Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/659

UNITED STATES V, DE VISSEE. 647 �In examining these questions it is assumee! that the ordinary prin- ciples of the law of principal and surety apply to this case. If there is anything peculiar in the situation of custom-house sureties, or in the law applicable to them, it must resuit from the form of the bonds themselves, or from the special laws designed to affect the rights and liabilities of the parties to them. The bond in suit was given under the provision of the statute now embodied in section 2964 of the Kevised Statutes, which provides that goods may be entered for ware- housing, "subject to order, on payment of the proper duties and ex- penses, to be secured by a bond, with surety to the satisfaction of the colleotor, in double the amount of the duties, in such form as the sec- retary of the treasury shall prescribe." Different forms of these bonds have been prescribed from time to time. The present was the form in use at the time it bears date. Treas. Eeg. art. 31 of 1868. Though having several alternative conditions, it is in substance a bond for the payment of duties and charges, unless the goods shall be duly exported within three years ; and, upon forf eiture, only the amount of duties and charges could be colleoted npon it. Westray v. U. S. 18 Wall. 330. �The statute, in requiring a "surety," requires only an obligor hav- ing the rights' and liabilities of any ordinary surety, except in so far as they are modified by the special laws and regulations applicable to the subject. Except as thus modified, the rights of sureties in such bonds given to the government are the same, and are governed by the same rules of law that pertain to contracts of suretyship between individuals. "There is not one law for the former and another law for the latter." Per Swayne, J., McKnight v. U. S. 98 U. S. 186. The inquiry in any such case must be, what are the gen- erai rules of law applicable to the particular contract, and to what extent, if at all, have these rules been modified by the special laws and regulations concerning the collection of the revenue ? �1. In considering the statute of 1861, declaring that after three years goods not withdrawn "shall be deemed abandoned to the gov- ernment and sold, " the first inquiry is whether this statute is to be deemed to be in effect any part of the bond, or to create any obliga- tion of the government to the surety ; or whether it is simply direct- ory to the officers of the government, in the nature of private instruc- tions from a principal to his agent, designed only for the latter's guidance in the performance of his duties. �This statute, together with the regulations above recited, form a part of the System of laws regulating the entry of goods for ware- ��� �