Argument for Appellant. to which exceptions were taken both by Case, the receiver, and by the defendants Hiles and Kelly, which exceptions were overruled by the court, and a final decree entered. From this the present appeal is taken. That decree, after specifying certain pieces of land which the court considered as necessary and proper to the road for its use in the way of track, right of way, depots and other similar, proper and necessary uses, ordered the conveyance of these pieces of land by Kelly, and by Ketchum and by Hiles and by the Arcadia Mineral Spring Company to the railroad company. It also directed a master to ascertain and eport the value of certain improvements made by Hiles upon a portion of this property, and report the same to the court, for which Hiles was to be paid in case complainant should elect to take such improvements. Mr. Walter C. Larned (with whom was Mr. Herbert M. Turner on the brief) for appellant. I. The act of incorporation of the Green Bay and Minnesota Railroad Company being a private act, the court cannot take judicial notice of it. Atchison & Topeka Railroad v. Blackshire, 10 Kansas, 477; Horn v. Chicago &c. Railroad, 38 Wisconsin, 463; Perry v. New Orleans &c. Railroad, 55 Alabama, 413; Mandére v. Bonsignore, 28 La. Ann. 415; Broad Street Hotel Co. v. Weaver, 57 Alabama, 26; Chapman v. Coleby, 47 Michigan, 46; Workingmen's Bank v. Converse, 33 La. Ann. 963; Hailes v. State, 9 Texas App. 170; Leland v. Wilkinson, 6 Pet. 317. II. The State alone, by a proceeding quo warranto, has the right to inquire whether the corporation was exceeding its powers in the acquisition of real estate. National Bank v. Matthews, 98 U. S. 621; Leazure v. Hillegas, 7 S. & R. 313; Cowell v. Springs Co., 100 U. S. 55; Goundie v. Northamp ton Water Co., 7 Penn. St. 233; Runyan v. Coster, 14 Pet. 122; The Banks v. Poitiaux, 3 Randolph, 136; S. C. 15 Am. Dec. 706; McIndoe v. St. Louis, 10 Missouri, 575; Gold Mining Co. v. National Bank, 96 U. S. 640. Citations for Appellee. III. The trustee was not entitled to improvements. Thomp son v. Thompson, 16 Wisconsin, 91; Waterman v. Dutton, 6 Wisconsin, 265. Mr. George II. Noyes, for Hiles, appellee, cited: People v. Ottawa Hydraulic Co., 115 Illinois, 281; Covington Draw Bridge Co. v. Shepherd, 20 How. 227, 232; Junction Railroad Co. v. Bank of Ashland, 12 Wall. 226; People v. River Raison &c. Railroad Co., 12 Michigan, 389; S. C. 86 Am. Dec. 64; State v. Lean, 9 Wisconsin, 279; Clark v. Janesville, 10 Wisconsin, 136; Rochester v. Alfred Bank, 13 Wisconsin, 432; S. C. 80 Am. Dec. 746; Castello v. Landwehr, 28 Wisconsin, 522; Rensselaer & Saratoga Railroad v. Davis, 43 N. Y: 137; Cook v. Berlin Woolen Mills Co., 56 Wisconsin, 643; S. C. 43 Wisconsin, 433; Benson v. Cutler, 53 Wisconsin, 107; Hadley v. Stewart, 65 Wisconsin, 481; Blodgett v. Hitt, 29 Wisconsin, 169; Green v. Dixon, 9 Wisconsin, 532; Pratt v. Thornton, 28 Maine, 355; S. C. 48 Am. Dec. 492; Spindler v. Atkinson, 3 Maryland, 409; S. C. 56 Am. Dec. 755. cause. On January 26, 1888, the day on which the cause was argued, the death of Henry Ketchum, one of the appellees, was suggested, and on July 19, 1888, the appearance of his heirs and legal representatives was filed in the cause. On October 9, 1888, a motion was submitted asking for an order making the heirs and legal representatives of said Ketchum parties to the On October 15th an order was made requiring the filing of affidavits to the effect that the persons named in the papers were the sole heirs and legal representatives of said Ketchum, and providing that in default thereof publication be made pursuant to the first section of rule 15. No affidavits having been filed pursuant to that order, on December 19, 1888, an order of publication was issued, and on July 6th, 1889, the order was duly published, and proof of publication thereof was filed in the clerk's office of this court September 12, 1889. The parties having failed to come in within the first ten days of this term, pursuant to the requirement of said rule, the appellant, on the 28th October, 1889, moved that such order or direction might be passed by the court as to it should seem Opinion of the Court. proper, or the exigency of the case might require. On the 4th of November, 1889, the court ordered that unless application should be made on behalf of the parties or either of them on or before the third Monday of that month to submit further argument in the case, it would be taken and considered upon the arguments then filed. No such application was made. MR. JUSTICE MILLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. The principal question suggested by this appeal is, whether the complainant, as representing the railroad company, can maintain a suit for these lands; that is to say, whether the company was endowed by the legislature of Wisconsin with a capacity to receive an indefinite quantity of lands, with no limitation upon their use, or upon their sale, or whether they were limited to the lands necessary to such uses as were appropriate to the operations of a railroad. It is not pretended that there is any general statute of the State of Wisconsin which authorizes either this company or any other corporation to purchase and hold lands indefinitely, as an individual could do, without regard to the uses to be made of such real estate. The charter of the company, approved April 12, 1866, Private Laws Wis. 1866, c. 540, p. 1331, authorizes it to acquire real estate, namely, the fee simple in lands, tenements and easements, for their legitimate use for railroad purposes. It is thus authorized to take lands 100 feet in width for right of way, and also such as is needed for depot buildings, stopping-stages, station-houses, freight-houses, warehouses, engine-houses, machine-shops, factories, and for purposes connected with the use and management of the railroad. This enumeration of the purposes for which the corporation could acquire title to real estate must necessarily be held exclusive of all other purposes, and, as the court said at the time of making its interlocutory decree, "it was not authorized by its charter to take lands for speculative or farming purposes." It must be held, therefore, that there was no authority under the laws of Wisconsin for this corporation to receive an ́ Opinion of the Court. indefinite quantity of lands, whether by purchase or gift, to be converted into money or held for any other purposes than those mentioned in its act of incorporation. To this view of the subject counsel urges several objections. The first of these which we will notice is that the charter of the corporation is a private act of which the court cannot take judicial notice, and that as it was not pleaded nor offered in evidence, nor otherwise brought to the attention of the court, it could not be the foundation of its judgment. To this there are two sufficient answers. The first of which is, that if the statute creating this corporation gave it no power to receive and hold lands in the manner we have mentioned, then it had no such power by virtue of any law of the State of Wisconsin; for a corporation, in order to be entitled to buy and sell, to receive and hold, the title to real estate, must have some statutory authority of the State in which such lands lie, to enable it to do so, and the absence of such provision in the law of its incorporation does not create any general statute which authorizes any such right. Another answer is, that in the charter of the railroad company itself, Laws of Wisconsin of 1866, chapter 540, section. 14, it is expressly enacted that "this act is hereby declared to be a public act, and shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage and publication." To this it is replied by counsel for appellant that the statute of Wisconsin cannot make that a public law which in its essential nature is a private law. However this may be, we do not doubt the authority of the legislature of a State to enact that after the passage and publication of one of its statutes the courts of the State shall be bound to take judicial notice of it without its being pleaded or proven before them. This rule, thus pre scribed for the government of the courts of the States, must be binding in proceedings in federal courts in the same State. Indeed, the distinction between public and private acts has become very artificial and shadowy since legislative bodies have adopted the principle of publishing in printed form all statutes which they pass. Some of the States keep up the distinction by making a difference in the manner in which Opinion of the Court. public and private acts shall be published, and in such cases. this difference is to be observed and may become of some consequence, but the power of the legislature to declare in any case that after the passage and publication of any of its laws they shall be judicially noticed as public acts cannot, we think, be doubted. It is next objected to the principle adopted by the court that the limitation upon the power of the corporation to receive land is one which concerns the State alone, and the title to such lands in a corporation can only be defeated by a proceeding in the nature of a quo warranto on behalf of the State. The case of National Bank v. Matthews, 98 U. S. 621, is strenuously relied on to support this view. We need not stop here to inquire whether this company can hold title to lands, which it is impliedly forbidden to do by its charter, because the case before us is not one in which the title to the lands in question has ever been vested in the railroad company, or attempted to be so vested. The railroad company is plaintiff in this action, and is seeking to obtain the title to such lands. It has no authority by the statute to receive such title and to own such lands, and the question here is, not whether the courts would deprive it of such lands if they had been conveyed to it, but whether they will aid it to violate the law and obtain a title which it has no power to hold. We think the questions are very different ones, and that while a court might hesitate to declare the title to lands received already, and in the possession and ownership of the company, void on the principle that they had no authority to take such lands, it is very clear that it will not make itself the active agent in behalf of the company in violating the law and enabling the company to do that which the law forbids. Another alleged error in the decree of the court relates to that part of it which authorizes Hiles to recover the value of his improvements if the corporation chooses to take the improvements. We do not think this objection sufficient to reverse the decree. In the first place, the right of the plaintiff to have this land is not based so much upon the ground of the defendants having purchased it for the benefit of the road |