Case ID: f_128/html/0467-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "WPIEERER, District Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

LEWIS GERMAN & CO. v. UNITED STATES.
    (Circuit Court, S. D. New York.
    February 3, 1904.)
    No. 3,258.
    ,1. Customs Duties— Classification — Oraciced Ginger Root.
    A by-product in tbe process of «drafting tlie essence of ginger root, which results from cracking the mule root in a machine and running it through a still, and consists of the residue of the process pressed into cakes, is not within tlie provision in paragraph 007, Tariff Act July 24, 1897, c. 11, § 2, Free List, 30 Stat 201 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1(>88], for “ginger .root, unground.” Cracking the root, so that it is reduced to small panicles and pulverized, is a process of grinding.
    On application by Rewis German & Co., importers, for review of a decision of the Board of General Appraisers, which affirmed the assessment of duty by the collector of customs at the port of New York.
    See G. A. 5,439.
    Albert Comstock, for appellant.
    D. Frank Rloyd, Asst. LI. S. Atty.
   WPIEERER, District Judge.

This merchandise appears to bé a byproduct produced by cracking crude ginger root in a machine, running it through a still, and extracting the essence for medicinal and other purposes, and left pressed into cakes. It has been assessed as a “spice át 3c. a pound,” under paragraph 287 of the tariff law (Act July 24, 1897, c. 11, § 1, Schedule G, 30 Stat. 173 [U. S. Comp.. St. 1901, p. 3653], against a protest that it should be assessed as “ginger root, niigronnd and not preserved or candied,” in tlie free list at paragraph 667, § 2, 30 Stat. 201 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1688]. It is not “preserved'or candied,” and the question here is whether it is “ginger root, unground.” That it came from ginger root is unquestioned. As this paragraph 667 is the paragraph named in the protest, there is no other question here than whether it is ginger root, unground. That reduces it to the question Whether cracking the crude root in a machine, and reducing it to finer particles, is any process of grinding. “Un-ground” means wholly unground or not at all ground, and, if cracking is any part of the process of grinding, it is not unground.

One definition of “grind” is to “crush into small fragments,” as given by Webster; and another is to “triturate,” one definition of which is to “pulverize,” as given by the Standard Dictionary. By this process of cracking the crude ginger root appears to be reduced to small particles and to be pulverized. It is therefore to that extent ground. It cannot be considered as wholly ground, or unground. It is not the “unground ginger root” of paragraph 667. Whether it may fall under some other paragraph of the tariff law, as has been suggested and said to have been since held, is not here material. This case must be decided upon this protest, which raises merely this question.

Decision affirmed.