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not from the exemptions authorized by the state statute. And so Fullerton, J., speaking for the state Supreme Court, said: "Lastly, it is said that the order of the court setting apart the property as exempt does not purport to, nor does it in law, affect existing liens upon the property set apart as exempt, and, unless the liens thereon be such as the law avoids of its own force, such liens may be enforced in the state court against and to the extent of the property affected by the lien, notwithstanding the order setting it apart as exempt, and the discharge of the debt in bankruptcy. In cases of liens which can exist independent of the question whether or not the property is exempt, undoubtedly the rule here invoked would be applicable; but the lien of a general judgment is not such a lien. It is a lien upon real property, only, which is not exempt. Hence if this property was exempt at the time of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy, the judgment under which it was sold was not a lien thereon, and to assume that the judgment was a lien is to assume that it was not exempt,-the very question at issue."

We are not able to perceive that the state Supreme Court denied in any way a right of plaintiffs in error specially set up or claimed under the Constitution or laws of the United States. All that was determined, and all that the state court was called on to determine, was the question of exemption under the state statutes. Its acceptance of the judgment of the Federal court in that regard does not bring the case within section 709. Writ of error dismissed.

196 U.S.

Opinion of the Court.

COMSTOCK v. EAGLETON.

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF

OKLAHOMA.

No. 105. Submitted December 15, 1904.-Decided January 3, 1905.

Under 9, act of May 2, 1890, 26 Stat. 81, c. 182, final judgments of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Oklahoma in actions at law can only be revised by this court as are judgments of the Circuit Courts of the United States in similar actions-by writ of error and not by appeal.

THE facts are stated in the opinion.

Mr. C. J. Wrightsman, Mr. E. L. Fulton, Mr. Andrew Wilson and Mr. Noel W. Barksdale for plaintiff in error.

There was no appearance or brief for defendant in error.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE: This was an action brought by Comstock against Eagleton in the District Court of Pawnee County, Oklahoma, to recover damages for false imprisonment in the sum of $5,317.50.

The petition was demurred to on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, the demurrer was sustained, and the petition dismissed with costs. The case was then carried to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma on error, and the judgment affirmed. 11 Oklahoma, 487. From the judgment of affirmance this appeal was allowed and prosecuted to this court.

By section 9 of the "Act to provide a temporary government for the Territory of Oklahoma," approved May 2, 1890, 26 Stat. 81, c. 182, it was provided that "where the value of the property or the amount in controversy" exceeded five thousand dollars, "writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said Supreme Court shall be allowed and may be

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taken to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit Courts of the United States."

Final judgments of the Circuit Courts of the United States in actions at law can only be revised on writs of error. Deland v. Platte County, 155 U. S. 221; Met. Railroad Company v. District of Columbia, 195 U. S. 322; Bevins v. Ramsey, 11 How. 185; Sarchet v. United States, 12 Pet. 143.

Appeal dismissed.

SCOTT v. CAREW.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH

CIRCUIT.

No. 52. Argued November 7, 8, 1904.-Decided January 3, 1905.

Unless an intent to the contrary is clearly manifest by its terms, a statute providing generally for the disposal of public lands is inapplicable to lands taken possession of and occupied by the Government for a special purpose.

A prior appropriation is always presumed to except land from the scope of a subsequent grant although no reference may be made in the latter to the former.

The establishment of a military post under proper orders on public lands amounts to an appropriation of the land for military purposes and withdraws the property occupied from the effect of general laws subsequently passed for the disposal of public lands, and no right of an individual settler attaches to or hangs over the land to interfere with the action of the Government in regard thereto.

One who wrongfully settled on public land and was dispossessed by proper authority so that the land might be used for a military post acquired by such settlement no priority of right in the matter of purchase or homestead entry when the post was abandoned ard the land opened to private purchase.

ON December 31, 1900, the plaintiffs, who are now appellants, filed their bill of complaint in the Circuit Court of the

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United States for. the Southern District of Florida, praying that the defendants, holding the legal title to a tract of land under patent from the United States, be decreed to hold that title in trust for them. A demurrer to the bill was sustained and a decree of dismissal entered. This was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and from that affirmance this appeal was taken.

The averments in the bill are: The plaintiffs are the sole descendants and heirs at law of Robert J. Hackley, who died in 1845. In November, 1823, Hackley, then over twenty-one years of age, and the head of a family, settled upon and cultivated the tract in controversy. At that time the surrounding country was a dense wilderness and he the only settler. He erected on the tract a substantial dwelling and other buildings. In 1824 Colonel Brooke, with a detachment of United States troops, was sent to this portion of Florida, located a camp or cantonment on this tract, dispossessed Hackley, and took possession of the house and land so occupied and cultivated by him. The Secretary of the Interior, in the contest proceedings hereinafter referred to, in an opinion which is attached to the bill as an exhibit, found that this action was taken by order of the War Department. United States troops continued to occupy the camp or cantonment until December, 10, 1830, when by an executive order of the President the Fort Brooke military reservation was established, containing sixteen square miles of land and embracing the tract in controversy. Thereafter this military reservation was reduced from time to time by executive orders, until on June 1, 1878, only the tract in controversy, commonly known as the "Reduced Fort Brooke military reservation," remained. On January 4, 1883, it was relinquished, and transferred by the Secretary of War to the Interior Department. Hackley, after his removal from the tract, remained a resident of Florida up to the time of his death. On March 3, 1823, Congress passed an act authorizing the President to establish a land office in each of the districts of East and West Florida as soon as in his

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opinion there was a sufficient quantity of public land suryeved to justify it. Under this act and by an executive order in 1828 a land office was established at St. Augustine, in the district in which this land was situate. At. the time this office was established the hostility of the Indian tribes was such as to render communication between it and that portion of Florida where Hackley resided practically impossible. But in the year 1835, although the public surveys had not been extended into this part of Florida, Hackley filed with the register of the land office evidence designating the particular tract which had been settled upon, inhabited and cultivated by him as aforesaid, and claimed the right of preëmption and purchase thereof under and by virtue of the act of Congress of April 22, 1826. By change of the boundary lines of the land districts of Florida the land subsequently came within the jurisdiction of the land office at Newnansville, Florida, whereupon on November 27, 1843, Hackley secured from the register of the land office at St. Augustine a copy of the evidence formerly filed in that office, and filed it with a notice of his claim with the register of the office at Newnansville. On September 26, 1887, the administrator of the estate of Hackley filed in the local land office a supplemental notice of the claim of the legal representatives of Hackley to the right of preëmption in the purchase of the tract. Other parties made application to the Land Department for an entry of said lands, contest proceedings were had, which were terminated by a decision of the Secretary of the Interior adverse to the claim of the plaintiffs, and a patent was issued to Edmund S. Carew, under whom the defendants claim.

The following statutes are relied upon by the parties: Act of Congress, March 3, 1807, 2 Stat. 445, section 1 of which provides:

"That if any person or persons shall, after the passing of this act, take possession of, or make a settlement on any lands ceded or secured to the United States, by any treaty made with a foreign nation, or by a cession from any State to the

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