US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

1. An exception taken to the ruling of a court before the retirement of the jury from the bar may be drawn out in form and sealed by the Judge afterwards.

2. The time within which it may be so drawn out and presented to the court must depend upon the rules and practice of the court, and the judicial discretion of the presiding justice.

3. A patent for land adjoining Peoria, subject to the rights of all persons (French Villagers) claiming under the Act of 1423, confers, notwithstanding that reservation, a title in fee simple upon the patentee.

4. The title under such patent may be superseded and annulled by a survey under the Act of 1823, but it is in the meantime good on its face, and will afford protection to the patentee in possession under it.

5. The clause making the patent subject to claims under the act chanrobles.com-red

Page 67 U. S. 564

of 1823, was intended to exonerate the United States from liability in case a better title should be proved, and does not create a trust in the patentee for the use of any villager who may afterwards get it surveyed to himself.

6. If the patentee takes possession of the land and holds it under the patent, his possession is adverse, and not subservient to a claimant under the act of 1823.

7. Although a confirmed claim under the act of 1823 is on its face a better title than that acquired under a patent issued before the confirmation of, but subject to that claim, yet if the patentee has been in possession seven years before suit brought, the Illinois statute of limitation will protect him.

8. A patentee of a quarter section is secure in his title to the whole of it if he has been in possession of a part, claiming the whole for seven years, though it has been subdivided into lots upon some of which he had no actual residence or occupancy.