§ 220 Id.; the Matter of Stickney. enacted subsequent to the Legislative Law. (Chap. 482, Laws 1892, as amended.) The court says: "In the present case, however, I do not think that I am confronted with a situation presenting a question as to the constitutionality of the Act of 1892 prescribing the conclusiveness as evidence of the certificate therein specified. The statement appended to the Session Law relative to the law in question, is only made presumptive evidence that the original law was certified by the proper officers in the manner stated. The statement obviously does not conform to the certificates of such officers to the original law, and whatever may be taken to be its meaning, or its intended effect, it is open to contradiction by competent proof. The certificates attached to the original law, as far as they go, prove themselves, or, to that extent are made conclusive by the Act of 1892 (Chap. 482, as amended) on the assumption that it is a valid law, and so far as they omit to state the fact as to the act having been passed in presence of three-fifths of the members elected to each house, the certificates were incomplete and defective and there is nothing in the Act of 1892 last mentioned, in the view I take of it, incompatible with the right of the presentation of competent proof on the subject. The journals which have been received in evidence I consider such proof, and they prove that the requisite quorum was present on the final passage of the act in question and this evidence supersedes the incomplete and defective certificates of the presiding officers." The surrogate then refers at length to the opinion of the court in People ex rel. v. Supervisors, 8 N. Y. 317; Darlington v. Mayor, etc., 2 Robt. 277; affd., 31 N. Y. 164; Rumsey v. N. Y. & N. E. R. R., 130 N. Y. 88, and Id.; the Matter of Stickney. § 220 Matter of N. Y. & L. I. Bridge Co., 148 N. Y. 540–555, the Court of Appeals in the last case saying (p. 555): "We think the journals of the Senate and Assembly were properly received in evidence and they show conclusively that the Act of 1892 received a two-thirds vote the journals were offered in evidence not for the purpose of contradicting the certificates, but to supplement them, as they were defective. We think it would defeat the provisions of the Constitution and the statute if, in such an emergency as was here presented, recourse could not be had to the journals of the two houses." The surrogate, in affirming the order, stated that in his opinion the amended certificates and affidavits of the presiding officers were incompetent evidence. The Appellate Division of the First Department (Matter of Stickney, 110 App. Div. 294), affirming the order of the surrogate, held that the presiding officers of the Senate and Assembly have no power, after the adjournment of said houses, to file amended certificates correcting errors in the original certificate, and such amended certificates are not evidence that the requisite number of members were present at the passage of a tax law, but inasmuch as the State Constitution requires each house to keep a journal and that the vote of the members must be entered on the minutes, such minutes are the original and conclusive evidence of the facts, and resort may be had thereto for proof to supplement a defective or an insufficient certificate of the presiding officer to sustain the statute, although the certificates filed by the presiding officers of the said houses do not show that the required three-fifths were present; that in the case at bar the journals of the Senate and Assembly show that the bill was passed by § 220 Id.; the Matter of Stickney. more than a majority vote and in the presence of more than three-fifths of all the members elected to each house, and therefore the statute was duly enacted and is valid. The Court of Appeals (Matter of Stickney, 185 N. Y. 107), in affirming the order of the Appellate Division, says: "Per Curiam. It has been held by this court that where the Session Laws show a statute to have been passed, but the certificates of the presiding officers of both houses attached to the original bill are defective in failing to show that the requisite number of members were present or voted therefor, recourse may be had to the journals of the two houses to support the validity of the enactment. (Matter of N. Y. & L. I. R. R. Co., 148 N. Y. 540.) An appeal to those journals shows that when the statute now under review, the enactment of which is challenged, was passed, there was present in each house of the Legislature the requisite constitutional number of members, to wit, three-fifths. It is contended, however, that the authenticity of the journals of the Legislature, certified copies of which were put in evidence, was not established, and that with the failure of any original record certified extracts therefrom were not competent. Without expressing any opinion on this objection it is sufficient to say that the question has now been set at rest by the enactment, since the argument of the appeal, of chapter 240 of the Laws of 1906, which in express terms declares the printed copies to be the original journals of the two houses and makes them, or copies thereof, competent evidence when certified by the respective clerks of the senate and assembly." The United States Supreme Court, in dismissing the writ of error to review the decision of the Court of Appeals in this case, holds that a ruling by the highest court of the State sustaining the method of proving the existence of a law of that State presents no Federal question; that where the language of the appellate Aggregate Estate Determines Taxability of Transfers. § 220 court is ambiguous, if it may be taken as a declination to pass upon a question not necessary to the decision, this court will not, in order to aid a technical and nonmeritorious defense, spell out a Federal question; but it will resolve the ambiguity against the plaintiff in error, who is bound, in order to give this court jurisdiction, to clearly show that a Federal right has been impaired. Stickney v. Kelsey, 209 U. S. 419. 6. Chapter 41, Laws of 1903, Did Not Change the Rule that the Aggregate Estate Determines Whether the Transfer Is Taxable or Not. In the Matter of Fisher, 96 App. Div. 133, 89 N. Y. S. 102, the surrogate of Tompkins county construed the amendment to section 221, made by chapter 41, Laws 1903, as an intent on the part of the Legislature to change the rule established by the decisions in the Matter of Hoffman, 143 N. Y. 327, and the Matter of Corbett, 171 N. Y. 516, respecting the definition of the word "property" in section 242, and the limitations referring to the aggregate estate transferred to both classes of taxable persons. The decedent's whole estate transferred amounted to $10,122.46, three-quarters of which passed to two brothers and one sister equally, and the remaining onequarter passed to five nephews and nieces. The surrogate refused to tax the portion of the estate passing to the brothers and sister, holding that the statute, as amended by chapter 41 (supra), must now be construed so as to permit a tax of 1 per cent. to be imposed upon a sum passing to brothers and sisters, in the event only that the total amount passing to them, as a class, is equal to the sum of $10,000, however large the estate may be. $ 220 Subd. 6 Held Constitutional by U. S. Supreme Court. The Appellate Division held that this amendment works no such change in the meaning of the statute as to require the interpretation the surrogate gave it; that the Matter of Hoffman (supra) and the Matter of Corbett (supra) are still authority, requiring the word "property," as used in section 221, to be construed as that word is defined in section 242 (now § 243), and that the only change effected by the amendment of 1903 was that, in estimating the value of the property passing, real property as well as personal property should be considered. 7. Subdivision 5 (Now Subd. 6) of Section 220 of the Transfer Tax Law Held Constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court. The Matter of Delano, 105 App. Div. 642, affd., 183 N. Y. 543, was reviewed and affirmed by the U. S. Supreme Court sub. nom. Chanler v. Kelsey, 205 U. S. Rep. 466, that court saying the real purpose of the writ of error is to review a decree of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York which imposed a transfer tax upon certain estates arising under appointment by Laura Astor Delano, deceased. (Matter of Delano, 176 N. Y. 486.) The court holds that the imposition of a transfer or inheritance tax under chapter 284, Laws of 1897, of New York, on the exercise of a power of appointment in the same manner as though the estate passing thereby belonged absolutely to the person exercising the power, does not, although the power was created prior to the act, deprive the person taking by appointment, and who would not otherwise have taken the estate, of his property without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, nor does it violate the obligation of any contract within the pro |