Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/49

 BROWN Vi POND. 87 �misdeineanor, and the ëubsequent decisions of the courts, that its service could give no jurisdiction over the person of the defendant, are clearly right, and in accordance with the terma of the statute. Other provisions in the act of 1788 show that this requirement was part of a System designed to prevent groundless and malieious suits for penalties by informers. It prohibited the redelivery of the process to the plaintifif after its issue, or the compounding of any suoh suit -without leava of the court. The act of congress' of September 29, 1789, adopted for the circuit and district courts of the United States the "forms of writs" and "modes of process" in each Btate, respeetively, as then "used and allowed in the supreme court of the states" in suits at common law. 1 St. 93. ThiB act, -which v?as temporary, was continued in force from time to t^me, and made a permanent law in 1792. 1 St. p. 128, c. 13i p. 191, c. 8; p. 276, c. 36, § 2. This law of congress, regu- lating the form of mesne process, continued in force, so far as the United States courts in the state of New York are con- cerned, till 1872, when, by the act of June 1, 1872, § 5, (17 St. 197; Eev. St. 914,) it was provided "that the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding in other than equity and admiralty causes in the circuit and district courts of the United States, shall conf orm as near as may be to the practice, pleadings, and forms and modes of proceeding exist- ing at the time in like causes in the courts of record of the state within which such circuit or district courts are held, any rule of the court to the contrary notwithstanding." Under this statute the old forms of process for the commencement of common-law suits used in this court have been superseded by the summons conforming to the provisions of the New York Code, except that, instead of being signed by the attor- n?y for the plaintiff, it is signed by the clerk of the court, and under its seal; this mode of attestation being required still by an act of congress. Eev. St. § 911. I think there is no doubt that, under the act of 1789, the practice of indors- ing the process in suits for penalties given by statute to any person suing for the same was adopted as a part of the "forms of writs" and "modes of process" to be used in this court, ����