have been used" for that purpose, or rather that some words would have been used to indicate it beyond the mere assignment to duty. And this is especially so, since special exceptions can only be engrafted on a statute by clear terms creating them. (Osage Land Case, 3 Lawrence, Comp. Dec., 367.) 7. Even if it could be maintained that the intention of Congress in the act of August 7, 1882 (22 Stat., 324), was, that the claimant "should bet appointed a supervisor of the erection of the building," and should bet paid compensation for THAT specially-named service, it does not follow that he could be either appointed, or paid, for a totally different servicethat of an engineer and architect. The fair inference from the act of August 7, 1882, is, that Congress charged the retired officer with the comparatively simple and light duty of supervising the erection of the building, because the law prohibited his assignment by any officer to any duty. As such supervisor it was no part of his duty "to form plans and designs of [the] building?" A mere superintendent is not required to have the skill of a civil or military engineer, whose profession embraces the duty" of designing and constructing" (9 Op. Att.-Gen., 471). The "approval and certification" of "all the disbursing accounts" of the building, would not be required of a mere supervisor. And it is for the enlarged and additional service required by the appointment of the Acting Secreretary of the Interior, that compensation is claimed. How the assignment to this service evades the prohibition of section 1259 of the Revised Statutes, is not pointed out. It did not escape attention. It is alluded to by saying that "an existing law forbade any retired officer's being assigned [by any officer] to any duty whatever." So far as the act of August 7, 1882, did not by its own terms assign the retired officer to duty, the designation, which was made for a service beyond that mentioned was prohibited; if prohibited, the payment of compensation is unauthorized. But the payment of compensation is not only unauthorized, it is expressly prohibited. How the payment of such compensation for such service escapes the prohibitions of sections 1259, 1764, and 1765 of the Revised Statutes, is also not pointed out. The act of August 7, 1882, does not mention such service, and, hence, does not authorize it or sanction payment therefor. III. Sections 1764 and 1765 of the Revised Statutes prohibit the payment demanded by the claimant. These sections were considered by the Court of Claims in connection with the two cases, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, of Converse v. United States (21 How., 463), and United States v. Brindle (110 U. S., 688); and the Court of Claims says that: The only "These cases seem to us to be decisive of the present one. difference between them and it is in the fact that in each of them the party held an office with active duties to be performed, while the present claimant held one with no such duties; but this does not appear to affect the result. The point in each of them was, whether the party was entitled to compensation for services rendered in an employment which 40 D 83 had no affinity or connection with the line of his official duty; and the Supreme Court held that he was. This disposes of the objections raised against the claimant's demand in this case." It is to be especially noted that it is not alleged, nor intimated in the slightest degree, that there is or can be any other authority or any other ground upon which the claim can be sustained. It is believed to be susceptible of the clearest demonstration that neither of "these cases" sustains the judgment of the Court of Claims herein, but that they are direct authorities against it. The court is wholly mistaken in supposing that the "only difference" between the two cases mentioned and this case is that pointed out by the court. It is said that in each of those cases "the party held an office with active duties to be performed, while the present claimant held one with no such duties"; but it is very properly added that "this does not appear to affect the result." The fact that he received a fixed salary without any active duty to perform does not strengthen his claim to extra compensation. IV. It is also believed to be susceptible of the clearest demonstration (I) that the allowance of the claimant's demand for extra compensation for services rendered under the appointment of the Acting Secretary of the Interior belongs to the class of evils intended to be, and which are, clearly prohibited by statute; and (II) that the decision of the Court of Claims (1) is unsupported by any decision of any other court, (2) is in principle against decisions (a) of its own and (b) of the Supreme Court, (e) the Opinions of the Attorneys-General, and (d) the whole practice of the Executive Departments of the Government, and (3) is a practical nullification of two of the most important sections of the Revised Statutes. The Revised Statutes contains these sections: "SEC. 1763. No person who holds an office, the salary or annual com pensation attached to which amounts to the sum of two thousand five hundred dollars, shall receive compensation for discharging the duties of any other office, unless expressly authorized by law. "SEC. 1764. No allowance or compensation shall be made to any officer or clerk, by reason of the discharge of duties which belong to any other officer or clerk in the same or any other department; and no allowance or compensation shall be made for any extra services whatever, which any officer or clerk may be required to perform, unless expressly authorized by law. "SEC. 1765. No officer in any branch of the public service, or any other person whose salary, pay, or emoluments are fixed by law or regulations shall receive any additional pay, extra allowance, or compensation, in any form whatever, for the disbursement of public money, or for any other service or duty whatever, unless the same is authorized by law, AND the appropriation therefor explicitly states that it is for such additional pay, extra allowance, or compensation." These are supplemented by two additional provisions in the act of June 20, 1874 (18 Stat. 101, 109). It is well known to every boly, who is familiar with the executive administration of the Government, and it is shown in Converse v. United States (21 How., 468), and elsewhere, that prior to the statutes now incorporated in the Revised Statutes as sections 1763, 1764, and 1765, a practice had grown up in the different Departments, by which the incomes of many public officers, whose salaries were fixed by law, were more or less increased by obtaining assignments to duties other than those belonging to their offices, for which extra duties the heads of Departments would make allowances, which the accounting officers would audit, and generally pass and permit to be paid; or when denying payment, "the United States [was] involved in inconvenient controversies in court." (Converse v. United States, 21 How., 470.) This was found to be a pernicious system, and a practice fraught with injustice to the Government, as well as to those meritorious officers, who, without influence, took their small salaries and obtained no more. To some extent it was demoralizing to the public service, by creating jealousies among the employés, by allowing the higher officers to reward their favorites in lower positions, and by inviting a pressure of influence upon the heads of Departments from the political and personal friends of officialsan influence which it was difficult to resist, and which was liable to be exerted in favor of those having great social and political standing, whether with or without merit, while the more humble but still meritorious classes did not share in such favors. Then, too, the possibility of this opened the way to exert a similar pressure in favor of legislation, under which extra compensation might be given by heads of Departments to favored officers.* As was well remarked by President Buchanan in his message of June 25, 1860, in relation to similar legislation, under such a system "officers might then be found, instead of performing their appropriate duties, besieging the halls of Congress for the purpose of obtaining special and choice places by legislative enactment." (9 Op. Att.-Gen., 468; ante, 597, note.) Attorney-General Black, in his opinion of July 31, 1860 (9 Op. Att.-Gen., 468), in relation to the "memorial of Captain Meigs," alludes in forcible and emphatic terms to "this way of procuring legislation" by officers, and points out * * Ex gratia, the census act of May 23, 1850, (9 Stat., 432, sec. 20), gave retroactive compensation "to the person employed as secretary of the Census Board * during the time he has been [was] in their employ;" and he already held another salaried office. It is alleged, that an officer induced Congress to insert in the act of July 30, 1852 (10 Stat., 25), its section 3, continuing the same compensation prospectively. (See MS. letter of First Comptroller to Hon. John Davis, of the Senate, July 29, 1852.) To defeat this, Congress incorporated section 18 (now Rev. Stat., 1763) in the act of August 31, 1852 (10 Stat., 100). And see note (ante, 596, 597, 598), and opinion of Attorney-General Black, July 31, 1860, (9 Op. Att.-Gen., 468). Section 4688 of the Revised Statutes authorizes allowances for subsistence, in addition to compensation, for "the officers and men of the Army and Navy, while employed on Coast Survey service." It is alleged, that the act of May 31, 1880 (21 Stat 151), was designed to secure the same allowances for officers and men of the Navy in the Fish Commission service, by a provision, which, in terms discloses no such pur. pose, but simply directs the Secretary of Navy to "place the vessels of the United States Fish Commission on the same footing with the Navy Department as those of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey." some of the dangers to which it leads. The assignment of officers to unofficial duties for extra compensation inevitably leads to the neglect of official duties. One of the evils of this system was discretionary compensation-that is, extra compensation to officers, fixed by no law, but in the discretion of heads of Departments. Unlimited discretion is always dangerous. It sometimes gives rise to serious complaints (Senate Ex. Doc., No. 40-1st sess., 48th Congress; Senate Ex. Doc., No. 150— 1st sess., 48th Cong.; Senate Ex. Doc., No. 156-1st sess., 48th Cong.; House Ex. Doc., No. 92-1st sess., 48th Cong.; District Attorneys' Assistants' case, ante, 113.) And when it can be exercised to give extra compensation to those already in receipt of salaries deemed in law sufficient, the real or supposed benefits of public place may be given to a favored few, who may thus monopolize the emoluments of Government to the exclusion of others equally worthy. Congress, by several distinct acts now embodied in sections 1763, 1764, and 1763 of the Revised Statutes, has endeavored to root out these evils, and has employed for this purpose language, which, properly construed, would seem broad enough to cover every case of the kind. These provisions are entitled to a liberal construction to suppress the evils, at which such provisions are aimed. Thus it has been said: "That the words of a remedial statute are to be construed largely and beneficially, so as to suppress the mischief and advance the remedy." Dwarris Stats., 632; Sedgwick Construction Stat. and Const. L., 2d ed., 309.) Every statute should be so construed as to "suppress the mischief," which it was enacted to prevent, by "adding force and life to the cure and remedy, according to the true intent of the makers of the act, pro bono publico," (Potter's Dwarris, Stats., 184). And Sedgwick (Construction Stat. and Const. L., 2d ed., 309) says as to such statutes that: "It is by no means unusual to extend the enacting words beyond their natural import and effect, in order to include cases within the same mischiefs. It logically follows that every statute-as that of August 7, 1882 (22) Stat., 324)-under which extra compensation is claimed, and every statute under which a duplication of compensation is demanded in a mode to defeat the distribution of the benefits of public employment, should, while restraining statutes, like section 1765 of the Revised Statutes, are in force, be strictly construed, so that a claimant shall take nothing but that which is expressly given in clear terms. This should be so; because statutes, under which extra compensation is claimed and demanded, are "in derogation of a prior statute." Thus, is said that: "Statutes in derogation of * a prior statute, are construed strictly, not operating beyond their words or the clear repugnance of their provisions; that is, the new displaces the old only as directly and irrec oncilably opposed in terms." (Bishop, Written Laws, 155, 119, 194; Marlot v. Lawrence, 1 Blatchford, 608; White v. Johnson, 23 Miss., 68; Clarke v. State, Id. 261; Street v. Commonwealth, 6 Watts and S., 209; Williams v. Potter, 2 Barb., 316.) In addition, statutes conferring special privileges or exemptions, or against common and general right, are odious. (Sedgwick, Construction Stat., and Const. L., 296.) In this case compensation is demanded under the act of August 7, 1882, which is in derogation of section 1765 of the Revised Statutesa prior law-and hence, unless the positive words of said act of August 7, 1882, give compensation-as they do not-none can be paid. The question, whether the efforts made by Congress, to defeat the evils mentioned, and to secure a distribution of the benefits of public employment, have been an eminent success, may give rise to differences of opinion; the question whether these efforts are yet to be successful, remains to be seen. The provision against dual salaries, as found in the act of September 30, 1850 (9 Stat., 542), though never in terms repealed, was omitted from the Revised Statutes, on the theory that such provision was repealed by implication by the act of August 31, 1852 (10 Stat., 100; Rev. Stat., 1763; Major Collins's Case, 15 Ct. Cl., 37). The provisions made by Congress against extra compensation have certainly been, by judicial construction, narrowed within limits less than their exact words might import, but not without able dissenting opinions, carrying the authority of great intellects and legal ability. No case can present sound law, unless supported by the force of reason and the power of logic. No decision of any court can escape the "test of scrutiny, of talents, and of time." For all practical purposes, the decision of the highest court is "the perfection of reason"-it is law." The Supreme Court, overruling the opinion of the Hon. Peleg Sprague, district judge, and the Hon. Benjamin R. Curtis, Supreme Court judge, sitting together in the first circuit, held, in Converse v. The United States (21 How., 463), that a collector of customs, whose salary was fixed by law, could also receive the compensation fixed by law and attached to the office or position of disbursing agent, which he held by appointment from the Secretary of the Treasury. When this case was decided by the Supreme Court on appeal, three judges dissented from the opinion of the majority, and Mr. Justice Curtis had left the bench. Although such a decision, thus strongly dissented from by so many able jurists, must stand as the settled law to govern courts and officers in all like cases, yet there is no rule requiring them to adopt any language, which would lead to extending the authority of the decision beyond the exact point decided. All of it beyond that point is open for the exercise of judgment. The (1) accounting officers of the Treasury Department, the (2) Attorneys-General, and (3) the courts, so far as the subject-matter of that decision has been under consideration, have uniformly regarded it as establishing only the doctrine-that a person holding two distinct offices, or an office and an agency, can receive the salary or compensation of both, when such salary or compensation of each is "fixed by law”—and not as |