Opinion of the Court. There was also proof of a regular deraignment of title from the original grantee to Camou, the appellee in the present case. Taken together, the evidence adduced by the claimant on the first trial before the Court of Private Land Claims, and that introduced after our mandate had gone to that court, we think it is satisfactorily shown that the land described in the final decree is that described in the original survey and of which Rafael Elias was put in possession. The principal witnesses, in this part of the case, were George J. Roskruge, a surveyor of more than twenty years' experience in that part of the country, and who made the survey and map of the San Rafael del Valle land grant, which was used upon the trial. Douglass Snyder and Max Marks, who assisted in making that survey, were also examined. These witnesses were subjected to a rigorous crossexamination by the attorney of the Government, and their testimony has been minutely criticised in his brief. But we are not able to perceive that the statements of these witnesses have been materially shaken. Some discrepancies indeed appear, but they are not important, and are naturally to be expected from the nature of the case. Neither the original nor the subsequent surveys were made with the care and precision that characterize surveys made in the long settled parts of the country. But it is evident, and this is the important point, that the latter surveys were made to verify and renew the original survey, and not with a purpose to locate a floating grant of uncertain boundaries and extent. In this particular this case is plainly distinguishable from the case of Ainsa v. United States, 161 U. S. 208, where the claimant's case failed because there had been no actual location of the grant prior to the Gadsden treaty, and because there was no satisfactory evidence that the act of juridical possession had ever taken place. From our examination of the evidence we concur in the view of the Court of Private Land Claims, that a definite location and possession of the grant in question, prior to the date of the Gadsden treaty, are shown with reasonable certainty, and accordingly the decree of that court, confirming the claim to the extent of the four sitios granted and paid for, is VOL. CLXXXIV-37 Affirmed. Statement of the Case. EIDMAN v. MARTINEZ. CERTIFICATE FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT. No. 287. Argued November 21, 1901.-Decided March 17, 1902. Congress is bound to express its intention to tax in clear and unambiguous language, and a liberal construction should be given to words of exception confining the operation of the duty. The war tax law of 1898 imposing a tax upon legacies or distributive shares arising from personal property passing "from any person possessed of such property, either by will or by the intestate laws of any State or Territory," does not apply to the intangible personal property in this country, of an alien domiciled abroad, whose property passed to his son, also an alien domiciled abroad, partly by will and partly by the intestate laws of such foreign country. The act does not make the duty payable, when the person possessed of such property dies testate, if it would not be payable, if such person had died intestate; and the words "passing by will" are limited to wills executed in a State or Territory under whose laws the property would pass, if the owner had died intestate. THIS case came up upon certain questions of law arising in an action brought in the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York by Martinez, as ancillary administrator with the will annexed of the estate of Salvador Elizalde, against the Collector of Internal Revenue, for the refund of an inheritance tax paid to the defendant upon certain personal property in the city of New York. The facts out of which the questions arose are as follows: Salvador Elizalde, a non-resident alien, a subject of the King of Spain, who had never resided within the United States, died in Paris, France, on April 27, 1899, leaving a will in the Spanish language, executed in Paris, in the year 1891, pursuant to the laws of Spain. This wili was filed and protocolized in the office of the Spanish consul in Paris, and thereby under the laws of Spain and the consular convention or treaty between Spain and France, Arturo Elizalde, the sole legatee under said will, became entitled to the possession and administration of all the Statement of the Case. personal property of the decedent. Said Arturo Elizalde is the only son and sole next of kin of the decedent, and is a non-resident alien and a Spanish subject. Ile has resided all his life in Spain and France, and has never resided in the United States. Said will purports to give all of the personal property of the decedent to his said son, but, by the laws of Spain, only one third of the property passed by the will, and the remaining two thirds passed to said son by and under the Spanish intestate law. The decedent left certain Federal, municipal and corporate bonds, of the par value of $225,400, in the custody of his agents in the city of New York, and they were within the third collection district of New York at the date of his death. After the filing of said will in Paris, Arturo Elizalde entered upon the administration of the decedent's personal estate, and appointed the defendant in error, Miguel R. Martinez, his attorney for the purpose of receiving ancillary letters of administration with the will annexed in the State of New York, and such letters were issued to him by the surrogate of New York County. After receiving such letters, said Martinez took possession of said bonds. The United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue, under the alleged authority of the twenty-ninth and thirtieth sections of the act of Congress of June 13, 1898, entitled "An act to provide ways and means to meet war expenditures and for other purposes," 30 Stat. 448, assessed an internal revenue tax of $4293.76 upon a legacy and distributive share arising from personal property in the hands of the administrator, defendant in error, who paid said tax to the United States collector of internal revenue for the third district of New York, plaintiff in error, under protest and upon compulsion of the collector's threat of distraint and sale, and made the statutory application for its refund to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who rejected the application. The administrator then brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York against the collector to recover the amount of the tax. The collector demurred; the demurrer was overruled, and a Opinion of the Court. final judgment entered against the collector for the amount claimed, with interest and costs. The collector then brought the action into the Circuit Court of Appeals, which certified to this court the following questions of law arising out of the foregoing facts: "1. Is any tax or duty imposed by the twenty-ninth and thirtieth sections of the act of Congress of June 13, 1898, entitled 'An act to provide ways and means to meet war expenditures and for other purposes,' upon the passing of any legacy arising out of the personal property of a non-resident alien who has never resided or had a domicil within the United States, and who dies without the United States in the year 1899, leaving a will made and executed at his foreign domicil, pursuant to the laws thereof, by which he gives all his property to a non-resident alien legatee, and who leaves certain personal property within the State of New York exceeding $10,000 in value?" "2. Is any tax or duty imposed by the twenty-ninth and thirtieth sections of the act of Congress of June 13, 1898, entitled An act to provide ways and means to meet war expenditures and for other purposes,' upon the passing of any distributive share arising out of the personal property of a nonresident alien who has never resided or had a domicil within the United States, and who dies without the United States, in the year 1899, intestate, and by the law of his foreign domicil all of his personal property passes to his son, also a non-resident alien, and who leaves certain personal property within the State of New York, exceeding $10,000 in value?" Mr. Solicitor General for the United States. Mr. Wheeler II. Peckham and Mr. John G. Carlisle for defendants in error. Mr. William Edmond Curtis and Mr. Henry M. Ward were on their brief. MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after making the above statement, delivered the opinion of the court. This case raises the question whether the inheritance tax law Opinion of the Court. of the United States applied, in 1899, to the intangible personal property of a non-resident alien, who never had a domicil in in the United States and died abroad-such personal property being within the United States and having passed to his son, also an alien domiciled abroad, as sole legatee and next of kin of the deceased, partly under a will executed abroad and partly under the intestate laws of Spain. By the twenty-ninth section of the war tax law of June 30, 1898, c. 448, 30 Stat. 148, 464, " Any person or persons having in charge or trust, as administrators, executors or trustees, any legacies or distributive shares arising from personal property from any person possessed of such property, either by will or by the intestate laws of any State or Territory, shall be, and hereby are, made subject to a passing duty or tax," etc. The ancient maxim of the law, mobilia sequuntur personam, was the outgrowth of conditions which have largely ceased to exist, and of an age when personal property consisted principally of articles appertaining, as the name indicates, to the person of the owner, such as gold and silver, jewels, apparel, and less immediately to horses, cattle and other animals, and to the products of the farm and the shop. As this property was, in primitive times, usually kept under the personal supervision of the owner, and was often carried about by him on his journeys, (as it often still is in Oriental countries,) the principle became incorporated in the law that its locality was determined by the domicil of the owner, and that his rights with respect to such property were fixed by the law of that domicil. While the enormous increase in the amount and variety of personal property during the past century has necessitated certain limitations of the maxim, particularly in matters of taxation, it is by no means obsolete. It is still the law that personal property is sold, transmitted, bequeathed by will, and is descendible by inheritance according to the law of the domicil and not by that of its situs. Cross v. United States Trust Co., 131 N. Y. 330; Ennis v. Smith, 14 How. 400, 424; Dammert v. Osborn, 141 N. Y. 564. In matters of taxation, however, and of subjecting the personal property of non-residents to the |