the increased cost assessed upon him for the paving. Without any pretence that it has been worn out and required to be replaced by another, it was torn up, and a new and very expensive wooden pavement substituted. The plaintiff in error did not remain silent. He protested and remonstrated, and filed a bill in equity to restrain the work before it began. The city and their contractors can plead no equity against him. It is said that it was all for his interest. But whether he was mistaken or not as to his own interest, he was the judge of that, not this court. The case is not to be decided upon any particular results in this instance, but on general principles which can work with safety and advantage to the public in all other cases. Mr. Hammett may have been specially benefited; though we have no evidence of that on this record, and we have no right to consider evidence derived from any other source, but the next experiment may be unsuccessful and ruinous. It was well said by the court in The People ex rel. Post v. Brooklyn, 6 Barb. 209: "If it be true that certain individuals are so greatly benefited, they will be quite as apt to discover where their interests lie as the Common Council; and if their lands are to be so much enhanced in value, they will, by their contributions, enable the authorities to perform the work at a very trifling expense to the city at large." The object of this improvement is not to bring or keep Broad street as all the other streets within the built-up portions of the city are kept, for the advantage and comfort of those who live upon it, and for ordinary business and travel, but to make a great public drive a pleasureground-along which elegant equipages may disport of an afternoon. We need look no further than the preamble of the act authorizing the improvement of Broad street, passed March 23d 1866, Pamph. L. 299, for evidence that it is for the general public good, not for mere peculiar local benefit. It states it to be "for the uses and purposes of the public, and the benefits and advantages which will enure to them by making and for ever maintaining Broad street, in the city of Philadelphia, for its entire length as the same is now opened, or may hereafter be opened, the principal avenue of the said city." Thus we have special taxation authorized for an object, avowed on the face of the act to be general and not local, which relieves the case of all difficulty as to the fact. We have only to advance the project a few steps further to see how preposterous is the idea of paying for such an

improvement by assessments. In the natural course of things, we may expect that it will be proposed to adorn this principal avenue with monuments, statuary, and fountains. Will their cost be provided for in the same way? How much does this plan differ from a proposition to erect new public buildings on Independence Square, and assess the cost on the lots situated on the neighboring streets? On the same principle, lots on the public squares could be assessed to pay for any new project to beautify and adorn them, no matter how great the expense. It might be argued with equal plausibility that their value was increased by the improvement. We must say at some time to this tide of special taxation, Thus far shalt thou go, and no further. To our own decisions, as far as they have gone, we mean to adhere, but we are now asked to take a step much in advance of them. This we would not be justified, by the principles of the Constitution, in doing.

Local assessments can only be constitutional when imposed to pay for local improvements, clearly conferring special benefits on the properties assessed, and to the extent of those benefits. They cannot be so imposed when the improvement is either expressed or appears to be for general public benefit.

There have been several other points raised and discussed on this record, but we are not obliged to consider them; and as the conclusion at which we have arrived that the Act of Assembly of March 23d 1866, so far as it authorizes the councils of the city of Philadelphia "to enact such ordinances or resolutions with such conditions or stipulations as may require the cost of said improvements to be paid for by the owners of property abutting on said street," is unconstitutional and void, disposes of the whole case, it is unnecessary to discuss any other.

READ, J., dissented.'

Judgment reversed.

We regret that its length prevents our printing the elaborate and able dissenting opinion of READ, J., containing a very full and learned review of the subject of legislative power over local assessments both in England and in Pennsylvania as a colony and as a state.

United States Circuit Court. District of Virginia.

MATTER OF J. D. ALEXANDER, A BANKRUPT.

The appellate jurisdiction, properly so called, of the Circuit Court in bankruptcy matters is limited to controversies between assignees and the claimants of adverse interests, and between assignees and creditor-claimants respecting the allowance of claims.

The supervisory jurisdiction of the Circuit Court includes all decisions of the District Court, or the district judge at chambers, which cannot be reviewed by appeal or writ of error under the appellate jurisdiction given by the 8th section. An appeal must be taken in the time and manner prescribed by the act. The regulations as to appeals are regulations of jurisdiction, and cannot be enlarged or restricted by the Circuit or District Courts.

THIS was a petition by B. C. Bagley and John Alexander for the revision of an order of the District Court. It appeared that among the assets of the bankrupt was a tract of land, encumbered by a deed of trust, executed by him on the 24th of December 1864, in favor of William D. Miller, to secure the payment of three bonds, each for $17,000, payable in four, eight, and twelve years from date respectively; that the petitioner Alexander was tenant of the tract under the assignees, claiming a term, which would not expire until January 1st 1870; and that the petitioner Bagley held a judgment which was a lien on the real estate of the bankrupt, and was claimed to be the next lien after the deed

of trust.

On the 16th of March 1869, the District Court made two orders, one directing the assignees to sell the land, and the other directing that Miller might become the purchaser, and that the assignees should receive the amount of his bid in the trust bonds. at par. The petitioners, as soon as these orders came to their knowledge, prayed an appeal in the name and with the approval of the assignees, and immediately notified Miller and the clerk of the District Court of their appeal.

The time for filing the bond on appeal was extended, by the order of the district judge, until the 18th of April, and on the 14th an order was passed showing that the assignees had filed their bond in the penalty of $10,000. On the 6th of May the assignees informed the counsel for the petitioners that they would not allow the use of their names in the prosecution of this appeal. The petitioners therefore asked, in consideration of the surprise occasioned to them by this information, and also upon the

ground that an appeal from the order of the district judge in such a case as that before him was not allowed by the act, that the court would give them leave to file their petition new presented and grant them appropriate relief.

Bradley T. Johnson, for petitioners.

Chandler and C. Dabney, for respondents.

CHASE, C. J.-The petition invokes the exercise of the jurisdiction of superintendence, conferred upon the Circuit Courts by the 2d section of the Bankrupt Act, which provides that "the several Circuit Courts within and for the districts where the proceedings in bankruptcy shall be pending shall have a general superintendence and jurisdiction of all cases and questions arising under this act; and, except when special provision is otherwise made, may, upon bill, petition, or other proper process of any party aggrieved, hear and determine the case as a court of equity.'

In the consideration of this petition it becomes necessary to ascertain, if possible, the nature and extent of the jurisdiction thus conferred.

It is clear that it must be exercised over proceedings in bankruptcy already pending in the District Court, and it seems to be a reasonable interpretation that it does not extend to decisions of the District Court from which appeals may be taken.

By the 8th section, appellate jurisdiction of such decisions was conferred upon the Circuit Court in four classes of cases: 1st. By appeal in cases in equity decided in the District Court under the jurisdiction created by the act; 2d. By writs of error in cases at law decided in the exercise of that jurisdiction; 3d. By appeal from decisions rejecting wholly or in part the claims of supposed creditors; and 4th. By appeal from decisions allowing such claims.

In the first two classes of cases the appeal or writ of error is given to the unsuccessful party to the suit, whether in equity or at law; in the third class it is given to the dissatisfied creditor; in the fourth to the dissatisfied assignee.

The suits belonging to the first two classes of cases seem to be those of which concurrent jurisdiction is given to the Circuit and District Courts by the 8th section; for no jurisdiction of cases at

law or in equity relating to the estate, rights, or liabilities of the bankrupt is expressly given to the District Court. elsewhere than in the 3d clause of the 2d section; though this jurisdiction may be well enough held to be included in the general grant of the 1st section.

If this view is correct, and the jurisdiction of the District Court under the act, spoken of in the 8th section, is the jurisdiction defined by the 3d clause of the 2d, the appellate jurisdiction by appeal and writ of error from decisions in the exercise of that jurisdiction must be regarded as limited to suits at law or in equity, by assignees against persons claiming adverse interests, or by such persons against assignees.

From these premises the necessary deduction is that the appellate jurisdiction, strictly so called, conferred upon the Circuit Courts, is limited to these controversies between assignees and the claimants of adverse interests, and to controversies between assignees and creditor-claimants touching the allowance of claims.

But there must be, obviously, numerous decisions by District Courts and district judges sitting at chambers which are not included in either of these categories.

The order complained of in the petition is an example. It is not a decree in equity; nor a judgment at law; nor a rejection of claim in whole or in part; nor an allowance of a claim.

From this order, then, it is clear no appeal could be taken. On this point there seems to have been a misapprehension both of counsel and of the district judge; for an appeal was allowed, though not in time; and, afterwards, the time for filing the appeal bond was extended. Of this not ing more need be said now than that the right of appeal, as given by the statute, can neither be enlarged nor restricted by the District or the Circuit Court. The regulation of appeals is a regulation of jurisdiction. The Circuit Court has no jurisdiction of any appeal in any case under the Bankrupt Act from the District Court, unless it is claimed, and bond is filed at the time it is claimed, and notice of it given, as required by the 8th section of the act, within ten days after the entry of the decree or decision appealed from; or unless it is entered at the term of the Circuit Court first held within and for the proper district next after the expiration of the ten days from the time it was claimed.

This is mentioned here only to correct the misapprehension