State v. Northern Pacific Railroad

The court below sustained a general demurrer to defendant’s answer, (directing judgment in plaintiff’s favor,) which demurrer was argued in connection with a stipulation as to the facts. The only question to be considered is the taxability of a quantity of pine logs cut upon lands belonging to defendant, — a railway corporation, — which lands are confessedly exempt from taxation by virtue of Sp. Laws 1865, c. 8, § 1, and Sp. Laws 1870, c. 65, § 1, and were acquired by the act of congress of July 2,1864, (13 U. S. St. at Large, 365,) in which every odd-numbered section of land, not mineral,…