Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/721

 MASON ». L. H., B. A B, W. ET. 00. Tl3 �pany made a mortgage on its property to secure certain in- debtedness due to varions of its creditors, and at the Novem- ber term, 1876, of this court, the plaintiffs in this case ûled a bill to foreclose tbis mortgage, and on the fifteenth day of June, 1877, this court rendered a decree of foreclosure, and the railway and its property were directed to be sold, and they were accordingly sold on the thirty-first day of October, 1877. �The petition of Dukes, filed June 14, 1877, assumes that the railroad was constructed on the land described while it was the property of the state, or rather, perhaps, of the trustees to whom it had been transf erred by the state ; the state, at the time the transfer was made, having, it is insisted by the petitioner, an absolute, indefeasible title in the land on which the railway was constructed. The intervening peti- tion of Dukes was referred to the master to determine whethei there should be anything paid to the petitioner for any in- terest whieh he had in the land, and, if so, what sum. The master took evidence in the case and found, and bas so re- ported, that the petitioner was the owner, under his purchase, of the land in controversy, of which the railway had taken possession, and that he was entitled to the sum of $16,800, as a reasonable compensation for the value of the property. The resuit of this report of the master is that he was of the opinion that no right was lost by the owner of the canal property in consequence of the action of the railway company, or of the non-action of the state, or of the trustees, or be- cause of the delay on the part of the latter to interfere with the possession of the railway company. �Various questions have been argued on exceptions taken to the report of the master. The material ones are whether Dukes bought any title to this part of the canal, and, if so, what damages ought to be paid to him as compensation for the land oecupied by the railway company. As connected with this, it becomes necessary to determine whether, under the various laws of the state, it acquired an absolute title ta the property in controversy, or whether it had the mere usô as long as the canal existed as such ; for it is admitted that, long before the righls of the creditors were sought to be en-' ��� �