mr v. xnnxmomx a w. 1:. oo. 19
the conveyance of said estate to such purchaser. " Code Va. 1873, c. 182, §§
6, 8, p. 1166.
As this law stood in the period 1855 to 1860, the time mentioned
in the last lines quoted was, "within a year next after the date of such
judgment, or ninety days before the conveyance, " etc.
Section 9 of the same chapter provides:
"The lien of a judgment may always be enforced in a court of equity. If
it appear to such court that the rents and profits of the real estate subject to
the lien will not satisfy the judgment in five years, the court may decree the
said estate, or any part thereof, to be sold," etc.
Section 12 provides that-
"On a judgment, execution may be issued within a year, and a scire facias
or action may be brought within ten years after the date of the judgment;
and where execution issues within the year, other execution may be issued,
or a scire facias or action may be brought within ten years from the return-
day of an execution on which there is no return of an officer, or within twenty
years from the return of an execution on which there is such return; pro-
vided, that in computing time under this section, there shall, as to writs of
scirefacias, be omitted from such computation, the time elapsed between the
first day of January, 1869, and the passage of this act; [viz: March 28, 1871.]
In 1875 Alexander Hay brought a suit in this, the United States
circuit court for the Eastern district of Virginia, at Alexandria, on `
the equity side, setting out that the consideration had failed, for which
he marked as satisfied, the four hrst-named of his judgments that
have heretofore been described`; and praying that the “satisfactions"
on them should be set aside, and the judgments reinstated with all
liens attaining to them at the date of the satisfactions. This suit
went on until January, 1881, when a decree was rendered in con-
formity with the prayer of the bill, from which no appeal has ever
been taken. In the same year Hay brought a suit on the common-
law side of this court, against the Alexandria & Washington Com-
pany, based on the three last-named judgments in his favor which
have heretofore been described, and recovered a verdict and judg-
ment anew on the three old judgments.
· On the third of February, 1864, the general assembly of Virginia
(that which sat at Alexandria) incorporated the Alexandria & Fred-
ericksburg Railway Company, with authority to construct a railroad
from Alexandria to the vicinity of Fredericksburg. Acts, 1863-64,
c. 17, p. 20. That charter lapsed, but was revived by the general
assembly on the fourth of June, 1870, by an act which empowered
the company to extend its road to a point on the Potomac river be-
tween Alexandria and Washington city, or opposite Washington city,
to connect with the bridge of any railroad company chartered by con-
gress, whose road passes, or shall pass, through the District of Col-
umbia. Acts, 1869-70, c. 145, p. 188. This act contained this pro- `
viso: “That, in the extension of said railway it shall in no way in-
terfere with the chartered rights or franchises of any railroad extend-
ing between Alexandria and Washington," etc. This act virtually