Page:United States Reports, Volume 257.djvu/96

Rh 10. stock in this settlement. In 1904, the Pacific Improvement Company for $2,770.50 sold the stock to the Mississippi Valley Company, an investment company, and transferred the certificate to that company. The value of the stock, which was little or nothing at the time of the judgment and the compromise, has greatly enhanced and is averred to be $75,000.

By its bill in equity in the state chancery court, the City sought to compel the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Company to recognize the City's ownership of this stock and to issue to it stock of the consolidated company in lieu thereof, in accordance with the terms of the merger. The Mississippi Valley Company, after the answer to the bill revealed its ownership of the stock, was made a defendant and the real contest became one between the City and that company.

In the pleadings and at the hearing the City attacked the marshal's sale as void under the statutes of Mississippi, and relied on the duty of the United States courts under federal statutes to conform their executions and sales to the laws of the State in which they are held. The state chancery court declared the sale void and granted the relief asked by the City. The state Supreme Court affirmed the decree. No opinion was filed in either court.

We are met by a preliminary question of jurisdiction. The case was first brought here by a writ of error to the state Supreme Court. Then, within due time, a petition for a certiorari was also presented, and consideration of the latter was postponed until the hearing on the writ of error. Under which writ can the case be reviewed here? The Mississippi Valley Company relied below, and here insists, on a title acquired under an execution sale of a United States marshal. This is a title claimed under an authority of the United States. Under § 237 of the