WAREHOUSE. A place adapted to the reception and storage of goods and merchan dise. Owen v. Boyle, 22 Me. 47.
A radical change was made in the revenue laws of the United States by the establish ment, under the act of congress of Aug. 6, 1846, of the warehousing system. This statute is commonly called the Warehousing Act. Its evident object is to facilitate and encourage commerce by exempting the importer from the payment of duties until he is ready to bring his goods into market ; Tremlett v. Adams, 13 How. (U. S.) 295, 14 L. Ed. 152. Previous to the passage of that act, no goods chargeable with cash duties could be landed at the port of delivery until the duties were paid at the port of entry. The importer had no right to land them anyiThere until they had been passed through the custom-house. Before that act, the only provisions exist ing in relation to the warehousing of goods were merely applicable to special cases, such as where the vessel in which the goods were imported was subject to quarantine regula tions, or where the entry might have been in complete, or the goods had received damage, or where a landing was compelled at a port other than the one to which the vessel was destined, on account of distress of weather or other necessity, or in case of the importa tion of wines, etc.
The warehousing system was extended by the establishment of private bonded ware houses. Act of March 28, 1854, R. S. §§ 2964, 2965.
Merchandise arriving at certain ports, des tined for certain other ports, may be shipped to destination in bond without appraisement and liquidation of duties. See 2 Supp. R. S.
3, note.
Where warehouses are situated in a state, and their business carried on therein ex clusively, a state statute prescribing regula tions for their governance is not unconsti tutional, it being a matter of purely domestic concern, and even where their business af fects interstate as well as state commerce, such a statute can be enforced until congress acts in reference to their interstate relations; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 24 L. Ed. 77.
Goods stored in a United States bonded warehouse on which duties remain unpaid are in possession of the United States, and an order directihg a warehouseman to deliv er them to a vendee, even though accepted by the warehouseman, does not constitute a con structive or symbolical delivery, or a receipt or an acceptance of the goods sufficient to satisfy the statute of frauds ; In re Clifford, 2 Sawy. 428, Fed. Cas. No. 2,893.
Every distiller of spirits shall provide a warehouse on his distillery premises to be used only for storage of distilled spirits of his own manufacture under an internal rev enue storekeeper and to be considered a bond ed warehouse of the United States; R. S. § 3271 et seq.
The word "warehouse," when used alone, means a bonded warehouse ; Constable v. S. S. Co., 154 U. S. 51, 87, 14 Sup. Ct. 1062, 3$ L. Ed. 908.
See POLICE POWER; RATES; WAREHOUSE MAN.