Morrison Waite

“ Each contributor to a common fund becomes interested in the fund in proportion to his contribution. Each owner of property intermingled with other property of the same kind and value, and stored in a common mass, becomes the owner as tenant in common of an interest in the mass proportionate to his contribution. If loss occurs while the common ownership continues, each owner must sustain his proportionate share. ”

“ It is difficult to see how the United States can complain of the judgments that have been rendered in these cases upon the facts as found. The aggregate of the whole is no more than the amount of money in the treasury to the credit of the fund, and which, as we have often decided, is a trust for the benefit of such as should establish their claim to it under the provisions of the Abandoned and Captured Property Act. ”

“ The time has elapsed within which new claims can be presented against the fund, and, so far as we can discover, substantial justice has been done. The United States have only been made liable for cotton the proceeds of which have been clearly traced into the treasury, and these judgments discharged them from further responsibility on that account. ”