Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/895

 888 FEDERAL REPORTER. �the other half to the children of the deceased. If there îs no child, the whole shall go to the widow, and if no widow, to his heirs, according to the law regulating the distribution of intestate estates." �XJpon the finding of this indictment the railway was sum- moned to appear; and it did appear at the next November term of the court, and by its attorneys petitioned that the cause might be removed to this court, for the reason that the Grand Trunk Eailway was a foreign corporation, established by the laws of Canada, an alien corporation, and because the penalty or fine to be iraposed exceeded $500, exclusive of costs, to-wit, the sum of $5,000, which penalty or fine the complainants — the widow, administrator, and heirs of John E. Willis — were seeking to recover in the suit, or by this indictment. �Upon the filing of this petition, and the requisite bond, objection was made by the state that this was not a civil pro- ceeding or suit, but was a criminal prosecution, and that it did not appear that the amount in dispute exceeded the sum of $500. The cause was, therefore, ordered "coutinued, " and the question thus raised transferred to the full bench of the supreme court of the state. At the March term of that court, 1879, the court gave its opinion that the proceeding was not of a civil nature, but was a criminal proceeding to enforce a penalty for the "infraction of a state law." �In the meantime the cause was brought to this court, and entered here the May term, 1878. At the same term a motion was made to remand the cause to the state court, because, among other things, the cause was a criminal proceeding, and there is no sum in controversy exceeding the sum of $500. For the first of these reasons, if not for the other, we think the motion must be granted. It is well settled by numerous decisions that in construing local or state statutes the fed- eral courts will foUow the construction given to such statutes by the highest courts of the respective states. �Such decisions are, in some of the cases, said to be as bind- ing as the text of the statute. McKeen y. Delancy, 5 Cr. 22; Polk's Lcssee v, Wendall, 9 Cr. 87; Thatcher v. Powell, 6 Wheat. ����