Opinion of the Court.

against any title or right claimed under the Constitution, or any treaty, or statute of, or commission held, or authority exercised, under the Constitution. If the title of plaintiffs in error were protected by the treaty, still the suit did not arise thereunder, because the controversy in the state court did not involve the construction of the treaty, but the validity of the title of Mexican and Spanish grants prior to the treaty. New Orleans v. De Armas, 9 Pet. 224; Iowa v. Rood, 187 U. S. 87; Phillips v. Mound City Association, 124 U. S. 605.

In Crystal Springs Land and Water Company v. City of Los Angeles, 82 Fed. Rep. 114, the Circuit Court ruled that where both parties claimed under Mexican grants, confirmed and patented by the United States in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, and the controversy was only as to what were the rights thus granted and confirmed, the suit was not one arising under a treaty so as to confer jurisdiction on a Federal court, and that where the only ground of Federal jurisdiction was the allegation in a bill that defendant's claim of title was based in part on certain acts of the legislature of the State, which attempted to transfer to it, as alleged, the title held by complainant's grantors at the time of their passage, the court would not retain jurisdiction when an answer was filed by defendant denying the allegations, and disclaiming any title or claim of title not held by it before the passage of the acts. The bill was dismissed, and we affirmed the judgment. 177 U. S. 169.

The trial court determined for itself, among other questions, the nature and extent of the city's interest in the waters of the river, but while it instructed the jury in relation thereto it did not file its written findings until after the return of the verdict. And it is argued that the respective rights of the parties were not in fact adjudicated until after the amount of compensation had been found, and that in this way plaintiffs in error were deprived of their property without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment does not control the power of a State to determine the form of procedure by which legal rights may be ascertained, if the method adopted gives reasonable notice and affords a fair opportunity to be heard. Iowa Central R.

Opinion of the Court.

R. Co. v. Iowa, 160 U. S. 389; Long Island Water Supply Company v. Brooklyn, 166 U. S. 685.

The construction of a law of a State, that it was competent for the court to try and determine in a condemnation proceeding, an adverse claim of the plaintiff therein to an interest in property sought to be condemned, is conclusive on this court, and we cannot understand how the entry of the verdict of a jury as to the amount of compensation prior to the filing of written findings on the other issues could have the effect of depriving plaintiffs in error of their property without due process of law. The Chief Justice of California well said that it was of no importance in what order the other issues in the case were decided, except in so far as the determination of one point was necessary as a basis for the determination of another, and that if the instructions to the jury actually given were correct, the fact that these findings had not been previously filed was of no consequence.

And so as to certain statutes of the State of California, which declared that the city of Los Angeles is vested with the paramount right to the surface and subterranean water of the Los Angeles River. Those statutes were admitted in evidence merely to show that the city was the successor of the ancient pueblo. The court held that the right of the city of Los Angeles to take from the Los Angeles River all of the waters of the river to the extent of its reasonable domestic and municipal needs was based on the Spanish and Mexican law, and not on the charters of the city of Los Angeles. The validity of the statutes, on account of repugnancy to the Federal Constitution, was not drawn in question in the trial court nor in the Supreme Court of the State, and both courts held that they neither granted to the city nor took away from plaintiffs in error any rights or property.

Section 1249 of the Code of Civil Procedure of California provided that for the purpose of assessing compensation and damages, the right thereto should be taken to have accrued at the time of the summons, "and its actual value at that date, shall be the measure of compensation for all property to be actually taken, and the basis of damages to property not actually taken, but injuriously affected,"

Opinion of the Court.

The validity of the statute under the state constitution had been repeatedly sustained by the state courts, and those courts held that the value referred to in the statute was the actual value at that date.

Plaintiffs in error asked the court to charge the jury that the date of estimating the value of the property was the date of the summons, and the Supreme Court held that in these circumstances they could not be permitted to attack the condemnation statute as unconstitutional so far as related to the appraising the value of the land as provided.

Moreover, this court cannot reverse the decisions of state courts in regard to questions of general justice and equitable considerations in the taking of property. Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112.

The truth is there is nothing in this record adequately showing that the state courts were led to suppose that any claim under the Constitution of the United States was made by plaintiffs in error, or that any ruling involved a decision against a right set up by them under that instrument.

In Sayward v. Denny, 158 U. S. 180, after stating the contention of plaintiff in error that the effect of the judgment of the state court was "to deprive him of his property without due process of law, or to deny him the equal protection of the laws, and amounted to a decision adverse to the right, privilege, or immunity of plaintiff in error under the Constitution of being protected from such deprivation or denial," we said: "But it nowhere affirmatively appears from the record that such a right was set up or claimed in the trial court when the demurrer to the complaint was overruled, or evidence admitted or excluded, or instructions given or refused, or in the Supreme Court in disposing of the rulings below. We are not called

on to revise these views of the principles of general law considered applicable to the case in hand. It is enough that there is nothing in the record to indicate that the state courts were led to suppose that plaintiff in error claimed protection under the Constitution of the United States from the several rulings, or to suspect that each ruling as made involved a decision against a right specially set up under that instrument. And

Statement of the Case.

we may add that the decisions of state tribunals in respect of matters of general law cannot be reviewed on the theory that the law of the land is violated unless their conclusions are absolutely free from error."

This case comes within the rule there laid down and the writ of error must be

Dismissed.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA took no part in the decision of this

case.

LOTTERY CASE1

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS.

No. 2. Argued December 15, 16, 1902.-Decided February 23, 1903.

Lottery tickets are subjects of traffic among those who choose to buy and sell them and their carriage by independent carriers from one State to another is therefore interstate commerce which Congress may prohibit under its power to regulate commerce among the several States. Legislation under that power may sometimes and properly assume the form, or have the effect, of prohibition.

Legislation prohibiting the carriage of such tickets is not inconsistent with any limitation or restriction imposed upon the exercise of the powers granted to Congress.

THE general question arising upon this appeal involves the constitutionality of the first section of the act of Congress of March 2, 1895, c. 191, entitled "An act for the suppression of lottery traffic through national and interstate commerce and the postal service subject to the jurisdiction and laws of the United States." 28 Stat. 963.

The appeal was from an order of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois dismissing a writ of habeas corpus sued out by the appellant Champion, who in his application complained that he was restrained of his liberty by the Marshal of the United States in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

1 Docket title-Champion v. Ames, No. 2. No. 80, argued simultaneously. See p. 375, post.

VOL. CLXXXVIII-21

Francis v. United States,

Statement of the Case.

It appears that the accused was under indictment in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Texas for a conspiracy under section 5440 of the Revised Statutes, providing that "if two or more persons conspire either to commit any offence against the United States, or to defraud the United States in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such parties do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, all the parties to such conspiracy shall be liable to a penalty of not less than one thousand dollars and not more than ten thousand dollars, and to imprisonment not more than two years."

He was arrested at Chicago under a warrant based upon a complaint in writing, under oath, charging him with conspiracy with others, at Dallas, in the Northern District of Texas, to commit the offence denounced in the above act of 1895; and the object of the arrest was to compel his appearance in the Federal court in Texas to answer the indictment against him.

66

The first section of the act of 1895, upon which the indictment was based, is as follows: "§ 1. That any person who shall cause to be brought within the United States from abroad, for the purpose of disposing of the same, or deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or carried from one State to another in the United States, any paper, certificate or instrument purporting to be or represent a ticket, chance, share, or interest in or dependent upon the event of a lottery, so-called gift concert, or similar enterprise, offering prizes dependent upon lot or chance, or shall cause any advertisement of such lottery, so-called gift concert or similar enterprises, offering prizes dependent upon lot or chance, to be brought into the United States, or deposited in or carried by the mails of the United States, or transferred from one State to another in the same, shall be punishable in [for] the first offence by imprisonment for not more than two years or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or both, and in the second and after offences by such imprisonment only." 28 Stat. 963.

The indictment charged, in its first count, that on or about the first day of February, A. D. 1899, in Dallas County, Texas, "C. F. Champion, alias W. W. Ogden, W. F. Champion and