Opinion of the Court. debts in question without providing for the payment of other debts against the estate, the expenses of administration, or preferred claims; and that for aught appearing in the complaint, it may have been the duty of the administrator to apply the moneys in his hands to other debts and claims. A sufficient answer to this suggestion is, that the allegation in the complaint upon this point imports a failure of the administrator to use the moneys in his hands to discharge the debts held by him, when he could properly have so used them. It is true, as contended, that where the bill shows such laches upon the part of the plaintiff that a court of equity ought not to give relief, the defendant need not interpose a plea or answer, but may demur upon the ground of want of equity apparent on the bill itself. Lansdale v. Smith, 106 U. S. 391, 393; Speidel v. Henrici, 120 U. S. 377, 387. But no such case is made by the bill. The limitation prescribed by the statutes of Arizona for the commencement of an action to recover real property, or the possession thereof, is five years. If this statute governs courts of equity as well as courts of law -and such is the plaintiff's contention the present action is not barred by limitation. If, as contended by the defendants, a court of equity may deny relief because of laches in suing, although the plaintiff commenced his action within the period limited by the statute for actions at law, still the granting or refusing relief, upon that ground, must depend upon the special circumstances of each case. Harwood v. Railroad Co., 17 Wall. 78; Brown v. County of Buena Vista, 95 U. S. 157, 160; Haywood v. National Bank, 96 U. S. 611, 617. The case made by the complaint in this suit is one of fraud upon the part of the administrator, and in that fraud-if the allegations of the complaint are sustained by proof-the defendants and each of them must be held to have participated. The circumstances as detailed in the complaint are so peculiar in their character, that a court of equity should be slow in denying relief upon the mere ground of laches in bringing suit. Other questions arise upon the face of the complaint, namely, as to whether Mrs. Bryan had such interest in the property as made her a necessary party to the suit of foreclosure Syllabus. instituted by Kales in his individual capacity, and as to how far the validity of the decree of foreclosure and sale was affected by the very unusual fact that the same person was both plaintiff and defendant in that suit. Perkins v. Se Ipsam, 11 R. I. 270; McElhanon v. McElhanon, 63 Illinois, 457; Hoag v. Hoag, 55 N. H. 172. But as these questions were not considered by the court below, and as their correct determination can be best made when all the facts are disclosed, we express at this time no opinion upon them, and place our decision upon the ground that the Supreme Court of the Territory erred in holding that the complaint failed to show that the plaintiff was entitled to relief from a court of equity. The defendants should be required to meet the case upon its merits. The decree is reversed with directions that the demurrer to the complaint be overruled, and for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. FIELD, J.I concur in the judgment of this court for the reasons stated; but I wish to add that in my opinion the judgment recovered by Kales against himself as administrator is an absolute nullity. In re WIGHT, Petitioner. 1 APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN. No. 1521. Argued and submitted January 10, 1890.- Decided March 3, 1890. When it is found by a Circuit Court of the United States that the clerk has failed to put in the record an order which was made at the next preceding term of the court, remanding a case to the District Court, the Circuit Court may direct such an order to be entered nunc pro tunc. The writ of habeas corpus cannot be used as a writ of error to inquire into all the errors committed by the court below. An indictment against a letter carrier of the United States Postal Service, 1 The docket title of this case is Wight v. Nicholson, Superintendent of the Detroit House of Correction. Opinion of the Court. charging that "he did wrongfully secrete and embezzle a letter which came into his possession in the regular course of his official duties, and which was intended to be carried by a letter carrier, which letter then and there contained five pecuniary obligations and securities of the government of the United States," is a sufficient charge that the letter embezzled was intended to be carried by a letter carrier of the United States. In an indictment against a letter carrier for the embezzlement of a letter received by him in his official character to carry and deliver, it is not necessary to aver that "the letter has not been delivered" if an embezzlement of it is charged. In a proceeding for a habeas corpus to release from confinement a letter carrier charged with embezzling letters delivered to him for carriage, this court will not inquire into the motives with which the letter was put into the mail, even though the object was to detect or entrap the party into criminal practices. THIS was a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The writ was refused in the court below, and the petitioner appealed. The case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Henry M. Duffield for appellant. Mr. Solicitor General, for appellees, submitted on his brief, which adopted verbatim the brief by Mr. Charles T. Wilkins, the attorney for the United States in the court below. MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court. This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Michigan discharging a writ of habeas corpus on a hearing before that court. By this writ the appellant here, Charles II. Wight, sought to be relieved from imprisonment in the Detroit House of Correction, under sentence of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan. The petitioner was indicted in that court upon the charge that on the 28th day of June, 1888, while he was employed in one of the departments of the postal service of the United States, to wit, as superintendent of letter carriers in the post-office at Detroit, he wrongfully and unlawfully secreted and embezzled certain letters which came into his possession in the regular course of his official duty, and Opinion of the Court. which were intended to be carried by a letter carrier, and which letters contained obligations and securities of the United States of pecuniary value, called treasury notes. There were six other counts for a similar offence. Upon the trial in the District Court, the jury found a verdict of guilty, against petitioner. He thereupon made a motion in that court for a new trial, and likewise a motion in arrest of judgment. Pending the argument of these motions, the District Court made an order transferring the cause to the Circuit Court for said district, which order is in the following language: "It is now by the court ordered that this case be certified and remitted to the next Circuit Court of the United States for this district." These motions were heard in the Circuit Court on the 11th day of March, 1889, before Judges Howell E. Jackson, Circuit Judge, and Henry B. Brown, District Judge, and on the 12th day of March, 1889, the following order was entered of record: "United States of America v. Charles Wight. "In this cause the defendant's motion to set aside verdict and in arrest of judgment, after mature deliberation thereon, are by the court here now denied.” And on the same day, at the District Court room in the city of Detroit, that court made the following entry: "The United States) Convicted on indictment for embezzling letters, etc. v. Charles Wight. "The court now deliver judgment on the motions to set aside the verdict rendered by the jury herein and for a new trial, heretofore argued and submitted; and, thereupon, it is ordered that said motions be, and the same are hereby, denied, and that the order heretofore made herein certifying this cause to the Circuit Court of the United States for this district be, Opinion of the Court. and the same is hereby, vacated as having been improvidently made. "And the said defendant being now placed at the bar of the court for sentence, thereupon the court do now sentence him, the said Charles Wight, to be imprisoned and kept at hard labor, at and in the Detroit House of Correction, in the city of Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, for the term of two years from and including this day, and to stand committed until the terms of this sentence are complied with." On the 25th of August, thereafter, an application was made to Mr. Justice Harlan of this court, who was the justice assigned at that time to the sixth circuit, for a writ of habeas corpus, to deliver the petitioner, Wight, from restraint in the Detroit House of Correction, by Joseph Nicholson, its superintendent. On this application Justice Harlan made an order that a rule issue from the Circuit Court against the marshal of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan and the superintendent of the Detroit House of Correction, returnable before that court within three days after service of process, to show cause why the habeas corpus should not issue as prayed in the petition. To this rule Nicholson made a return, in which he said that he held the said Wight in restraint of his liberty as a prisoner in the Detroit House of Correction, by virtue of the judgment and sentence of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan, rendered on the 12th day of March, 1889, a copy of which he set out. To this return, Wight, by his counsel, made exception by way of answer, in which he said that the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan had not, at the time of the sentence referred to in said return, any jurisdiction over him, the said Wight, or any authority to pass sentence against him, because the said cause in which it pretended to pass sentence upon him on the 12th of March, 1889, had been duly certified and remitted from said District Court into the Circuit Court of the United States in said district, and the transcript thereof duly filed, and that up to the date of said alleged sentence, to wit, the 12th day of March, 1889, was and at the date hereof is still pending in the Circuit Court of |