FISHERIES, GAME AND FORESTS. 443 



SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

 No. 41. — October Term, 1897. 



Benton Turner, Plaintiff in Error, 



In error to the Court of Appeals of the 

 11s } 



State of New York. 

 The People of the State of New York. 



This was an action of replevin, brought April 11, 1887, in behalf of the State of New York 

 by the forest commissioners of the State against Turner, in the Supreme Court of the county of 

 Franklin and State of New York, to recover a quantity of logs cut by him upon lands in that 

 county and within the forest preserve of the State, between September 1, 1886, and March 25, 

 1887. T ne answer denied the allegations of the complaint, and alleged that at the time 

 mentioned therein the defendant was the owner and in possession of the lands. 



The material facts of the case, as found by a referee, were as follows: On October 12, 1877, 

 the lands, being then owned by one Norton, were sold by the Comptroller of the State of New 

 York for unpaid taxes of the years 1866 to 1870 inclusive, and were bid in by the Comptroller 

 in behalf of the State, and conveyed by him to the State by deed dated June 9, 1881, and 

 recorded June 8, 1882. The defendant, more than nine years after that sale, acquired Norton's 

 title in the land. The land was wild forest land, uncultivated, unimproved, unenclosed, and 

 with no dwelling house or other building thereon. Neither the State nor any officer thereof ever 

 took actual possession of the land; and no part of it was in occupancy of any person on 

 October 12, 1879, when the period of two years allowed by law for redemption from the 

 Comptroller's sale expired. 



At the trial before the referee, the defendant, in order to prove the invalidity of the 

 Comptroller's deed by reason of illegality in the assessment of the taxes for the years 1867 and 

 1870, offered to show that the oath of the assessors to the assessment roll of 1867 was taken on 

 August 10, instead of on the third Tuesday of August; and that the assessors omitted to meet 

 on the third Tuesday of August, 1870, to review their assessments for that year. 



The plaintiff objected to the evidence as immaterial, because the Comptroller's deed was 

 made conclusive evidence of those matters by the statute of New York of 1885, c. 448, which 

 is copied in the margin.* The defendant contended that this statute was invalid as contrary to 



* An Act to amend chapter four hundred and twenty-seven of the laws of eighteen hundred and fifty- 

 five, entitled "An act in relation to the collection of taxes on land of non-residents and to 

 provide for the sale of such lands for unpaid taxes." 



Sect. i. Section sixty-five of chapter four hundred and twenty-seven of the laws of eighteen 

 hundred and fifty- five, entitled " An act in relation to the collection of taxes on lands of non-residents 

 and to provide for the sale of such lands for unpaid taxes," is hereby amended so as to read as follows : 



§ 65. Such conveyances shall be executed by the Comptroller, under his hand and seal, and 

 execution thereof shall be witnessed by the treasurer or deputy comptroller ; and all such conveyances 

 that have been heretofore executed by the Comptroller, and all conveyances of the same lands by his 

 grantee or grantees therein named, after having been recorded for two years in the office of the clerk 

 of the county in which the lands conveyed thereby are located, and all outstanding certificates of a tax 

 sale heretofore held by the Comptroller that shall have remained in force for two years after the last 

 day allowed by law to redeem from such sale shall, six months after this act takes effect, be conclusive 

 evidence that the sale and all proceedings prior thereto, from and including the assessment of the land, 



