constitution, as well as others upon which the case might go to the Circuit Court of Appeals under the Circuit Court of Appeals Act, two appeals were not allowed, and the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals was final if the case was taken there, and the jurisdiction originally invoked rested solely upon grounds which by § 6 of the Circuit Court of Appeals Act (§ 128, Judicial Code) made its judgment final. Macfadden v. United States, 213 U. S. 288; Robinson v. Caldwell, 165 U. S. 359; Loeb v. Columbia Township Trustees, 179 U. S. 472; American Sugar Refining Co. v. New Orleans, 181 U. S. 277; Boise Water Co. v. Boise City, (No. 2), 230 U. S. 98.

Under the original Alaska Act, cases involving the application of the Constitution were directly reviewable in this court, and those reviewable by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit were by the terms of the act made final in that court. The Judicial Code, which is primarily a codification of former statutes, carried the provisions of these sections into that code with the change which made all criminal cases, capital as well as others, final in the Circuit Court of Appeals. Itow v. United States, 233 U. S. 581.

We think Congress in enacting the Judicial Code contemplated no change as to the finality of the judgments of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in cases taken to that court from the District Court of Alaska.

The plaintiff in error might have taken a writ of error from this court to the District Court. (§ 247.) It did not choose to do so, and as the cases involved issues other than those relating to the Constitution, sued out a writ of error from the Circuit Court of Appeals. By the terms of § 134 the judgment of that court is made final.

The contention that the effect of this construction is to make the Circuit Court of Appeals a court of final jurisdiction in cases involving questions of the construction and

Opinion of the Court.

249 U. S.

application of the Constitution, is met by the suggestion that this court has ample power under the Judicial Code to review judgments of the Circuit Court of Appeals, made final in that court, by writs of certiorari. (§ 240.)

Reaching the conclusion that the judgments of the Circuit Court of Appeals were final in these cases, it follows that the writs of error must be

Dismissed.

ALASKA SALMON COMPANY v. TERRITORY OF

ALASKA.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH

CIRCUIT.

No. 151. Argued January 20, 1919.-Decided March 3, 1919.

Decided on the authority of Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. Alaska, ante, 53. Writ of error to review 236 Fed. Rep. 62, dismissed.

The case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Warren Gregory, Mr. E. S. McCord and Mr. W. H. Bogle, for plaintiff in error, submitted.

Mr. George B. Grigsby, Attorney General of the Territory of Alaska, for defendant in error.

Memorandum by direction of the court, by MR. JusTICE DAY.

This action was brought in the District Court of Alaska by the Territory of Alaska to recover license taxes from the Alaska Salmon Company. Judgment was rendered

in the District Court in favor of the Territory. To review that judgment a writ of error was taken from the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court. 236 Fed. Rep. 62. A petition for a rehearing was filed, and denied. Petition for writ of certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals was denied in this court. 242 U. S. 648.

The writ of error must be dismissed. The judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was final for the reasons set forth in Nos. 117 and 118, just decided, ante, 53.

Dismissed.

WITHNELL v. RUECKING CONSTRUCTION COMPANY.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.

No. 142. Argued January 16, 1919. Decided March 3, 1919.

When an assessment for a local improvement is made in accordance with a fixed rule prescribed by legislative act, the property owner is not entitled to be heard in advance on the question of benefits. P. 68. Within this principle, an assessment made in accordance with the rule prescribed by the charter of the City of St. Louis is legislative in character, since that charter, having been adopted by direct vote of the citizens under a special provision of the Missouri constitution, has, as respects local assessments, all the force of a legislative act. P. 69. St. Louis v. Western Union Telegraph Co., 149 U. S. 465. The method of assessing part of the cost of local improvements according to frontage, as provided in the St. Louis charter, is unassailable, under the previous decisions of this court. P. 70. Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., 240 U. S. 55; s. c., 245 U. S. 288. Objections based on the manner of laying out an improvement district, and on alleged failure to conform with the city charter, raise only local questions. P. 70.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

249 U. S. The system of area assessment provided by the St. Louis charter (Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., 240 U. S. 55) is not per se obnoxious to the Fourteenth Amendment, and becomes so in its application only when the results are palpably arbitrary or grossly unequal. P. 71.

269 Missouri, 546, affirmed.

The case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Edmund T. Allen and Mr. Clifford B. Allen, for plaintiff in error, submitted:

An ordinance providing for the apportionment of the cost of an improvement must, in order to be valid, provide some rule capable of producing reasonable equality between the parties assessed, and a fair distribution of the taxes proportionately to the benefits received. Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., 240 U. S. 55; Myles Salt Co. v. Iberia Drainage District, 239 U. S. 478; Wagner v. Baltimore, 239 U. S. 207; St. Louis & Kansas City Land Co. v. Kansas City, 241 U. S. 419; Houck v. Little River Drainage District, 239 U. S. 254; Martin v. District of Columbia, 205 U. S. 135, 139; Raymond v. Chicago Union Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20.

The ordinance in this case is invalid because the rule it applied to defendant's property did not produce reasonable equality between the parties assessed, and was not based upon the idea of benefits, equality and justice. The same tax was levied on property 297 feet away from the street to be improved as was levied upon property within a foot of it. Gast Realty Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., supra; Norfolk County Water Co. v. Norfolk, 246 Fed. Rep. 652; Norris v. Montezuma Valley Irrigation District, 248 Fed. Rep. 369, 372; Bush v. Branson, 248 Fed. Rep. 377, 380; Dietz v. Neenah, 91 Wisconsin, 422; White v. Gove, 183 Massachusetts, 333.

The ordinance is void because it applied a vicious, arbitrary, and unjust rule to the defendant's property,