KEPOET OF THE ACTING SECKETAEY. 



33 



trustees of the Home were in favor of having the objects kept to- 

 gether as a perpetual memorial to their deceased relative and friend. 

 On October 23, 1905, the Government filed its full answer to the bill 

 of the Harriet Lane Home and its further petition that the United 

 States be declared to have established a National Art Gallery at and 

 in connection with the Smithsonian Institution. Testimony was sub- 

 mitted on the part of the Institution before an examiner on June 8, 

 1 906. The decision was favorable to the Institution, and the decree of 

 the court is of exceptional importance, since it definitely establishes 

 the fact that the collection of art contemplated in the fundamental 

 act is the National Gallery of Art within the meaning and intent of 

 the law. 



The full text of the decree is as follows : 



In the Supreme Court op the District of Columbia. 



D. K. EsTE Fisher, and others, Executors and 

 Trustees under the Last Will and Testament of 

 Harriet Lane Johnston, deceased, 



V. 



Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children of Balti- 

 more City, and others. 



Equity, No. 25,160. Doc. 



This cause coming on for hearing in respect to the subject matters set forth 

 in the Thirteenth Paragraph of the Bill of Complaint ; the allegations of the said 

 paragraph, the Answers thereto of the several Defendants, the provisions of the 

 Last Will and Testament and of the several codicils thereto of the Testatrix, 

 Harriet Lane Johnston, and the testimony taken on behalf of the United States 

 of America in support of its answer to the allegations of the said thirteenth 

 paragraph of the Bill of Complaint, having been by the Court, (after argument 

 of counsel for the United States of America and for the Defendant the Harriet 

 Lane Home for Invalid Children of Baltimore City, the residuary legatee and 

 devisee named in the said Last Will and Testament of the said Testatrix) fully 

 considered, 



It is, therefore, on this eleventh day of July, in the year 1906, by the 

 Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, sitting in Equity, and by the 

 authority thereof, adjudged, ordered and decreed, 



That there has been established by the United States of America in the City 

 of Washington a National Art Gallery, within the scope and meaning of that 

 part of the codicil bearing date April 21, 1902, made by the said Harriet Lane 

 Johnston to her Last Will and Testament, in the proceedings in this case men- 

 tioned, wherein she gave and bequeathed the pictures, miniatures and other 

 articles, to the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and in the event of 

 the Government establishing in the City of Washington a National Art Gallery, 

 then that the said pictures and other articles above mentioned should be de- 

 livered to the said National Art Gallery and become its property ; and that the 

 said National Art Gallery is the National Art Gallery established by the United 

 States of America at, and in connection with, the Smithsonian Institution located 

 in the District of Columbia and described in the Act of Congress entitled an Act 

 to establish the " Smithsonian Institution " for the Increase and Diffusion of 



