sions, the power of a sheriff is limited to his own county. He is to be adjudged as sheriff in his own county and not elsewhere. He cannot, therefore, execute a writ of his own county elsewhere and if he attempts to do so becomes a trespasser. The only exceptions to this principle are, that having a prisoner in his custody upon a writ of habeas corpus, he has power, by virtue of the writ, to travel through other counties if necessary in order to take his prisoner to the place where the writ is returnable, and he may, also, upon fresh pursuit, retake a prisoner who has escaped from his custody into another county." The same principles apply to other territorial officers. § 74. Jurisdiction of the person. Cases where officers go outside their territorial jurisdiction are comparatively rare, but cases where officials have been within their territorial jurisdiction but have attempted to exercise authority over persons outside have been frequent. Perhaps the most frequent examples of this on the part of administrative officials have been in cases of personal taxation. The old common law rule was that a person should be taxed on his personal property where he lived, and this was the law prevailing in New York in the case of Mygatt v. Washburn (6), where the plaintiff had moved from one town to another while the proceedings to make out the assessment were going on but before the assessment had finally been made. His name was placed on the assessment roll of the first town nevertheless, a warrant issued for the collection of the tax and his personal property sold. He brought an action against the assessor (6) 15 N. Y. 316. and obtained judgment. The court said: "The plaintiff, therefore, was not subject to the jurisdiction of the assessors. In placing his name on the roll, and adding thereto an amount as the value of his personal property they acted without authority. They are, there fore, responsible to the plaintiff for the damages which ensued." In the subsequent case of Bell v. Pierce (7) the law of New York had been modified so that when a person resided in two or more towns during the year his principal place of business was to be considered his residence on the day of assessment. The plaintiff in the case had a home in Buffalo and one in the town whose assessors he was suing in this case, and on the day of assessment was actually occupying the latter, but he claimed that his principal place of business was Buffalo and that accordingly the assessors had had no jurisdiction over him and were liable to damages. The court held that the residence gave the jurisdiction and that "where the principal business of the plaintiff was transacted was a matter of fact, to be ascertained by proof and to be settled by judicial determination. This determination was to be made by the assessors. It was to be made upon proof presented, or, if none was presented, by the best means of knowledge possessed by them. They are not liable for an erroneous decision of a question which they had jurisdiction to decide.' § 75. Jurisdiction as to subject matter. The principle of the last two cases that the determination of administrative officers may be final as to questions within their (7) 51 N. Y. 12. jurisdiction but not as to questions of their jurisdiction, finds frequent application when the question is one of authority over the subject matter. Thus in the case of People v. Board (8), where the act of a board of health in declaring certain dams nuisances was involved, the court said: "Boards of health under the acts referred to cannot, as to any existing state of facts, by their determination make that a nuisance which is not in fact a nuisance. They have no jurisdiction to make any order or ordinance abating an alleged nuisance unless there be in fact a nuisance. It is the actual existence of a nuisance that gives them jurisdiction to act." And this seems to be the general rule as to nuisances. In the case of Raymond v. Fish (9), however, the court considered that the jurisdiction of the health authorities extended even to a conclusive determination of the fact of nuisance. It said: "The statute does not mean to destroy property which is not a nuisance, but who shall decide whether it is so? All legal investigations require time, and cannot be thought of. If the board of health are to decide at their peril, they will not decide at all. They have no greater interest in the matter than others, further than to do their duty; but duty, hampered by a liability for damages for errors committed in its discharge, would become a motive of very little power. It would seem to be absolutely necessary to confer upon some constituted body the power to decide the matter conclusively, and to do it summarily, in order to accomplish the object the statute has in view. We think this has been done." (8) 140 N. Y. 1. (9) 51 Conn. 80. § 76. Abuse of discretion. But even though the act is within the jurisdiction of the officer and his determination is made final he must not abuse his discretion. Thus in the case of United States v. Ju Toy (10) the Supreme Court of the United States held that under the exclusion act it was within the power of the secretary of commerce and labor to pass conclusively on the citizenship of a Chinese claiming admittance into the country, but intimated that it would have looked into any abuse of authority if such had been alleged. In the case of Dental Examiners v. People (11), where the Illinois state board of dental examiners were required to issue licenses to any regular graduate of any reputable dental college, it was admitted that the courts would not control the discretion of the board in determining which were reputable dental colleges, but it was said: "If a discretionary power is exercised with manifest injustice, the courts are not precluded from commanding its due exercise. They will interfere where it is clearly shown that the descretion is abused." And so in the case at hand the court held that as the dental examiners, by not denying the facts of the petition, had admitted that the dental college in question was "reputable," not to grant the license was a gross abuse of the discretion vested in them, which would not be tolerated. § 77. Disqualification on account of interest. It is an old maxim that no one should be a judge in his own cause, but the principle involved is not confined to judges. In (10) 198 U. S. 253. (11) 123 Ill. 227. Goodyear v. Brown (12) the deputy secretary of internal affairs had procured a warrant to be issued to himself for nine hundred acres of land alleged to be vacant but on which the plaintiff and those through whom he derived title had paid taxes for nearly a century and which he claimed to be covered by an old warrant. He protested to the board of property of which the secretary of internal affairs was a member, but this tribunal decided against him and a patent was issued to the deputy secretary. The plaintiff then appealed to the courts, but he was at a great disadvantage, as "every paper and every scrap of evidence relating to the issuing, location and return of his warrant, was in the possession and under the control of his adversary" in the secretary's office. The court held that the warrant issued to the deputy secretary conveyed no title and said: "Whether we consider the interests of the citizens for whose security and protection the state exists, or the preservation of public confidence in the purity of the administration of public affairs, or the honor and character of the officer as a public servant, the conclusion reached is the same. Public policy cannot tolerate such dealings by an officer with his own department or office. It will not uphold them." § 78. Mandatory and directory statutes. In the case of French v. Edwards (13) the defendant asserted title to the premises in question under a sheriff's deed for unpaid taxes, and the whole question turned on the validity of the deed. The statute provided that the sheriff should only sell the smallest quantity of the property which any (12) 155 Pa. St. 514. (13) 13 Wall. 506. |