66 F. 729 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York | 1895
(orally). The section of the free list which is invoked by the importer, refers with great clearness, not to single articles which have been part of foreign collections or to single articles which are intended to be added to collections in this country, but it refers to collections of antiquities. The collection must be imported. If an importer assembles a collection of antiques, which, under the decisions of the courts, must certainly contain more than two articles, and intends to import the collection into this country, the mere fact that through mistake the articles forming the collection are imported in different steamers, or at different times is not material. But there must be a collection of which the importation is a part. It seems to be conceded from the proof here that the importation in question came here alone, and there is no evidence of which the court can take cognizance that it was part of a collection of antiques assembled in London and imported to this country and reassembled. In order to reach such a conclusion I would have to substitute conjecture for proof, and surmise that “.Babylonian cylinders,” whatever they may be, are antiquities with
