8i 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



following judicial decisions: The Court of Errors of New York, 

 some years ago, decided that private property could not be forcibly 

 taken for a private road, even if compensation was made by the 

 party benefited, because the act was the taking property arbitrarily, 

 and not according to due process of law. 



The national bank act acknowledges, and the courts of the United 

 States have so held, that a bank has a situs and its shares a situs 

 where the bank is located, and not where the stockholders reside. 

 The national bank act, therefore, discards the usual State principle 

 of taxation, that personal property follows the owner. 



The principle that two States can not tax at the same time the 

 same property, and that a State can not tax property and rights to 

 property lying beyond her jurisdiction, has been also affirmed by the 

 Supreme Court of the United States (December, 1868), in the case 

 of The Northern Central Kailroad vs. Jackson (7 Wallace, 262). 

 The railroad corporation in question, extending from Baltimore 

 in Maryland to Sunbury in Pennsylvania, was the result of the 

 consolidation of four railroad companies, one incorporated by 

 the State of Maryland and three by the State of Pennsylvania. 

 The latter State imposed a tax of three mills per dollar of the prin- 

 cipal of each bond issued by said road, which tax the company, at 

 their office in Baltimore, deducted from the coupons of the bonds 

 of said consolidated road held by Jackson, an alien, resident in Ire- 

 land. 



The court, by Mr. Justice Nelson, decided adversely to the 

 tax, on the ground that the bonds were issued upon the credit of the 

 line of road, a portion of which was within the jurisdiction of the 

 State of Maryland, and that the security, bound and pledged for the 

 payment of the bonds and of the interest on them, embraced the 

 Maryland portion of the road equally with that portion situated in 

 the State of Pennsylvania, respecting which condition of affairs the 

 court used the following language: 



" It is apparent, if the State of Pennsylvania is at liberty to tax 

 these bonds, that to the extent of this Maryland portion of the road 

 she is taxing property and interests beyond her jurisdiction. Again, 

 if Pennsylvania can tax these bonds, upon the same principle Mary- 

 land can tax them; this is too apparent to require argument. The 

 consequence of this, if permitted, would be double taxation of the 

 bondholder. The effect of this taxation is readily seen: a tax of 

 three mills per dollar of the principal, at an interest of six per centum, 

 payable semi-annually, is ten per centum per annum of the inter- 

 est; a tax, therefore, by each State at this rate amounts to an annual 

 reduction from the coupons of twenty per centum; and if this con- 

 solidation of the line of road had extended into New York or Ohio, 



