Page:United States Reports, Volume 257.djvu/101

20 Rh such court is held, or by any such laws hereafter enacted which may be adopted by general rules of such circuit or district court". This section was part of an act "to further the Administration of Justice", enacted by Congress June 1st, 1872, c. 255, 17 Stat 196. The law of Mississippi applicable to this subject-matter, therefore, is the law which was in force at that date, unless the United States Court for the Northern District of Mississippi has since adopted by general rules later state law. We are not advised that it has done so.

In 1872, the law of Mississippi as to levies on stock of a corporation was § 849 of the Code of 1871, as follows:

"Bank notes, bills, or evidences of debt, circulating as money, or any shares or interest in any incorporated company, belonging to the defendant in execution, may be taken and sold, by virtue of an execution, in the same manner as goods and chattels, or applied to the payment of the execution; and the clerk, cashier, or other officer having the custody of the books of the company, shall, upon exhibiting to him the writ of execution, be bound to give to the officer having such writ, a certificate of the number of shares or amount of the interest held by the defendant in such company, and if he shall neglect or refuse to do so, or if he shall willfully give a false certificate thereof, he shall be liable to the plaintiff for double the amount of all damages occasioned by such neglect or false certificate, to be recovered in an action on the case against him. The purchaser of such share or interest, at such sale, shall become the owner thereof, in the same manner as if such share or interest had been regularly assigned to him by the defendant."

We are not advised of any construction of this section by the Supreme Court of Mississippi, and we must, therefore, treat it as a case of first impression in determining the proper mode of levying upon shares of corporate stock under its terms.