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in 1885, or his representative, was brought into court by citation. Rev. Civil Code La. Articles 1041, 1049, 1155; McCaiop v. Fluker's Heirs, 12 La. Ann. 345. And the appeal brings before us not only the final decree of 1886, but that of 1885 sustaining the demurrer and plea of Charles F. Hall, and dismissing the suit as to him. It was not necessary to take an appeal from the latter order until after the whole case was determined in the court below. For these reasons the objections to our jurisdiction are overruled.

The first question, upon the merits, to be considered, relates to the demurrer and plea of Charles F. Hall. It is contended that he was not a necessary party to the suit to fix the amount of the indebtedness of Clark N. Hall, and that the demurrer, for that reason, was properly sustained. If that had been the sole object of the suit the plaintiff could undoubtedly have proceeded at law against Clark N. Hall alone. But such a suit would not have given the relief required. The plaintiff claimed a lien on the mortgaged property to secure the payment of the notes given by the mortgagor. The property was claimed by Charles F. Hall in virtue of a tax sale. While the latter might have been proceeded against alone for the purpose of determining whether his right to the land was not subordinate to the mortgage lien, it was competent, under the practice in equity prevailing in the courts of the United States, and in order that full and adequate relief might be had, to unite in the same suit both the mortgagor and the party claiming the property adversely to the lien of the mortgage, by virtue of proceedings had subsequently to its execution. If the plaintiff was entitled to have the property sold in satisfaction of the debt secured by the mortgage, it was his right to have it sold freed from any apparent claim thereon wrongly asserted by the holder of the tax title. Such relief could not be had without making the latter a party to the suit.

In respect to the plea of Charles F. Hall, we are of opinion that it ought not to have been sustained. The constitutional provisions that "all deeds of sale made, or that may be made, by the collector of taxes, shall be received by the courts in evidence as prima facie valid sales," and that "no sale of prop

Opinion of the Court.

erty for taxes shall be annulled for any informality in the proceedings until the price paid, with ten per cent interest, be tendered to the purchaser," have no application to cases like the present one. If Clark N. Hall had attempted to have the tax sale set aside for mere informality, it would have been a good plea in bar to any suit by him against the purchaser, that he had not tendered the amount paid by him, with interest thereon -the plea showing distinctly the amount so paid. Barrow v. Lapene, 30 La. Ann. 310; Blanton v. Ludeling, 30 La. Ann. 1232. It is to suits of that character that the authorities cited apply. The case before us is altogether different. It proceeds upon the ground that a mortgagor who had agreed "not to sell, mortgage or in anywise encumber the property," to the prejudice of the mortgage, had fraudulently combined with his brother to defeat the mortgage lien by means of a sale for taxes due from the mortgagor, at which sale the brother was to bid in the property, in his own name, and for the protection of the mortgagor, assert his absolute ownership of it. It cer tainly was not intended that the mortgagee, in order to maintain a suit to enforce his lien, should tender to the mortgagor, or to his agent, the amount of the taxes, with interest thereon, the non-payment of which by the mortgagor had caused the sale to the prejudice of the mortgagee.

The case, in many respects, is like Austin v. Citizens' Bank and Sheriff, 30 La. Ann. 689, in which it appeared that a mortgage creditor proceeded directly against the mortgaged property which had been sold for taxes, and the title taken in the name of a third person. The holder of the tax title brought a suit to enjoin such proceeding. The court said: "The plaintiff [the holder of tax title] entrenches himself behind our ruling in Lannes v. Workingmen's Bank, 29 La. - Ann. 112, and insists that his title must be held good until it is annulled in a direct action. But that principle holds good only as to those titles that are bona fide, and are acquired without fraud, or that are real and not simulated. Unquestionably a purchaser at a tax sale may acquire a good title to a valuable property for a small price, if the requisite formalities have preceded and attended the sale. But no government will

Opinion of the Court.

permit its machinery, constructed to enforce the payment of public dues to the fisc, to be used to manipulate a fraud, and if the purchaser is a party to the fraud he must share its punishment. It might be very different if he were wholly disconnected and unacquainted with it. The purchase by Moss was nothing more or less than a purchase by Mrs. Austin, the debtor and mortgagor, through her son, the plaintiff. The money paid as the price at the tax sale was only what she, as the owner of the property, owed the State, and what she honestly and in good conscience ought to have paid without, and before, and to prevent a sale. If she could not pay it, the debt being exigeant and of so high a rank, she should have acquainted her creditor and mortgagee with its imminence, instead of observing the suspicious reticence which characterized her conduct. The creditor's rights, as mortgagee and vendor, cannot be imperilled by the mortgagor's collusive combination with others to interpose an apparent but fraudulent obstacle in his way in enforcing those rights."

All that was said in that case is pertinent to the one before us. The mortgagor had obtained liberal indulgence as to time from the mortgagee. He made such representations of his embarrassed financial condition as induced the mortgagee to forbear taking steps to enforce his lien upon the property. He gave positive assurances that he would make a payment of twenty-five hundred dollars on the mortgage debt by the fall of 1882. He knew that there were taxes upon the property which it was his duty to pay, and that their non-payment endangered the security upon which his generous creditor depended for the payment of the notes given for the property. And his brother, with many expressions of friendship for the mortgagee and his family, joined in the appeals for time, assuring the mortgagee that he would himself assist in meeting the mortgagor's engagements to pay, if the mortgagee would wait until January 1, 1883. He voluntarily promised that he would keep the mortgagee "posted about things." But neither the mortgagor nor his brother informed the mortgagee that the land was advertised to be sold for the taxes which the mortgagor was under a duty to pay. The way in

Opinion of the Court.

which Charles F. Hall complied with his promise to keep the plaintiff posted was to withhold information as to the tax sale, buy the land for the amount of the taxes, and take the title in his own name. The evidence leaves no doubt that the nonpayment of taxes by the mortgagor, and the purchase of the property by his brother, was in execution of a scheme upon their part to defeat the mortgagor's lien upon the land.

In respect to the credits allowed by the decree below upon his notes to the mortgagor, no error was committed. The credit of $1340.52, as of January 1, 1879, was a trifling amount in excess of the aggregate interest that had been paid by the mortgagor up to that date. The credit of $544.15 was for the amount of the two judgments rendered against Mendenhall by a justice of the peace in Ohio, of which Clark N. Hall became the owner on the 9th of May, 1879. The plaintiff being a non-resident of Louisiana, it was proper to allow that amount as a set off against the notes. Spinney v. Hyde, 16 La. Ann. 250; Woolfolk v. Ship Graham's Polly, 18 La. Ann. 693. As to the note for $1733.61, dated June 1, 1875, and executed by the Delaware Paper Company, the court below properly disallowed it as a set off. The evidence clearly showed that it was not an enforceable obligation against that company. The attempt to use it against Mendenhall is only additional evidence of the purpose to defraud him. But, for the reasons stated, the court below erred in rejecting the plaintiff's demand for recognition of the mortgage lien upon the property.

To the extent indicated the decree is reversed, with directions to enter a decree recognizing and establishing the mortgage of December 24, 1875, as against Clark N. Hall, and the succession of Charles F. Ilall, and as giving a lien in behalf of the plaintiff superior and paramount to any right which the succession of Charles F. Hall has in the mortgaged property by virtue of the sale for taxes and the sheriff's deed to him, and ordering a sale of the mortgaged property to satisfy the above balance due the plaintiff upon the notes given by Clark N. Hall.

Citations for Appellant.

LEE v. SIMPSON.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

No. 1418. Submitted March 17, 1890, with leave to appellant to file reply-brief in ten days. — Decided April 7, 1890.

A testatrix, residing in South Carolina, who died in July, 1866, left a will made by her in 1863, by a codicil to which, made in January, 1866, she bequeathed to her daughter, then married to C., three-fourths of her interest in a bond and mortgage debt, to be vested in a trustee, who was appointed, and to be enjoyed by the daughter during her life, power being given to the daughter, to dispose of such " bequest" as she pleased, "by a last will and testament duly executed by her." In September, 1875, the daughter died, leaving a will executed in September, 1871, which recited that she was "entitled to legacies" under the will of her mother, and to a distributive share in the estates of a sister and a brother, "and notwithstanding my coverture, have full testamentary power to dispose of the same," and then bequeathed to her husband, C., "the entire property and estate to which I am now in any wise entitled and which I may hereafter acquire, of whatever the same may consist," "absolutely and in fee simple;" Held,

(1) The court is authorized to put itself in the position occupied by the daughter when she made her will, in order to discover from that standpoint, in view of the circumstances then existing, what she intended;

(2) The will of the daughter was intended by her to be, and was, a full execution of the power, because it referred expressly to the subject matter of the power;

(3) The statement in it as to "full testamentary power" referred to the fact that, although she was a married woman, she had power to "dispose of the same" by a will, such power being given to her by the will of her mother, and did not refer to the provision of the constitution of 1868 of South Carolina, and the legislation consequent thereon, enabling married women to dispose of their own property by will;

(4) Outside of her interest in the bond and mortgage, she had practically no property.

IN EQUITY. Decree dismissing the bill. The plaintiff ap pealed. The case is stated in the opinion.

Mr. Le Roy F. Youmans, Mr. J. P. Carey, and Mr. Alex ander C. King, for appellant, cited: Sewall v. Wilmer, 132