A seizure was made in the port of New Orleans, under the
sixty-seventh section of the Act of 1799 for the collection of
duties, 43 Vol. L.U.S., which authorizes the collector, where he
shall suspects false and fraudulent entry to have been made of any
goods, wares, or merchandises, to cause an examination to be made,
and if found to differ from the entry, the merchandise is declared
to be forfeited unless it shall be made to appear to the collector,
or to the court in which a prosecution for the forfeiture shall be
had, that such difference proceeded from accident or mistake, and
not from an intention to defraud the revenue. After hearing the
testimony offered in the cause, the court decreed and ordered that
the property seized be restored to the claimant upon the payment of
a duty of fifteen percent
ad valorem; that the libel be
dismissed, and that probable cause of seizure be certified of
record. The United States appealed from this decree.
The court, not being able to decide from the evidence sent up
with the record that the article, in point of fact, differs from
the entry at the custom house, affirmed the decree of the court
below.
The denomination of merchandise, subject to the payment of
duties, is to be understood in a commercial sense, although it may
not be scientifically correct. All laws regulating the payment of
duties are for practical application to commercial operations, and
are to be understood in a commercial sense. And it is to be
presumed that Congress so used and intended them to be
understood.
MR. JUSTICE THOMPSON delivered the opinion of the Court.
The sugars in question in this case were seized by the collector
of the district of Mississippi and libeled in the District Court of
the United States for the Eastern District of Louisiana under the
allegation that they had been falsely entered at the custom house
of the port of New Orleans as syrup when in fact they were casks of
sugar in a state of partial solution in water. The libel charges
that this entry was made by a false designation of the merchandise
with an intent to defraud the revenue
Page 33 U. S. 278
of the United States, by subjecting the article to an
ad
valorem duty of fifteen percent only, instead of a specific
duty of three cents and four cents per pound if entered as sugars,
which, as is alleged, they in fact were.
This seizure was made under the sixty-seventh section of the act
of 1799 for the collection of duties, 3 Vol. L.U.S. 199, which
authorizes the collector, when he shall suspect a false and
fraudulent entry to have been made of any goods, wares, or
merchandise, to cause an examination to be made, and if found to
differ from the entry, the merchandise is declared to be forfeited,
unless it shall be made to appear to the collector, or to the court
in which a prosecution for the forfeiture shall be had, that such
difference proceeded from accident or mistake, and not from an
intention to defraud the revenue.
The answer and claim of Goodale denies that the contents of the
casks were sugar or that they differ from the entry or that the
entry was made with intent to defraud the revenue.
After hearing the testimony offered in the cause, the court
decreed and ordered that the property seized be restored to the
claimant upon the payment of a duty of fifteen percent
ad
valorem thereupon, that the libel be dismissed, and that
probable cause of seizure be certified of record.
From this decree the present appeal is taken.
The decision in this case turns entirely upon the questions
whether in point of fact the merchandise was different from the
denomination under which it was entered -- that is, whether the
article was sugar, and not syrup, and if not syrup, then whether
such entry was made with intent to defraud the revenue. It is
deemed unnecessary to go into a particular and detailed examination
of the testimony on the trial. A number of witnesses were examined
on both sides for the purpose of ascertaining the character and
denomination of the article in question. It was a pure question of
fact, and the nature of the inquiry admitted of nothing more
certain than an expression of opinion, and which resulted, as is
generally the case in such inquiries, in a difference of opinion.
In such cases, the court must be governed in a great measure by the
character and intelligence of the witnesses and the opportunities
they have had of becoming acquainted with the subject upon which
they are called upon to express an opinion, and the weight of
the
Page 33 U. S. 279
opinion of a witness, and the influence it is to have upon the
tribunal, whether court or jury, which is to decide upon it will
depend very much upon seeing and hearing the witness give his
testimony. When, therefore, a case rests upon a mere question of
fact, and especially when that fact is to be ascertained by the
uncertain evidence of opinion, the appellate court ought to place
much reliance upon the decision of the court below, and not reverse
a decree unless it is very satisfactorily shown to be against the
weight of evidence.
One of the witnesses examined on the part of the United States
was a chemist who had analyzed a portion of the article in question
and found it composed of nothing but sugar dissolved in water, and
was not syrup according to his understanding, which, as he says, is
prepared by pouring water on sugar and boiling it to that
consistency which prevents crystallization, and that to produce
this effect it is necessary to introduce other agents, such as the
white of eggs, &c. With respect to this and all other testimony
of this description, it is only necessary to observe, that the
denomination of merchandize, subject to the payment of duties, is
to be understood in a commercial sense, although it may not be
scientifically correct. All laws regulating the payment of duties
are for practical application to commercial operations, and are to
be understood in a commercial sense. And it is to be presumed that
Congress so used and intended them to be understood.
Two of the witnesses on the part of the United States who were
merchants, and had dealt largely in sugars, and apparently very
competent judges on the subject, testified that sugar dissolved in
water is not considered syrup, in the sense generally used in
common parlance, as an article of commerce. To make syrup, the
sugar must be boiled and clarified. They say that sugar barely
dissolved in water is a new article, not known in common as an
article of trade. Some other witnesses were examined on the part of
the United States who express an opinion that this article is not
syrup. Their situation and knowledge of the article, however, do
not seem to qualify them to form a very satisfactory opinion on the
subject. But none of these witnesses undertakes to say that the
article could with any propriety be called sugar.
On the part of the claimant a greater number of witnesses were
examined, one of whom was a sugar refiner, who says that
Page 33 U. S. 280
speaking as a merchant and sugar refiner, he should consider
this article syrup. It cannot, he says, be called by any other
name. Several other merchants and dealers in sugar concur with him.
Some say the basis of all syrup is sugar and water boiled together.
That the different kinds of syrups are produced by putting into the
sugar the different articles from which the syrup takes it name,
such as orange, lemon, &c. Some call it natural syrup; others
speak of it as an inferior kind of syrup, but all deny that it can
with any propriety be called sugar. The district attorney testifies
that when the seizure was made, it was supposed by the collector to
be the expressed juice of the cane, boiled to a certain
consistency; that it was not then known that it had been prepared
by the dissolution of sugar with water.
There is certainly very strong reason for suspecting that this
was done for the purpose of evading the specific duty on sugar,
especially as it is admitted on the record that the claimant has an
establishment at Matanzas for preparing sugar in this manner for
the purpose of shipment to New Orleans, to be made into refined
sugar, at his establishment or refinery at that place. Yet we do
not think, under the evidence in the cause, we, as an appellate
court, ought to reverse the decree of the court below and decree a
forfeiture, especially as we cannot say, from the evidence, that
the article in point of fact differs from the entry at the custom
house. It is difficult to say what is its true denomination. The
witnesses speak of it as a new article, not known in trade. None
call it sugar. All seem to think it may be called syrup, in some
sense, though several think it is not such according to the
understanding of that article in trade and commerce. Upon the
whole, we think the decree of the court below ought to be
Affirmed and a certificate of probable cause of seizure be
certified of record.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record
from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of Louisiana, and was argued by counsel, on consideration
whereof it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this Court that the
decree of the said district court in this cause be, and the same is
hereby affirmed, and that a certificate of probable cause of
seizure be certified of record.