32 The Compact of 1785 boundary open to long continued disputes. It may be laid on one side even if it was ever in force in the District of Columbia .... The Compact thus was held not to have affected bound ary questions along this portion of the river. Further than this, Mr. Justice Holmes' opinion is interesting for the as sumption it made in the excerpt above, that the workings of the Compact were not intended to be restricted to tide water. This finding, although probably dicta in the present case, was contrary to the opinion of the Maryland Court of Appeals in Binney's case and in Middlekauff v. Le Compte. L. Herald v. United States (1922). This case was decided in the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia (284 Fed. 927) . Herald had been convicted of unlawfully fish ing in the Potomac River, within the District of Columbia. He had stood on rocks projecting from the Virginia shore and operated a dip net, thus being between the high and low water marks. The question was, then, as to the juris diction of the District of Columbia court, and as to the location of the boundary. This Court held that the boundary between the District of Columbia and the State of Virginia was at the high water mark on the Virginia shore. A previous holding to that effect had been in Evans v. United States, 31 App. D. C. 544, and in the Marine Railway Co. case, 257 U. S. 47. Without discussing the possible effect of the Compact on the Maryland-Virginia boundary, the Court ruled that, as between the District of Columbia and the State of Vir ginia, the Compact had been abrogated by the cession of that portion of the original District which had been con veyed by Virginia, and by the re-cession of this same area by the United States to Virginia. M. Middlekauil v. LeCompte (1926). The Middlekauff case (149 Md. 621) arose in the enforcement of ch. 340 of the Maryland Acts of 1924, prohibiting the taking of |
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