Horace Gray

“ By the general railroad law of New Jersey, any railroad corporation, which cannot agree with the owner of land required for the construction of its road, is to present an application, containing a description of the land, to a justice of the supreme court of the state for the appointment of three disinterested, impartial, and judicious freeholders, residents in the county in which the land lies, to examine and appraise the land, and to assess the damages. ”

“ As by the proceedings in the circuit court of the United States, in the case at bar, neither the title of the corporation in the land to be taken, nor the right of the owner to damages for taking it, would be adjudicated or established before the return of the award of the commissioners, it necessarily follows, under the acts of congress and the decisions of this court, that the order appointing commissioners was interlocutory only, and that this writ of error was prematurely sued out, and must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. ”

“ Act Sept. 24, 1789, c. 20, § 22, 1 St. p. 84; Rev. St. § 691; Rutherford v. Fisher, 4 Dall. 22; Holcombe v. McKusick, 20 How. 552, 554; Bank v. Whitney, 121 U.S. 284, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 897; Iron Co. v. Martin, 132 U.S. 91, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 32 ”