Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/491

 BEBBY V. GINACA. 47& �tity actually conveyed by the plaintiff to Giaaca and Gintz •was a fraction less than 100 acres, so that the plaintiff in fact received from Ginaca before entry of the land more than the amount which can properly be caUed purchase money. Nor do we think the subsequent arrangement, if sueh there was, by which the $400 went into the genejral account between between plaintiff and Ginaca can have the effect of reviving the lien, supposing it to haye ever existed. Under the statute, the purchase money is paid to the United States, -which then conveys the town site to a trustee in trust for the benefit of its inhabitants. The United States is, properly speaking, the vendor and the inhabitants the real purchaser. The trustee, •whether judge or town authoritiea, is a mere channel for the title, with no beneficiai interest in the land, made use of as a convenient mode of vesting the title in the occupants of the town site according to their respect- ive interests. His duties are prescribed by the law, and if he foUows that law no such daim as that made in this suit can ever exist. ■ �Upon the entry of a town site the government makes no inquiry in regard to the source from which the purchase money cornes, but conveys upon receiving the price charged for the land. In case the entry is made by corporate author- ities, the purchase money may, doubtless, corne from the town treasury, or be raised by the inbabitants, so if the entry be by the judge the purchase money will ordinarily be raised in some way by the inhabitants; and, in any such case, it would be a clear breach of duty for the trustee to part' with the legal title before a due proportion of the purchase money had been paid. Should the trustee himself advance the purchase money for the inhabitants, he takes the legal title still upon precisely the same trust as if it had corne from some other source, and it seems clear that he cannot in this way change his relations to the property. He is still noth- ing but a trustee, and not the beneficiai owner. Any attempt on his part to deal with the land as owner, independently, or in disregard of his trust, would be a breach of duty. He can- not, by advancing the purchase money, nut himself in the ����