Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ Her position is that she does not know whether the United States has any equity or not, but that whatever rights the United States may have are inferior to hers. She is not called on to allege Leary's ignorance of facts that she does not admit and that are not yet finally established. We are of opinion that anyone reading the bill in the same way that he would read an untechnical document would have no doubt that the plaintiff meant to put her case as we have taken it.
The only matters that seem to us to need argument are the questions of public policy and laches. ”

“ The law of New York recognizes the validity of contracts like the one alleged, and without considering whether the law of New York controls, we are content to say merely that the New York decisions strike us as founded in good sense. ”

“ As to the former, the ground for declaring the contract invalid rests rather on tradition than on substantial realities of the present day. It is said that the bail contemplated by the Revised Statutes (§ 1014, U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 716) is a common-law bail, and that nothing should be done to diminish the interest of the bail in producing the body of his principal. But bail no longer is the mundium, although a trace of the old relation remains in the right to arrest. Rev. Stat. § 1018. [1] The distinction between bail and suretyship is pretty nearly forgotten. ”