William R. Day

“ Reading the statute with a view to ascertaining its meaning, it is apparent that it undertakes to make an offender of anyone who shall cut, tear, or otherwise injure any mail bag, or who shall draw or break any staple or loosen any part of any lock, chain, or strap attached thereto, with the felonious intent denounced by the statute. These words plainly indicate that it was the intention of the lawmakers to protect each and every mail bag from felonious injury and mutilation. Whenever any one mail bag is thus torn, cut, or injured, the offense is complete. ”

“ It was there said that every stitch that a tailor takes and everything that a shoemaker or carpenter may do for different customers at different times on the same Sunday did not constitute separate offenses, for the offense was one and entire of exercising the trade and calling upon the Lord's Day, and the object of the legislation was to punish a man for exercising his trade on Sunday, and not to make a separate offense of each thing he did in the exercise of that trade. ”

“ Ebeling, having served the sentence of three years imposed under the second count, applied to the district court of the United States for the district of Kansas for a writ of habeas corpus to procure his release from further imprisonment, upon the ground that he had endured all the punishment that could be legally imposed upon him by imprisonment under said indictment. ”