Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/278

 266 FEDERAL REPORTER. �thereof — was a bounty to the parents in consideration of the timely and important services rendered by them in the occu- pation and settlement of the country; and in case of the death of either of them without having received a patent for the donation, the "benign policy" of the act was to secure this bounty, first to the immediate family of the deceased — his widow and "children;" and for lack of the latter, to her and his "heirs" generally. The children of the deceased child of Charles Cutting are certainly within the equity of the statute — more so, even, than were the grandchildren of the deceased pensioner; and there is nothing in the circum- stances of the case or the reason of the provision which should exclude them, as the representatives of their parent, from participating in the bounty of the government. Owing to his comparative age and ability the deceased child may have largely shared -with his father the journeyings, hard- ships, and labor which were involved in obtaining this dona- tion, and in this respect may have been the most deserving of the family. �This is a beneficiai statute — a measure of general utility and justice — particularly the clause under consideration, which provides for the disposition of the donation in case the settler dijBs before he bas obtained a patent, and should therefore have a liberal and benign interpretation. Smith's Com. § 480. Such bas b^een the spirit in which the act bas been construed by the courts. Indeed, in Silver v. Ladd, 7 Wall. 224, the supreme court held that a single woman was included in the description of persons capable of receiving a donation under the fourth section. In delivering the opin- ion of the court, Mr. Justice Miller charaoterizes the act as "one of the most benevolent statutes of the government;" and, particularly in speaking of the construction of this fourth section, says : "Anything, therefore, which savors of narrow- ness or illiberality in deftning the class, among those residing in the territory in those early days, and partaking of the bardsbips which the act was intended to reward, who shaU he entitled to its henefits, is at variance with the manifest pur- pose of congress." ��� �