Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/629

 ÛWIGHT V. MBRRITT. 616 �on the defendant a paper purporting to be a sumtnons, in the form prescribed by the statute of New York for commencing a civil action. It is signed by the plaintiffs' attorney, but is not under the seal of the court, nor is it signed by the clerk of the court. Section 911 of the Eevised Statutes of the United States provides that "ail writs and processes issuing from the courts of the United States shall be under the seal of the court from which they issue, and shall be signed by the clerk thereof." A summons, or notice to the defendant, for the eommencement of a suit^ is certainly proeess, quite as niueh as a capias or a subpœna to appear and answer is pro- eess. The statute intends that ail proeess shall issue from the court, where such proeess is to be held to be the action of the court, and that the evidence that it issues from the court and is the action of the court shall be the seal of the court and the signature of the clerk. It is clear that a signature by the plaintiffs' attorney, without a seal, and an issuing from the oiEce of such attorney, cannot be substituted. There is nothing in the provisions of section 914 of the Eevised Stat- utes as to the conformity in praetice, pleadings, and forma and modes of proceeding in civil causes, other than equity and admiralty causes in the courts of the United States, to the praetice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding in like causes in the state courts, which abrogates the pro- visions of section 911. The two nlust be so construed as to stand together. �The question here presented "was decided by the circuit court for the northern district of Nev? York in Peaslee v. Haberstro, 15 Blatchf. 472, where it was held that the sum- mons must be signed by the clerk and be under the seal of the court, and that section 911 is not inconsistent with or repealed by section 914. The principle of that decision bas been generally adopted in applying section 914 to the praetice of the federal courts in suits at common law. That principle is that where congress bas, by statute, pointed ont a specifie course of procedure, or bas legislated generally upon thesubject-matter embraced or involved in the proceed- ����