Under Schedule K of § 2502 of the Revised Statutes, as enacted
by § 6 of the Act of March 3, 1883, c. 121, 22 Stat. 509, women's
and children's dress goods, composed of wool and cotton, valued at
less than 20 cents per square yard, and weighing less than 4 ounces
to the square yard, the cotton being carded in with the wool from
which the yarn composing the warp was spun, there being 94 percent
of wool and 6 percent of cotton, the cotton being put in to secure
a lower classification for duty, and an ordinary examiner not being
able to detect the cotton without a careful examination, and there
being no threads or yarns made wholly of cotton or other material
than wool, are dutiable at 5 cents per square yard and 35 percent
ad valorem, and not at 9 cents per square yard and 40
percent
ad valorem.
Page 139 U. S. 609
MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an action at law, brought in the Circuit Court of the
United States for the Northern District of Illinois in August,
1888, by John v. Farwell and others, co-partners as John v. Farwell
& Co., against Anthony F. Seeberger, collector of customs for
the port and district of Chicago, to recover an alleged excess of
duties, paid under protest in that month on a quantity of imported
women's and children's dress goods, which were dutiable under the
provision of Schedule K of section 2502 of the Revised Statutes, as
enacted by section 6 of the Act of March 3, 1883, c. 121, which
provided for the following rates of duty on the following articles,
after July 1, 1883, 22 Stat. 509:
"Women's and children's dress goods, coat linings, Italian
cloths and goods of like description composed in part of wool,
worsted, the hair of the alpaca, goat, or other animals, valued at
not exceeding twenty cents per square yard, five cents per square
yard, and, in addition thereto, thirty-five percentum
ad
valorem; valid at above twenty cents per square yard, seven
cents per square yard, and forty percentum
ad valorem; if
composed wholly of wool, worsted, the hair of the alpaca, goat, or
other animals, or of a mixture of them, nine cents per square yard
and forty percentum
ad valorem; but all such goods with
selvedges, made wholly or in part of other materials, or with
threads of other materials introduced for the purpose of changing
the classification, shall be dutiable at nine cents per square
yard, and forty percentum
ad valorem, provided that all
such goods weighing over four ounces per square yard shall pay a
duty of thirty-five cents per pound, and forty percentum
ad
valorem."
The case was tried by the court without a jury. It found the
issues for the plaintiffs and assessed their damages at $3,265.66,
and a judgment was entered in their favor for that
Page 139 U. S. 610
amount, with $23.16 costs, to review which the defendant has
brought a writ of error. The opinion of the court is reported in 40
F. 529, and it made a special finding of facts to the effect that
the goods in question were composed of wool and cotton, were valued
at less than 20 cents per square yard, and weighed less than 4
ounces to the square yard; that the defendant assessed a duty upon
them of 9 cents per square yard and 40 percentum
ad
valorem; that the plaintiffs paid the duties under protest for
the purpose of obtaining possession of the goods, and in due time
protested to the collector against the exaction and seasonably
appealed to the Secretary of the Treasury, who sustained the
decision of the collector, and the suit was brought in due time,
and that in the protest the plaintiffs claimed that the goods
should have been assessed at a duty of 5 cents per square yard and
35 percentum
ad valorem. The court also found that the
goods were composed of wool and cotton, the cotton being carded in
with the wool from which the yarn composing the warp of the goods
was spun, there being about 6 percent of cotton mixed with the
wool, so that the goods were composed of about 94 percent in
quantity of wool and 6 percent in quantity of cotton; that the
cotton was mixed with the wool from which the yarn composing the
warp of the goods was spun for the purpose of securing the
classification of the goods under the clause before quoted, so that
they would be dutiable at 5 cents per square yard and 35 percentum
ad valorem; that the ordinary examiner of the goods would
not detect the cotton without careful examination; that the goods
had no selvedges of different material from the body of them, and
there were no threads or yarns made wholly of cotton or other
material than wool, and that it cost slightly more to manufacture
the goods with such mixture than it would to make them all of wool.
The court therefore found that the goods were composed in part of
wool and part of cotton, weighing less than 4 ounces to the square
yard, and valued at not exceeding 20 cents per square yard. The
court, in its opinion, said that the collector, in classifying the
goods, evidently assumed that the purpose of mixing
Page 139 U. S. 611
the cotton with the wool was to secure a low classification, and
assumed also that so small a quantity of cotton would not
materially change the character of the goods as merchandise when
offered for sale to consumers, and therefore looked upon the
contention of the plaintiffs for a lower classification as an
attempt to defraud the revenue, and accordingly imposed the higher
duty; that, Congress having made special provision for a lower rate
of duty upon goods when composed in part of wool, without naming
how much of other material should enter into their composition in
order to secure such lower rate of duty, the court was of opinion
that manufacturers and importers had the right to adjust themselves
to the foregoing clause of the tariff and to manufacture the goods
with only a small percentage of cotton for the purpose of making
them dutiable at the lower rate; that although the goods in
question contained so small an amount of cotton that the ordinary
dealer in them and the ordinary examiner would not detect the
cotton without a close and careful examination, that did not change
the legal right of the plaintiffs to bring their goods within the
operation of the clause involved by the admixture of even a small
percentage of cotton if they could do so, and that goods made of 94
percent in bulk of wool and 6 percent in bulk of cotton fairly came
within the description of goods composed in part of wool. We concur
in this view, and the judgment is
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE GRAY and MR. JUSTICE BROWN dissented for the reasons
stated in their opinion in
Magone v. Luckemeyer, post, p.
139 U. S.
614.