David Josiah Brewer

“ Counsel for plaintiff in error has filed an elaborate brief of 249 printed pages, which is able and exhaustive, both on questions of mining law and the conduct of the trial. One cannot, however, fail to be impressed, after a perusal thereof, with the fact of a failure to recognize that there is no general right to a writ of error from this court to the courts of a state; that there is but a special right, a right to bring such cases, and such cases only, as disclose a Federal question distinctly ruled adversely to the plaintiff in error. ”

“ No statute of the state of Colorado was questioned, nor was any title, right, privilege, or immunity under the Constitution or laws of the United States specially set up or claimed. In the instructions asked and refused, as well as in those given, there is only a general mention of the laws of the United States, and none of any particular statute. In the motion for a new trial, as well as in the assignments of error in the supreme court of the state, there is not the slightest reference to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or any section or part thereof. ”

“ The record of the trial, which took place before a jury, is voluminous,-the bill of exceptions, containing the testimony, the instructions, and the proceedings on the motion for a new trial, filling 436 printed pages. ”