Statement of the Case. per, lead, nickel, pewter, tin, zinc, gold, silver, platinum, or any other metal, and whether partly or wholly manufactured, forty-five per cent. ad valorem ;' and these protests were the only written protests filed by the plaintiff with the defendant in this case. "9. The plaintiff took an appeal from the decision of the defendant collector on both the said importations to the Secretary of the Treasury within due time, and the Secretary of the Treasury having sustained the defendant collector in both cases, the defendant brought this suit in due time, and filed with the attorney of the defendant a bill of particulars in compliance with the requirements of section 3012 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. "10. I find as a fact that in connection with his testimony as to making entries of said importations the plaintiff testified: 'I deposited what they demanded under protest.' "11. On the question of the nature and dutiable character of said 432 pieces of iron and said four riveted girders of iron, there being on record in said case an admission of the defendant in the following language: "It is hereby admitted that the 432 pieces of iron and the four pieces of iron-the proper classification of which for duty, under the tariff act of March 3, 1883, is in question in the above-entitled case-are for the purposes of this case, and for this case alone, "manufactures not specially enumerated or provided for in" said "act, composed wholly of iron," within the meaning of paragraph 216 of said act, and are subject to duty under said paragraph at the rate of forty-five per centum ad valorem. "This admission as to the classification and nature of said pieces of iron is made to apply to this case and to this case alone, and the United States and the defendant are not to be estopped or prejudiced thereby in any other case whatsoever;' I find that said 432 pieces of iron and said four pieces of iron were dutiable at the rate of forty-five per centum ad valorem, as claimed by the plaintiff. "12. The value of said 432 pieces of iron was $2647; the value of said four pieces of iron was $216; and the excess of Statement of the Case. duties paid over duties due is, on said 432 pieces of iron, $1698.14, and on said four pieces of iron, $ 69.55. "13. The court finds that the plaintiff is entitled to recover the sum of $1767.69, and interest from the date of the writ and costs. "LE BARON B. COLT, "On the same day the following bill of exceptions is allowed and ordered to be filed: "This was an action to recover the amount of certain duties alleged to have been illegally exacted of the plaintiff by the defendant, collector of the port of Boston, upon certain pieces of iron imported by the plaintiff into said port in the year 1888. The pleadings in the case are hereby referred to and made a part of this bill of exceptions. The parties, by their attorneys of record, filed with the clerk a stipulation in writing, waiving a jury. This case came on to be heard before the Honorable Le Baron B. Colt, Circuit Judge, at the May term, 1894. "The court made thirteen special findings of fact, which are hereby referred to and made a part of this bill of exceptions. 66 Joseph Birtwell, the first witness called by the plaintiff, testified that on February 27, 1888, he imported from Antwerp by the steamship Jan Breydel, into the port of Boston, and entered at the custom-house at said port, 432 pieces of manufactures of iron; and that on the fourteenth day of March, 1888, he imported from Antwerp by the steamship Petre De Connick, into said port of Boston, and entered at the custom-house at said port, four riveted girders. "By agreement of counsel, naval office copies produced by the witness Birtwell of the entries of said two lots of iron, and triplicate copies of the consular invoices thereof offered by him in evidence, were admitted in lieu of the originals, or collector's copies. "The witness Birtwell then further testified that on the date of importation and entry, in the case of each of said two Statement of the Case. lots of iron, the defendant collector estimated the duties thereon at one and one-quarter cents per pound, and the third finding of fact of said Circuit Court shows that said estimation was under that provision of schedule C of the tariff act of March 3, 1883, which reads as follows: 'Iron or steel beams, girders, joists, angles, channels, car-truck channels, TT, columns and posts, or parts or sections of columns and posts, deck and bulb beams, and building forms, together with all other structural shapes of iron or steel, one and one-fourth of one cent per pound.' He further testified that on February 29, 1888, for the purpose of obtaining said 432 pieces of iron, he paid the duties estimated thereon by the defendant collector, amounting to the sum of $2889.29, and that on March 14, 1888, for the purpose of obtaining said four riveted girders, he paid the duties estimated thereon by the defendant, amounting to the sum of $166.75, and that he actually obtained said 432 pieces of iron and said four riveted girders at the times when he paid the estimated duties thereon, respectively. "From one of the entries referred to above, offered by the plaintiff and received in evidence, it appeared that the defendant collector liquidated the duties on said 432 pieces of iron on the fourth day of April, 1888, at the same rate and under the same provisions of law at which he had estimated said duties; and from the seventh finding of fact of said Circuit Court, it appears that on the tenth day of April, 1888, the defendant collector liquidated the duties on said four riveted girders at the same rate and under the same provisions of law at which he had estimated said duties. "The examination of the witness Birtwell was then suspended, and the plaintiff called Miss Clara Kenrick. She testified that she had for many years been the protest clerk in the custom-house at the port of Boston, and was said clerk during the year 1888, and that it was her duty to receive and care for protests filed by importers against the rate of duty exacted by the collector of said port upon their importations of merchandise. "The entries of the plaintiff of the two lots of merchandise Statement of the Case. in question, referred to above, were then shown to Miss Kenrick and identified by her as naval office copies of the entries made by the plaintiff of the two lots of merchandise in question, and the stamps thereon, showing the dates of payment of the estimated duties and of the liquidation, were explained by the witness, corroborating the witness Birtwell, to mean what has been stated above. "The witness was then asked: 'What is understood by the custom-house clerks as the liquidation of an entry?' She testified: 'Well, the duties are figured on the entry and the entry goes to the naval office for examination, then comes back to another clerk, who puts the stamp on -" liquidated" -and completes the liquidation.' "Two papers were then handed to the witness by the attorney for the plaintiff, and she was asked if there was anything upon them to show when they were filed at the custom-house. She testified that there were stamps upon each of said papers indicating the dates, respectively, at which they were received at the custom-house. She further testified that the date upon one of the papers which related to the plaintiff's importation of said 432 pieces of iron by the steamship Jan Breydel was April 4, 1888, and that the date upon the other paper which related to the plaintiff's importation of said four riveted girders by the steamship Petre De Connick was April 10, 1888, and she testified that said papers were the protests in writing filed by the plaintiff with the defendant collector against the rate of duty exacted by him upon said importations. "She was then asked the following question by the counsel for the plaintiff: 'What were your duties in relation to protests filed at that time, so far as the time within which and when they should be filed was concerned?' The question was objected to by the counsel for the defendant, but the court overruled the objection and permitted the witness to answer, and the defendant then and there duly excepted. "The answer of the witness to said question was as follows: 'The instructions of the department as to when protests should be received have varied from time to time. At some times we have been instructed to receive them at any time from the Statement of the Case. date when the entry was made up to the end of ten days after liquidation. At other times we have been instructed to receive them only within ten days after liquidation.' "The witness was then asked by the counsel for the plaintiff the following question: Can you, from your memory, tell which of those practices was in vogue at this time in 1888?' Her reply was, 'I think the last one.' The witness then testified further that she was the clerk who received protests; that she made certain entries in a book regarding them, giving the place from which the goods were imported, the date when the protests were received, the name of the importer, and the subject of the protest and appeal; the name of the vessel, the date of entry, whether the entry is duty paid or bonded, the date of liquidation and the date of filing the protest and appeal, and then it was her duty to send the protest to the deputy collector of customs; that the protests were required to be filed in duplicate, and that the original protest and appeal are sent to the deputy collector of customs and the duplicate protest retained by the witness; and that the original protest and appeal are afterwards sent by the deputy collector to the Secretary of the Treasury at Washington; that in some cases the deputy collector of customs sent protests to the appraisers and did not send protests to the Secretary of the Treasury, unless the report of the appraisers confirmed the decision of the collector, and that the decision of the Secretary of the Treasury upon protests and appeals is sent to the collector of customs from whom they have been received. "The witness then identified two papers as the appeals to the Secretary of the Treasury filed by the plaintiff with the defendant collector in the matter of the decision of the defendant as to the rate of duty chargeable upon defendant's [?] said two importations. "Up to this point the papers containing the protests and appeals referred to above had not been formally offered in evidence by the plaintiff. Counsel for the plaintiff then formally offered in evidence the two papers identified by the witnesses Birtwell and Kenrick as the protest filed by the plaintiff with the defendant collector against the rate of duty |