offensive conduct toward the judges personally for their official acts." Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335, 20 L. Ed. 646. And there appears to be no distinction, as regards the principle involved, between the indignity of an assault by an attorney upon a judge, induced by his official act, and a personal insult for like cause by written or spoken words addressed to the judge in his chambers or at his home or elsewhere. Either act constitutes misconduct wholly different from criticism of judicial acts addressed or spoken to others. The distinction made is, we think, entirely logical and well sustained by authority. It was recognized in Ex parte McLeod, supra. While the court in that case, as has been shown, fully sustained the right of a citizen to criticise rulings of the court in actions which are ended, it held that one might be summarily punished for assaulting a judicial officer, in that case a commissioner of the court, for his rulings in a cause wholly concluded. "Is it in the power of any person," said the court, "by insulting or assaulting the judge because of official acts, if only the assailant restrains his passion until the judge leaves the court building, to compel the judge to forfeit either his own self-respect and the regard of the people by tame submission to the indignity, or else set in his own person the evil example of punishing the insult by taking the law into his own hands? No high-minded, manly man would hold judicial office under such conditions."

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That a communication such as this, addressed to the judge personally, constitutes professional delinquency for which a professional punishment may be imposed, has been directly decided. "An attorney who, after being defeated in a cause, writes a personal letter to the trial justice complaining of his conduct and reflecting upon his integrity as a justice, is guilty of misconduct and will be disciplined by the court." Matter of Manheim, 113 App. Div. 136, 99 N. Y. Supp. 87. The same is held in In re Griffin, 1 N. Y. Supp. 7, and in In re Wilkes, 3 N. Y. Supp. 753. In the latter case it appeared that the accused attorney had addressed a sealed letter to a justice of the city court of New York, in which it was stated, in reference to his decision: "It is not law; neither is it common sense. The result is, I have been robbed of $80." And it was decided that, while such misconduct was not a contempt under the statute, the matter should be "called to the attention of the supreme court which has power to discipline the attorney." "If," says the court, "counsel, learned in the law, are permitted, by writings leveled at the heads of judges, to charge them with ignorance, with unjust rulings, and with robbery, either as principals or accessories, it will not be long before the general public may feel that they may redress their fancied grievances in like manner, and thus the lot of a judge will be anything but a happy one, and the administration of justice will fall into bad repute."

The recent case of Johnson v. State (Ala.) 44 South. 671, was in this respect much the same as the case at bar. The accused, an attorney at law, wrote and mailed a letter to the circuit judge, which the latter received by due course of mail, at his home, while not holding court, and which referred in insulting terms to the conduct of the judge in a cause wherein the accused had been one of the attorneys. For this it was held that the attorney was rightly disbarred in having "wilfully failed to maintain the respect due to him [the judge] as a judicial officer, and thereby breached his oath as an attorney." As recognizing the same principle, and in support of its application to the facts of this case, we cite the following: Ex parte Bradley, 7 Wall. 364, 19 L. Ed. 214; Beene v. State, 22 Ark. 149; Com. v. Dandridge, 2 Va. Cas. 408; People v. Green, 7 Colo. 237, 244, 3 Pac. 65, 374, 49 Am. 351; Smith's Appeal, 179 Pa. St. 14, 36 Atl. 134; Scouten's Appeal, 186 Pa. St. 270, 40 Atl. 481.

Our conclusion is that the charges against the accused have been so far sustained as to make it our duty to impose such a penalty as may be a sufficient lesson to him and a suitable warning to others. In this we put aside the letter to the governor and the publication in the newspapers, and consider only the misconduct of the accused, wherein, as we hold, he was guilty of professional delinquency. He is a practitioner well advanced in life, of an age when it is hardly possible to adapt one's self to a new calling. Perpetual disbarment would be to him a punishment of the severest character. It might take from him his only source of income. So far as we are advised, he has not on any previous occasion shown like disrespect to the courts; and we are not unmindful of the rule that such disbarment should not be inflicted arbitrarily or "unless," as was said in Ex parte Wall, 107 U. S. 265, 2 Sup. Ct. 569, 27 L. Ed. 552, "absolutely necessary to protect the

It is the judgment of the court that the accused be suspended from practicing as an attorney and counselor at law in any of the courts of this state for the period of six months.

Let judgment be entered accordingly.

EDWARD J. SCOFIELD v. FRANK SCHEAFFER.1

State Swamp Lands.

April 24, 1908.

Nos. 15,563-(80).

Since the adoption of the amendment in 1881 to section 2, article 8, of the constitution of the state, title or the right to occupy swamp lands acquired by the state from the United States cannot be acquired by adverse possession against the state.

Same-Action by Purchaser.

The purchaser of state swamp land, who holds a land commissioner's certificate therefor, has such a title as will enable him to maintain an action to have removed a milldam which causes the water to overflow his land.

Action in the district court for Grant county to have a certain milldam on the Pomme de Terre river removed because its maintenance caused the overflow of plaintiff's land and to recover $100 damages. The answer alleged that defendant was the owner of a custom mill which was run by power obtained by means of a dam constructed on that river, that the mill and dam were erected in the year 1874 and had been openly, continuously, and adversely operated ever since that time by defendant's grantors and himself, and that plaintiff bought his land with knowledge of and subject to defendant's right to overflow the same. The case was tried before Flaherty, J., who found as conclusion of law that the dam in question was a nuisance to plaintiff's land; that defendant abate the nuisance and lower the dam four feet;

and that the sheriff be ordered to lower the milldam four feet. From the judgment entered pursuant to the findings, defendant appealed. Affirmed.

K. T. Dahlen and N. J. Bothne, for appellant.

E. J. Scofield and R. J. Stromme, for respondent.

ELLIOTT, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment which requires the defendant to remove a milldam, which in its present condition causes the water to overflow the plaintiff's land.

On June 29, 1896, the United States conveyed the land in question to the state of Minnesota. On November 4, 1905, the respondent purchased the land from the state at a sale of swamp land, and received therefor from the state a land commissioner's certificate, which was duly recorded. Under this certificate the purchaser became entitled to the possession of the land. The court found that twenty five acres of the land was in its natural state valuable for meadow and agricultural purposes. The Pelican river, a small stream some ten or twelve feet wide, flows across the land and into another small stream, known as the Pomme de Terre river. Until the construction of the dam these streams never overflowed the land, so as to injure it for meadow or agricultural purposes. Since July 12, 1893, the appellant has been the owner of certain land lower down on the Pomme de Terre river, on which a dam across that river was erected by the former owners of the land in 1874. The purpose of this dam was to supply water power to run a flouring mill, which was erected about the same time the dam was constructed. The original mill had a capacity of one hundred thirty barrels of flour a day. In 1887 this mill was burnt; but another of smaller capacity was immediately built, and has been in constant use until the time of the commencement of this action. The dam across the Pomme de Terre river has, during all the time since 1874, caused the water in the river to back up and overflow twenty five acres of the plaintiff's land, so as to submerge it to the depth of four feet.

The court found that the defendant had not acquired the right to overflow the plaintiff's land by adverse possession, and ordered a judgment which directed the sheriff to cut down and lower the dam four feet from the height at which it was being maintained when the action was commenced.

The appellant discusses a number of questions, some of which are not raised by proper assignment of error. The rulings of the trial court upon questions of evidence were correct, but are not of sufficient importance to justify extended discussion; nor is there anything in the claim of the appellant that the equities are so unequal as to require the court to deny the plaintiff relief. The record does not justify the claim that there is no evidence to establish the fact that the plaintiff is the owner of the overflowed land. The commissioner's certificate is not printed in the paper book; but it is found in an amended return which was made in pursuance of an order of this court. In view of what was said in Haaven v. Hoaas, 60 Minn. 313, 62 N. W. 110, in reference to a certificate of a sale of state school lands, and the provisions of the constitution and laws (R. L. 1905, § 2407) as to the sale of swamp lands, we are unable to see any reason why a holder of a certificate of state swamp lands cannot maintain an action to abate a nuisance, the existence of which results in injury to his land.

The important question is whether the appellant has acquired the right to overflow the land by adverse possession for the statutory period. This depends upon whether the statute of limitations runs against the state in such a case. If it does, the defendant acquired a prescriptive right to overflow the land before the plaintiff acquired the commissioner's certificate in 1905. In the recent case of Murtaugh v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co., 102 Minn. 52, 112 N. W. 860, it was held that the title to lands granted to the state of Minnesota for the use of schools by the United States cannot be acquired by adverse possession against the state. The swamp lands were acquired by the state in 1860, after the adoption of the constitution, so that they were not taken subject to the conditions which attached to the school lands with reference to the manner of their disposition and the use of the proceeds. The lands were received from the United States free from any enforceable conditions, and the title vested in the state, with full power to exercise its judgment as to the manner of their sale. Hagar v. Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701, 712, 4 Sup. Ct. 663, 28 L. Ed. 569; United States v. Louisiana, 127 U. S. 182, 8 Sup. Ct. 1047, 32 L. Ed. 66; Cook County v. Calumet & Chicago C. & D. Co., 138 U. S. 635