COMMERFORD
v.
THOMPSON.
·417
THOMPSO:r.
(Circuit Court, D. Kentuekll.
March 31,1880.)
LETTERS CONCERNING LOTTERIES-LETTERS ADDRESSED TO SECRETARY OF LOTTEUY COMPANy-DETEN'l'ION BY POSTMISTRESS-INJUNCTION,-
A court of equity will not grant relief where letters addressed to the secretary of a lottery company are detained by the postmistress, under the direction of the postmaster general, as having been mailed in violation of section 3894 of the Hevised Statutes, providing that" no letter concerning lotterieil .. .. .. .. .. shall be carried in the mail," where the pleadings fail to show tha.t the letters had no connection with the lottery business.
.. * ..
In Equity. James A. Beattie, D. W. Sanders and W. O. Dodd, for complainant. G. C. Wharton, J. p,. Goodloe and A. A. Freeman for defendant. BROWN, J. This is a bill brought by the complainant, a citizen of New York, against the defendant, postmistress of the city of Louisville, for the purpose of enjoining her from interfering with and delaying complainant's letters, addressed to him at Louisville. The bill charges, uvon information and belief, that there are in the post-offices, and have been since the tenth of October, letters of the value of $5,500, addressed to "T. J. Commerford, Secretary, Louisville, Kentucky, lock· box: No. 121," with the required postage prepaid upon each letter, and that defendant has taken possession of the same, and refuses to deliver them as the laws of the United States require, notwithstanding he has demanded possession thereof. The bill further alleges that at the time these letters were mailed the postal laws of t,he United States and the I'egulations of the department authorized the mailing and transmission thereof and their deiivery by the defendant; that the complainant is entitled to possession of the same, and unless they are delivered he will suffer great wrong and irreparable injury. Prayer for an injunction to the defendant to deliver possesv.1,no.7-27
FEDERAL REPORTER.
sion of any and all letters addressed to the complainant, M well as all such as may hereafter be addressed to him and received at her office. In her answer defendant bases her refusal upon certain instructions from the postmaster general, directing the detention of letters address3ed to the complainant. She denies that the laws of the United States, or the regulations of the department, require the delivery of such letters, and charges, upon information and belief, that all of said letters are letters and communications about and concerning a lottery known as "The Commonwealth Distribution Company;" that all of said letters are intended to be received by said company, although addressed in the name of the complainant, "Secretary," for convenience, and to conceal the fact thatthey were intended for said company, and that they were letters and communications concerning a lottery; that they are the exclusive property of said company, and that the complainant is but the secretary so-called, and employe of said company, and has no ownership or property in said letters; and that said letters, and everyone of them, were deposited in the mail bag of the United States in violation of the laws of said government, and that their transmission from the various offices where they were deposited was also in violation of the law. The answer further sets forth the correspondence with the postmaster general in which he directed defendant to detain letters to "T. J. Commerford, Secretary," and insists such order was justified by law, and was within the scope of his powers as postmaster general. Few intelligent persons will deny that lottery gambling is a. vice which merits the reprobation, visited upon it by almost all the enlightened legislatures of modern times. The moral sense of. the community long since pronounced against it, and the eloquent denunciations of Mr. Justice Catron, in the case of The State v. Smith, 2 Yerg. 272, will touch a responsive chord in the heart of every honest man. The recent report of the postmaster general to the house of representatives sets forth with startling emphasis the
