Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/376

 BEOECK V. BARGE JOHN M. WELOH. 369 �the provisions of, the same statute, and the same rate of wharfage, as in the case now pending. Eeference is made to The Ann Ryan, 7 Benediot, 20. If the petitioners have any grievance that can or ought to be redressed, no other remedy than by writ of prohibition is available or possible to them. Being citizens of the same state as the libellants, they cannôt ask equitable relief by original action in any federal court. The t...iount involved in the pending cause being less than $50, there is no appeal open to the petitioners, if their boat should be condemned by the district court ; and that it would be condemned, on final hearing, they can have no doubt, in view of the decision of the same court in the case of the Ann Ryan, But the amount actually involved to the petitioners, if presented in one cause of appeal, would be large enough to give the supreme court of the United States jurisdiction. They are advised that they ought not to apply to the courts of the state of New York for relief against proceedings which wharf owners contemplate taking in a federal court, much lesB against proceedings already begun in a federal court. Should the supreme court grant the petitioners' motion for an alternative writ of prohibition to the said district court, sitting as a court of admiralty in said cause, the petitioners, on the return to the same, will submit in their behalf the following propositions, the contrary of which they believe to be error: (1) That, in a cause of wharfage, there is no lien given by the general maritime law ; that the laws of the state of New York give no such lien ; and that, therefore, the said district court, as a court of admiralty, cannot proceed in rem to enforce a wharfage claim ; (2) that, if there is a general maritime lien, the law of the state of New York cannot be invoked to determine the amount of such lien; that the law of the state of New York, enacted May 6, 1870, and its amendments, is repugnant to the constitution of the United States, in so far forth as it makes a distinction in wharfage rates between canal-boats plying on its own waters and ail other canal-boats. A law which makes such a distinction does not impose on vessels, for the use of wharves, a mere compensatory payment. A compensatory payment merely v.2,no.8— 2e ����