Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/222/130/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 16:15:30+00:00

Document:
Section 7 of the Dingley Tariff Act of June 24, 1897, c. 11, 30 Stat. 159, known as the similitude clause, does not require that there shall be similarity of material, quality, texture, and use in all four particulars, but a substantial similarity in one particular may be adequate to classify an article thereunder.
Imitation horsehair was properly classified under the similitude clause with cotton yarn enumerated in paragraph 302 of the Tariff Act instead of with silk yarn under paragraph 385, there being a substantial similitude with the former both as to material and use, even if not as to quality or texture.
The facts, which involve the correct classification, under the Tariff Act of 1897 of artificial horsehair, are stated in the opinion.
This suit concerns the correct classification, under the Tariff Act of July 24, 1897, c. 11, 30 Stat. 151, of artificial or imitation horsehair, imported by the respondent into the port of New York on October 5, 1904.
Artificial or imitation horsehair is made from cotton waste by two processes, the Fremery and the Chardonnet. By the first process, referred to in the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Hardt von Bernuth & Co. v. United States, 146 F. 61, the cotton waste is dissolved in a solution of cup-ammonium, a salt of copper and ammonia, and this solution is forced through fine openings, discharging into a bath of acetic acid, forming threads of cellulose. By the second process, the cotton waste, or raw cotton, is at first turned into gun cotton. This gun cotton is then mixed with alcohol and ether and dissolved into a liquid, and this liquid is forced by pressure through pipes at the end of which there are a number of small openings. The material is subsequently subjected to a process which it is not necessary to describe.
to stick together, whereas, in the manufacture by the like process of artificial silk, the fine filaments are grouped and twisted together and solidified. The imitation horsehair is usually died black, imported in skeins, and sometimes on spools.
Imitation horsehair is not expressly mentioned in the Tariff Act of 1897, probably because it was not commercially known when the act was passed.
The provisions of the Act of 1897 which are required to be considered in the determination of the question to be decided, briefly, are these, viz.: Section 6, providing for duty on nonenumerated articles; § 7, the "similitude clause;" paragraph 302, the cotton yarn clause, and paragraph 385, the silk yarn clause.
"30 percentum ad valorem, under paragraph 385, the silk yarn provision, as a result of applying § 7 of the 'similitude clause.' The importer protested, claiming the merchandise to be dutiable at the rate provided by paragraph 302, by similitude to cotton yarn, or at the rate of 20 percent, under § 6, as a nonenumerated manufactured article."
manufactured article at the rate of 20 percentum ad valorem under § 6.
By appropriate proceedings, Eckstein, the respondent here, invoked the exercise of jurisdiction by the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York for the review of questions of law and fact involved in the decision of the Board of General Appraisers, and in that court contended that the merchandise was a yarn, and was by similitude dutiable under paragraph 302 as a cotton yarn. The court, after hearing additional testimony, decided that the merchandise was not yarn, could not by similitude be assessed as cotton yarn or yarn of any other kind, and that the board properly assessed it under § 6 as a manufactured article not otherwise provided for. 160 F. 287.
"The judge of the circuit court affirmed the government's classification, distinguishing that case on the ground that artificial silk was found to be a yarn, whereas artificial horsehair, being solid, and not composed of twisted or spun filaments, is not a yarn. Admitting that this is so, still, artificial horsehair is like cotton yarn in material, each being composed almost entirely of cellulose, and like it in use, being largely used as glazed cotton is in making hat braids, shoe laces, binding braids, tapes, and imitation horsehair. We think these resemblances establish its similitude to cotton yarn even if the texture of the two articles is different."
This writ of certiorari was thereupon allowed.
The question is simply this: did the circuit court of appeals properly classify the merchandise?
"Section 7. That each and every imported article not enumerated in this Act which is similar, either in material, quality, texture, or the use to which it may be applied, to any article enumerated in this Act as chargeable with duty, shall pay the same rate of duty which is levied on the enumerated article which it most resembles in any of the particulars before mentioned. . . ."
"It is well established that the requirements of the similitude clause of section 7 are satisfied if there be shown a proper similarity in any one of the four particulars -- material, quality, texture, or use --"
enumerated in the section. Arthur v. Fox, 108 U. S. 125.
As said by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Roesseler, 137 F. 770: "It must be borne in mind that the statute does not require identity; if that were necessary, the statute would have no raison d'etre."
of artificial or imitation horsehair, by whatever name known, and by whatever process made."
"artificial horsehair is like cotton yarn in material, each being composed almost entirely of cellulose, and like it in use, being largely used, as glazed cotton is, in making hat braids, shoe laces, binding braids, tapes, and imitation horsehair."
"The goods are made of cotton fibers. Cotton consists of pure cellulose with a small percentage of hydroscopic water. The merchandise in suit is pure cellulose with a small percentage of hydroscopic water. It differs only from the cotton fiber in that the cell structure has been broken down. Other than this, cotton and the merchandise in suit are identical in material. No element is found in cotton which is not present in this merchandise, no element is in this merchandise which is not found in cotton, and the proportion of elements in both is approximately the same."
of hat braids, and in the same commercial group appears the merchandise in suit. One of the many varieties of cotton yarn used in making hat braids is what is known as glazed or polished cotton yarn. It is asserted and not denied that such merchandise has been uniformly classified for customs purposes as a cotton yarn, and so far from being a highly specialized and unusual commodity, it has been an important article of commerce for at least thirty years. However, while imitation horsehair is generally used in the production of hat braids, and is used interchangeably with glazed cotton yarn for such purpose, it has, in common with cotton yarns, other uses, which are referred to in the opinion of the circuit court of appeals.

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