Opinion of the Court.

301 U.S.

for deliveries of gas under its contracts and all collections from sales were received and all disbursements were made or authorized. While Delaware was the State of incorporation, appellant's commercial domicile was in Alabama. Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Fox, 298 U. S. 193, 211.

From the agreed facts we are unable to conclude that the business thus conducted in Alabama was entirely an interstate business. While the gas which appellant sold was brought into the State from Louisiana, it appears that appellant carried on in Alabama activities of an intrastate character. We had occasion in East Ohio Gas Co. v. Tax Commission, 283 U. S. 465, 470, to consider the distinction between the transportation of gas into a State and the furnishing of the gas so transported to consumers within the State. We observed in that case that "when the gas passes from the distribution lines into the supply mains, it necessarily is relieved of nearly all the pressure put upon it at the stations of the producing companies," its volume is expanded, and it is divided into the smaller streams that enter the service lines connecting such mains with the pipes on the consumer's premises. In that case, the Ohio Company furnished gas to consumers in municipalities by means of distribution plants and that activity was held to be not interstate commerce but a business of purely local concern exclusively within the jurisdiction of the State. The Court quoted with approval the statement in Missouri v. Kansas Gas Co., 265 U. S. 298, 309, that "The business of supplying, on demand, local consumers is a local business, even though the gas be brought from another State and drawn for distribution plants directly from interstate mains; and this is so whether the local distribution be made by the transporting company or by independent distributing companies. In such case the local interest is paramount, and the interference with interstate commerce, if any, indirect and of minor importance."

While the facts of the two cases are not the same, there is a clear analogy. For here under its contract with the Tennessee Company, which bought for consumption by itself and its subsidiaries in industrial plants, appellant agreed not simply to install metering stations, for measuring the amount of gas delivered, but to establish the requisite service lines running to the described plants in order that the gas might be furnished in a manner suited to the consumers' needs. The gas was supplied through these service lines on the orders received from time to time at the Birmingham office. We perceive no essential distinction in law between the establishment of such a local activity to meet the needs of consumers in industrial plants and the service to consumers in the municipalities which was found in the Ohio case to constitute an intrastate business. As was said in that case: "The treatment and division of the large compressed volume of gas is like the breaking of an original package, after a shipment in interstate commerce, in order that its contents may be treated, prepared for sale and sold at retail."

The facts thus distinguish the instant case from that of Ozark Pipe Line Corp. v. Monier, 266 U. S. 555. There the corporation operated a pipe line extending from Oklahoma through Missouri to a point in Illinois. Missouri sought to tax the privilege of doing business within the State. But nothing was done in Missouri except in furtherance of transportation. Oil was neither received nor delivered in that State. The business actually carried on "was exclusively in interstate commerce" and whatever was done within Missouri in the maintenance of an office or otherwise was "all exclusively in furtherance of its interstate business." Id., p. 565. In Missouri v. Kansas Gas Co., supra, as noted above, the distinction was pointed out. There "the transportation, sale and delivery" of the gas constituted an "unbroken chain, fundamentally interstate from beginning to end." So,

the case of State Tax Commission v. Interstate Natural Gas Co., 284 U. S. 41, rested upon the conclusion that what was done was wholly incidental to interstate commerce between Louisiana and Mississippi. There were no such local activities as are present here to carry the transactions of the company into the field of state authority.

That authority was held to be properly exerted in the case of Atlantic Lumber Co. v. Commissioner, 298 U. S. 553. The corporation was organized in Delaware but it did not "function there" but in Massachusetts. There it established its office for the exercise of its corporate powers. That was the headquarters for salesmen who solicited orders in that and other States. There orders were accepted and remittances received. The corporation was engaged in the wholesale lumber business and owned practically all the stock of three subsidiaries, two of which were engaged in cutting timber and manufacturing lumber in other States, and a third held title to timber lands in Louisiana. The court said that if appellant did nothing but transact interstate business, the excise tax sought to be levied with respect to the doing of business in Massachusetts could not stand, but in view of the activities conducted in Massachusetts and the corporate functions there exercised, the court decided that the privilege tax was valid and that the effect upon interstate commerce, so far as there was any, was "remote and incidental." Because of the local activities, the decision in the Ozark case was held to be inapplicable.

Third. As Alabama was competent to lay a franchise tax upon appellant for the privilege of doing an intrastate business, it was competent to measure the tax by the capital employed within the State provided the tax was not so laid as to discriminate against interstate commerce or otherwise lay a direct burden upon it. Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Adams, 155 U. S. 688, 696; St. Louis South

western Ry. Co. v. Arkansas, 235 U. S. 350, 364–367; Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 254 U. S. 113, 119, 120; St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Middlekamp, 256 U. S. 226, 231; Hump Hairpin Co. v. Emmerson, 258 U. S. 290, 294; International Shoe Co. v. Shartel, 279 U. S. 429, 433; Western Cartridge Co. v. Emmerson, 281 U. S. 511, 513, 514; Atlantic Lumber Co. v. Commissioner, supra.

There is here no attempt to tax property that is beyond the boundaries of the State. The tax was laid only upon property employed within the State and enforcement is left to the ordinary means of collecting taxes. The rule was thus stated in International Shoe Co. v. Shartel, supra: "A franchise tax imposed on a corporation, foreign or domestic, for the privilege of doing a local business, if apportioned to business done or property owned within the State, is not invalid under the commerce clause merely because a part of the property or capital included in computing the tax is used by it in interstate commerce." There is no showing of any direct burden upon interstate commerce, the effect upon that commerce being incidental and remote, not differing in this respect from the effect of ordinary ad valorem taxation of property within the State. Postal Telegraph Cable Co. v. Adams, supra; St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas, supra.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Alabama is

Affirmed.

Syllabus.

301 U.S.

RAY v. UNITED STATES.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT.

No. 604. Argued March 30, 1937. Decided April 26, 1937.

1. In a criminal case, when the time for filing a bill of exceptions is extended by the judge to a date which is a Sunday, that day is to be excluded and the bill may be filed on the day following. Criminal Appeals Rule XIII. P. 161.

Rule XIII provides: "For the purpose of computing time as specified in the foregoing rules, Sundays and legal holidays (whether under Federal law or under the law of the State where the case was brought) shall be excluded."

2. The limitation imposed upon the trial judge by Criminal Appeals Rule IX with respect to extension of the time for filing a bill of exceptions, does not apply to the Circuit Court of Appeals or to the trial judge acting under direction of that Court. P. 161.

3. The fundamental policy of the Criminal Appeals Rules is that as speedily as possible, upon the taking of the appeal, the Circuit Court of Appeals shall be invested with jurisdiction to see that the appeal is properly expedited and to supervise and control all proceedings on the appeal "including the proceedings relating to the preparation of the record on appeal." P. 163.

4. The duty of the Clerk of the trial court, under Rule IV, upon the filing of a notice of appeal, immediately to forward the duplicate notice to the clerk of the appellate court, together with a statement from the docket entries in the case substantially as provided in the form annexed to the Rules, is a ministerial duty. P. 163.

5. Under Rule IV, the Circuit Court of Appeals is empowered to vacate or modify any order of the trial court or judge in relation to the prosecution of the appeal, and this embraces the proceedings relating to the preparation of the record on appeal, including an order of the trial judge fixing the time for filing the bill of exceptions. P. 163.

6. The Circuit Court of Appeals has authority to return a bill of exceptions to the trial judge for appropriate corrections, including the setting forth of the evidence in condensed and narrative form. Rule IX. P. 164.