Case ID: f_99/html/0262-02.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

UNITED STATES v. RICHARD.
    (Circuit Court, S. D. New York.
    January 16, 1900.)
    No. 2,867.
    Customs Duties — Bleached Grasses.
    Natural grass, sun bleached, used for emblems, is not a manufactured article, and is put on the free list, under Act 1897, par. 566, as textile grasses “not manufactured in any manner, and not specially provided for.”
    Comstock & Brown, for importers.
    H. C. Platt, Asst. U. S. Atty.
   WHEELER, District Judge.

Paragraph 566 of the act of 1897 puts on the free list “Istle or Tampico fiber, jute, jute butts, manila, sisal grass, sunn, and all other textile grasses or fibrous vegetable substances not manufactured in any manner, and not specially provided. for.” This importation is of natural grass, sun bleached, used for emblems. It has been classified as free under this paragraph, instead.of under paragraph 251, which puts a duty on natural flowers of all kinds, preserved or fresh, suitable for decorative purposes. In Frazee v. Moffitt, 20 Blatchf. 267, 18 Fed. 584, Judge, afterwards Mr. Justice, Blatchford held that hay containing sugar converted by the heat of the sun from starch in the grass" by being dried was not a manufactured article. So this grass, bleached by mere exposure to the sun, is not a manufactured article. It is not made into any new thing. Decision affirmed.