Under an oil and gas lease providing that it should be void unless a well is completed before a specified time or unless, after that date a rental is paid, failure of the lessee to drill well or pay rent held to merely work a forfeiture of the lease and not to entitle the lessor to recover the rent. Butcher vs. Greene, 98 N. E. 876.

Where a landlord engaged a plumber to disconnect a gas fixture and to connect the same with the tenant's meter, and the plumber without notice or warning left the pipe uncapped, so that the gas escaped, the landlord was liable for injuries to an employe of the tenant from an explosion which resulted when such employe, without knowledge of the danger, entered the room, which was dark, and lighted a match.

Dicker vs. Roossin, 136 N. Y. Supp. 50.

A landlord, undertaking to carry out her promise to put caps on openings in gas pipes on leased premises held liable for the tenant's injuries from an explosion caused by her failure to perform the work with reason. able skill and care. Buldra vs. Henin, 98 N. E. 863.

BANKS AND BANKING.

Sacredness of Trust Funds.

Where a depositor having a trust account with a bank drew a check thereon to pay a private debt to the banker who with knowledge of the trust, applied the amount on an individual claim of the bank, the bank acquired no title to the fund as against the true owner. (Okla.) Fidelity & Deposit Co., of Maryland vs. Rankin, 124 P. 71.

A bank transferring a forged note and mortgage held by it as collateral, to [secure a note payable to it, held, required to repay the amount received from the transferee.

Zwikel vs. Amer. Savings Bank & Trust Company 124 Pac. 386.

Banks-Revocation of Check.

Checks are but inland bills of exchange and subject to all the rules applicable to instruments of that character, and impose no obligation upon the drawees until accepted; are revocable by the drawer, who has the legal control of the money to his credit until actual acceptance or payment of the checks.

Assignments-Drafts-Acceptence.—

A draft drawn in the ordinary form does not constitute an equitable assignment pro tanto of funds in the hands of the drawee to the credit of the drawer before such draft has been accepted or presented for payment.

First Nat. Bank of Duran vs. School Dist. No, 4 Bryan County, 31 Okla. 139.

REAL ESTATE AGENTS.

1. Where under a contract that a real estate broker shall receive a commission if the trade goes through, he is entitled to a commission when, through his efforts, a binding valid contract is executed by the parties, though, through the fault of his primcipal alone, the sale is not completed.

Fawver vs. Fullingim. 149 S. W. 746.

A broker employed to procure a purchaser of real estate who would pay a specified sum, but not exelusive, is not entitled to commissions where he fails to procure a purchaser willing to pay the specified sum, in the absence of anything to show that, if the owner had not taken the property out of the market by selling it for a less sum, the broker would finally have obtained a pur. chaser willing to pay the specified sum. Ferguson vs. Willard, 196 Fed. 370.

A broker's right to commissions accrues only when he has secured a purchaser who buys, or who is ready, able, and willing to buy, on the terms fixed by the owner, and procured a valid contract, or brought the purchaser and the owner together with a view to a sale on the terms proposed. Cone vs. Keil, 124 P. 548. (Cal.)

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SHULTHIS vs. MCDOUGAL

and

BERRYHILL vs. SHULTHIS.

The above two cases, known as 156 and 157 were consolidated into one, and a few days since given a final determination in the Supreme Court of the United States. These cases involve very important points, and The Oklahoma Law Journal has followed them from Court to Court, as may be seen in previous numbers, during the last three years. This final opinion is here given in full, but the pith of the points decided may be summed up as follows:

1. That the jurisdiction of a case to be considered by the federal court is dependent upon the facts pleaded; that the federal question must be affirmatively set forth. 2. That the fact that the controversy arose out of lands or questions involving land acquired from the United States is not sufficient to give a federal court jurisdiction. 3. That the laws of Arkansas when extended over the Indian Territory served the same purpose and were of the same force as if enacted by a legislature of the ter ritory, and that as a consequence of this fact corporations organized during the period, were not necessarily federal corporations.

4. That where an action is pending and an intervenor came in, his rights of intervention could only stand if the pending action stood.

These actions all through the various courts were prosecuted and defended by some of the best legal talent in Eastern Oklahoma: such lawyers as Geo. S. Ramsey, Preston C. West, C. L. Thomas and Edgar A. DeMeules.

Opinion of the COURT by Justice VAN DEVANTER.

These are appeals from decrees of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirming a decree of the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma dismissing on the merits a bill in equity, as also a petition in intervention, brought to determine conflicting claims to a tract of allotted land in the Creek Nation. The al

legations of the bill may be smmarized as follows:

The complainant, Shulthis, is a citizen of Kansas. One of the defendants, the Kiefer Oil and Gas Company, is a corporation organized in the Indian Territory under the Arkansas statutes which were put in force therein by an act of Congress, and since the admission of Oklahoma as & State "has been and now is a citizen and resident of said State" and of the Eastern District thereof. The other defendants are citizens of that State, resident in that district. The intervenor, George Franklin Berryhill, is a member by blood of the Creek Nation, duly enrolled as such, and his wife is not a member.

A son, named Andrew J. Berryhill, was born to the intervenor and his wife in May, 1901 and died in Nov. ember following, leaving no brother or sister surviving. In October, 1902, the deceased son's name was placed on the roll of the Creek Nation by the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, and thereafter an allotment, including the tract in controversy, was made to his "heirs" from the lands of the Nation, and a deed or patent was issued to such heir's with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. Subsequently, and in March, 1906, George Franklin Berryhill and his wife, claiming to be the sole heirs of Andrew J. and the owners in fee of this tract, executed to the complainant a lease thereof, granting to him the right to explore for and extract oil and gas from the land for the term of fifteen years. The lease was made conformably to regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, was filed with the United States Indian Agent at Muskogee, in the Indian Territory, March 21, 1906, and was approved by the Secretary of the Interior April 19, 1907. The complainant complied with the regulations, duly paid the advance royalty provided for in the lease, and claime the sole and exclusive right to prospect for and extract the depoits of oil and gas existing in and under the land, which are said to be extensive and to have a value many times in excess of $2,000. Respecting the claims and acts of the defendants the bill alleges:

"Your orator further shows that the defendants and each of them claim and assert some right, title and interests in and to said lands and particularly to the said oil and natural gas deposits adverse to your orator, but the nature of said claims of said defendants is to your orator. unknown; but your orator states that they have no such right, title or interest in the said deposits of oil and naturl gas orany part thereof; that whatever claimed rights the said defedants or any of them have therein. were acquired long subsequent to the right of your orator herein before set forth; and further were acquired with notice and knowledge of the lease to your orator so executed, filed and approved as aforesaid; and also of facts and circumstances sufficient to put them and each of them upon inquiry with reference thereto.

"Your orator further states that the said defendant Kiefer Oil and Gas Company, combining and confederating with the other defendants named herein, have disregarded and still disregard the rights of your orator, and in violation thereof, and without right, unlawfully and wilfully on or about the first day of April, 1907. entered upon the said above described lands and have stationed thereon divers agents, servants and employes, whose names are to your orator unknown, and with force and arms exclude and have excluded your orator and his agents, servants and employes therefrom; and further that said defendants have bored and drilled oil and gas wells on said premises, and have and still are allowing large quantities of oil and natural gas to escape therefrom and be wasted. That by reason thereof your orator has been damaged in the sum of $25,000. And fur

ther, said defendants threaten to, and will unless restrained by this court, drill other and further wells on said land for oil and natural gas, and have and are threatening to and will unless restrained, by means of such wells, extract said oil and gas deposits from said land and convert the same to their own use and benefit against the manifest right of your orator."

The prayer of the bill is that the defendants be decreed to have no interest or estate in the deposits of oil and