T4 f _ · »-%»· FEDERAL REPORTER. X _
mo1·tgages~was executed·six;.years after the date of the agreement be-
tween thecounty and thecompauy, for the loan of its bonds, and
four years before they were issued, and three years after the office of
fund commissioner had been abolished, and the company had come
into the fullenjoyment of its earnings and income. And on this state
.of facts the court heldthat the equitable. lien of the county for the
bonds loanedhad relation back¤t0=the date of the agreement for the
loan, and was superiorand paramount to that of the mortgage. This
conclusion wasreached upon the ground "that all parties claiming
under mortgages executed after the acceptance of the act of 1865,
are chargeable with notice of the appropriation of the earnings made
by that act;" that this appropriation of the earnings constituted an
equitable lien; and that Y‘with that lien the property itself was charge-
able by whomsoever it, or the funds accruing therefrom, are or may
be held."? It is futileto say that there is adistinction between a
. pledge or appropriation of-e the Vearnings of the road," as in the
Ketchum Case, and the "income and revenues of the company, " as in
the case at bar. The "-income and revenues" of a railroad company
are all the income and revenues ofthe company, and, necessarily,
embrace the "earnings" of its road., ‘ ~ _ , . _
V Undoubtedly it would have beencompetent for the legislature to
have loaned the state bonds to the railroad companieson their c0r·
porate credit alone. But such action, on so extended a scale, would
.b&ve,been without precedent inthe history of- the country, and would
.praeiically have amounted to atdonation of the bonds to the com-
.p2mi.es receiving them. l It is part of. the public history of the state,
and' the records of this court disclose the fact, that insolvency was
thefate of everycompany which borrowed state bonds, and that not
‘ one of them, now possesses any corporate property, and some of them,
probably, not even a corporate existence. One did not have to
be endowed with prescience to foresee such results. The commonest
understanding could;n0t fail to see they were possible, and even_ prob·
V able. To suppose thelegislature did not apprehend these results, or
that, apprehending them, it made not provision to protect the state
fromloss, in such a contingency, isto imputeto that bodya want of
_ common understanding, or a flagrant disregard of the plainest dic-
tates ofdutyi, Neither of these imputations is well founded., j
Was this lien. prior in point of time and, superiorto the mortgage _
under which the defendant claims;? , 'llheaward of, state aid was made
on thetwentyseighth 0£rApril, 1869, and they mortgage, under which
defendants claim,·was executed,D,ecember 22,.1869, and recorded