Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/311

 2o9 u.s. Opiaim of the Cour And, as pointed out in the same case (p. 513), followed since in a long line of cases: "The necessary effect of this enactment is that no judgment or decree of the highest court of a Territory can be reviewed by this court in matter of fact, but only in matter of law. As observed by Chief Justice Waite: 'We are not to consider the testimony in any case. Upon a writ of error, we are confined to the bill of exceptions, or questions of law otherwise pre- sented by the record; and upon an appeal, to the statement of facts and rulings certified by the court below. The facts set forth in the statement which must come up with the appeal are conclusive on us.' Heht v. Boughton, 105 U.S. 235, 236." While the suggestion that because there is no intermediate reviewing. court between this and the District Court of the United States for Porto Rico, differing from what is generally the case in the Territories of the United States, a wider scope of authority should exist in reviewing by appeal the decree of the District Court of Porto Rico, may have cogency, it affords no ground for disregarding the plain command of the statute of 1874, which is here applicable, as expounded by many previous decisions of this court. It follows that the greater part of the transcript is superfluous, and we therefore disregard it and confine our attention to such legal questions as necessarily arise on the face of the record, viz., to rulings concerning the rejection or admission of testimony duly ex- cepted to, and to the sufficiency of the findings to sustain the legal conclusion or decree based on them. The sole complainant, Maria Rios de Rubio, a widow, was averred to be "a resident of San Juan, Porto Rico,-and a loyal subject of the King of Spain." There was no specific traverse of this averment. The court expressly found "that the citi- zenship and residence of the parties was as alleged in the bill of complaint." After the findings of fact had been made and the decree entered, and after an appeal by one of the parties, other of the defendants who had initiated appeals, but had not perfected them, moved for an extension of time to perfect

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