Opinion of the Court. unclaimed goods to the public stores, could not refuse a permit for these goods to land, and cause them to be sent to the public stores to be disinfected at the expense of the owner, and if he did so, he, as well as all other persons who detained the goods because of non-payment of these unauthorized charges, became liable in damages for such unauthorized detention. 5. That the act of the Collector, being without authority, could confer no authority upon defendants to hold the goods, until the charges incurred because of the unauthorized acts of the Collector were paid. Had the matter rested here it might perhaps have been claimed that the state court had ruled adversely to an authority exercised under the United States, but on appeal to the Court of Appeals the judgment of the General Term was varied to the extent of holding that the defendants were liable only for detaining the goods until the charges for disinfection were paid. That court held in substance: 1. That the direction of the Collector that the rags be sent to the Baltic stores and Robbins' Reef was pursuant to the requirement that they should be disinfected, and pursuant to the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, and in aid of the Health Officer in the execution of his official power. 2. That the work of disinfection was not conducted under the supervision or control of the Health Officer, nor pursuant to his employment of the defendants, and that the Health Officer had testified that he never gave any order for the disinfection of the rags, and that the defendants assumed to do this work without any direction of the Health Officer, and without approval by him of the efficiency of the work or the charges resulting from it. 3. That this objection was not applicable to the charges for lighterage and storage, and that the Collector was justified in directing, as he did, the sending of the rags to these places, and the expense of such transfer was a lien upon the property. 4. That the charges for lighterage paid by the defendants, according to the custom in such cases, and for the storage for Opinion of the Court. the time the rags properly remained with them, were a lien upon the property. 5. That, so far as defendants required payment for the further claim for disinfection, as a condition of the delivery, they were chargeable with duress of property, and that the plaintiffs were entitled to recover this amount from them. The result, then, of this summary of the case is briefly this: The defendants claimed as a Federal question that they had set up as a defence to this action an authority exercised under the United States, viz., an authority given by the Collector of Customs to disinfect these rags. In relation to this, the General Term held that the Revised Statutes gave no authority to the Collector to take possession of these goods, and retain possession of them, and that his seizure of the goods, and causing them to be sent to the Baltic stores, was an unauthorized act, and if he caused them to be disinfected, he became liable in damages. The Court of Appeals, however, held that the direction of the Collector that the rags should be sent to the places where they were taken, was pursuant to the requirement that they should be disinfected, and in aid of the health officer in the execution of his official power, by the observance of the regulations made by him; that the Collector gave no order for their disinfection; that the Health Officer gave no such order; and that the defendants assumed to disinfect them without authority, and hence their charges therefor were illegal; but that, as the Collector had properly sent them the goods for such action as the health authorities might see fit to take, the plaintiffs became liable for storage and lighterage. It follows then that, as the Court of Appeals ruled, as matter of fact, that the Collector never ordered the rags to be disinfected, (a ruling which is not reviewable here, Dower v. Richards, 151 U. S. 658; In re Buchanan, 158 U. S. 31; Israel v. Arthur, 152 U. S. 355,) and as matter of law, that he had the right to send them to the proper warehouse for disinfection, it appears that the ruling was in favor of and not against the validity of the authority set up and claimed under Statement of the Case. the laws of the United States. We may add in this connection that, as it clearly appears that the collector had no authority to order the goods to be disinfected, we think the Court of Appeals was correct in holding that his somewhat ambiguous order of June 9, directing that the goods should be sent to the Baltic stores for disinfection, should be considered as an order to send the goods for disinfection, in case such disinfection were ordered by the health officer. The disinfection, if ordered at all, was ordered by the health officer, and the charges for this are all for which the defendants were held liable. Whether such order was ever given by the health officer was a question solely within the jurisdiction of the APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR 162 291 THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA. No. 140. Argued and submitted December 20, 1895. —) 160 369 L-ed 460 173 702 160 369 L-ed 460 176 676 160 369 As this appeal was taken long after the act establishing the Circuit Courts L-ed 460 179 600 of Appeals went into effect, and as there is an entire absence of a certificate of a question of jurisdiction, the appeal is dismissed for want of jurisdiction. In re Lehigh Mining Co., 156 U. S. 322, and Shields v. Coleman, 157 U. S. 628, distinguished from this case. Even if an examination of the record would have disclosed a question of jurisdiction, which is very doubtful, this court cannot be required to search the record for it; as it was the object of the fifth section of the act of 1891 to have the question of jurisdiction plainly and distinctly certified, or at least to have it appear so clearly in the decree of the court below that no other question was involved, that no further examination of the record would be necessary. THIS was a petition by Sarah Van Wagenen and others for the review and reversal of certain proceedings in the case of John M. Hanson v. The United States, and of a decree VOL. CLX-24 Statement of the Case. rendered therein, ordering a survey of the Hanson or Miles grant, made by the Surveyor General upon the petition of one Greeley, assignee in bankruptcy of Hanson, which said survey had been approved by a decree of the District Court of April 13, 1889. The petition set forth that the petitioners were the owners in fee of an undivided one third interest in this grant, which contained sixteen thousand or more acres, situate in the county of Dade, which undivided interest originally belonged to one Hedrick, one of the original petitioners in the case of Hanson v. United States; and that petitioners were also the owners in fee of the whole grant by purchase from the State of Florida; that such grant was originally made by the Spanish government to one Samuel Miles on July 19, 1813, was surveyed and set off to him in 1815, and in 1840 was confirmed to Hanson, Segui, and Hedrick; that upon appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, the title of the claimants, and the decree of the court below were affirmed (16 Pet. 196); but that the Supreme Court set aside the survey as irregular, and ordered the Surveyor General of the Territory to make a new survey, and remanded the case to the Superior Court of East Florida for that purpose; that in accordance with such mandate and decree of the Supreme Court a new survey was made, returned to the land office of the Territory, and the grant then platted from said survey; that such survey was subsequently confirmed and approved of by the said Superior Court, whose decree in that regard has never been reversed, appealed from, or set aside, but still remains in force; and that, by such action and decree, that court exhausted all its jurisdiction under the acts of Congress, and could neither do nor perform any other matter or thing relative thereto. The petitioners further averred that, in 1885, one Greeley, claiming to be assignee in bankruptcy of Hanson, and one Agatha O'Brien, claiming to be the administratrix of Bernardo Segui, also claiming an undivided one third interest in the grant, did by petition in the said cause of Hanson v. United States, to the District Court for the Northern District of Florida, allege, as well as in the petition of Rufus K. Sewall, Statement of the Case. who was made a party thereto, that said grant had never been surveyed, nor had any survey ever been confirmed or approved, as directed by the Supreme Court and the Superior Court of the Territory; and did pray that the survey might be had in accordance with the decree of such courts; and that, in pursuance of such petition, the District Court, in 1885, ordered the then Surveyor General to make such survey, which was in fact made, returned to the court in accordance with this order, and in 1889 was confirmed - all without notice to the petitioners - and as they averred, beyond the jurisdiction and power of the court; that the same was invalid, by reason of the fact that the court had no jurisdiction in the premises, having exhausted all jurisdiction and powers it possessed under its previous decree confirming the survey made in 1851; that the allegations contained in the petition of Greeley were untrue, in averring that no survey had been made; that neither the representatives of Segui, nor Greeley, as assignee of Hanson, had any right in the grant; that the new survey was unjust to the petitioners, in that it greatly changed the lines of the original survey, and reduced largely . the area of the grant, and in other respects affected the just rights of the petitioners. Wherefore petitioners prayed that all of such proceedings for the new survey be vacated and set aside as absolutely null and void, and for further relief, etc. On January 6, 1892, Sewall appeared by his solicitors, and demurred to the petition upon two grounds: first, that the record and proceedings attached to and made a part of the petition showed that a proper and final decree had been made in the cause, adjudicating fully all the issues made therein; and, second, that the court had no power or jurisdiction to grant the petitioners the relief prayed for therein. This demurrer having been sustained by the court, the petitioner Sarah Van Wagenen prayed for a rehearing, upon the ground that the final decree made in 1851 fully and finally disposed of the cause, and exhausted the jurisdiction of the court, etc.; and that the court had no power, by proceedings taken in 1885, to order a resurvey. |