Case ID: f_66/html/0151-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WHEELER, District Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MAGNON v. UNITED STATES.
    (Circuit Court, S. D. New York.
    January 2, 1895.)
    Customs Duties — Act Oct. 1, 1890 — Live Snakes — Toons or Trade.
    Certain trained snakes, imported fey a professional snake charmer, held to fee free of duty under paragraph 680, under the provision therein for “implements, instruments and tools of trade, occupation or employment,” and not dutiable as “live animals” under paragraph 251, as classified fey the collector.
    This was an application by the snake charmer Magnon, importer of certain trained snakes, for a review of the decision of the board of general appraisers sustaining the decision of the collector of the port of New York as to the rate of duty on said snakes.
    Comstock & Brown, for importer.
    Wallace Macfarlane, U. S. Atty., and Henry C. Platt, Asst. U. S. Atty.
   WHEELER, District Judge.

The importer in this case is a snake charmer, and imported 28 trained snakes, in her actual possession, and used by her in exhibitions of her skill in that profession, and which were not for sale. A duty was assessed upon them as animals. She claims they are free under paragraph 686 of the tariff act of 1890, which exempts “professional books, implements, instruments, and tools of trade, occupation or employment,” under such circumstances. A suggestion is made in argument that these words do not include animate things. One definition of “instrument” is: “One who, or that which, is made a means, or caused to serve a purpose.” Webst. Diet. “Instrument” 4. These snakes are clearly “instruments” within this definition. They are instruments with which she practices her profession, and are her professional instruments. As such, she seems to have been entitled to have them come with her, duty free. Decision of board reversed.