Opinion of the Court. recital in this bond is as follows: "This bond is executed and issued for the purpose of erecting county buildings in pursuance of and in accordance with an act of the legislature of the State of Kansas, entitled, 'An act relating to counties and county officers,' approved February 29, 1868, and 'An act to authorize counties,"" etc., reciting the title of the act referred to in the bridge bonds, as well as a vote similar thereto. On the back of each bond appears the auditor's certificate as in the bridge bonds. But it is insisted that county buildings are not works of internal improvement within the meaning of the act last referred to. Be that as it may-and it is unnecessary to decide this question, although in considering it reference may well be had to the opinion of the Supreme Court of Kansas in the case of Leavenworth County v. Miller, 7 Kansas, 479 the act first referred to, the act of February 29, 1868, gave ample authority. That act, section 16, provides: "The board of county commissioners of each county shall have power, at any meeting: Fourth, to borrow, upon the credit of the county, a sum sufficient for the erection of county buildings, or to meet the current expenses of the county in case of a deficit in the county revenue." Prior to the issue of these bonds the Supreme Court of the State had held, in the case of Doty v. Ellsbree, 11 Kansas, 209, that the power to borrow money carries with it the power to issue the ordinary evidences and security of a loan, and, among them, county bonds. So that, by that act, the county had power to borrow money for the erection of county buildings and issue bonds therefor. There is no force in the suggestion that the purpose expressed in the recital is that of erecting county buildings, instead of borrowing money for the erection of county buildings. A general statement of the purpose, with direct reference to the act granting authority, and a recital that the bond is issued in pursuance of and in accordance with the act, is sufficient. The case of Scipio v. Wright, 101 U. S. 665, rested entirely on the fact of the uniform and continuous ruling on the part of the highest court in the State of New York, in which the bonds were issued, and was a case aris Counsel for Appellants. ing between a municipality and a purchaser who took with notice of the manner in which the bonds had been disposed of. So that this cannot be considered an authority in the case before us. These are all the matters we deem necessary to notice, and, there appearing no error in the ruling of the Circuit Court, its judgment is UNITED STATES v. WATERS. Affirmed. APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS. No. 95. Submitted November 11, 1889.- Decided January 27, 1890. The amount of counsel fee to be allowed to a district attorney, under Rev. Stat. § 824, for trial before a jury of a person indicted for crime, is discretionary with the court, within the limits of the statute; and the action of the court in this respect is not subject to review by the Attorney General, or by the accounting officers of the treasury. The supervisory powers of the Attorney General over the accounts of district attorneys, marshals, clerks and other officers of the courts of the United States under Rev. Stat. § 368, are the same which were vested in the Secretary of the Interior before the creation of the Department of Justice. The powers of an Auditor in the Treasury Department are limited to the examination and auditing of accounts, to the certification of balances, and to their transmission to the comptroller; and do not extend to the allowance or disallowance of the same. A comptroller in the Treasury Department has no power to review, revise or alter items in accounts expressly allowed by statute, or items of expenditures or allowances made upon the judgment or discretion of officers charged by law with the duty of expending the money or making the allowances. THIS was an action against the United States to recover an allowance to a district attorney by the trial court under Rev. Stat. § 824, disallowed by the Attorney General and by the accounting officers of the Treasury. Judgment for claimant, from which the defendants appealed. The case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Attorney General and Mr. B. Wilson for appellants. Opinion of the Court. Mr. Charles C. Lancaster for appellee. MR. JUSTICE LAMAR delivered the opinion of the court. This is an action brought in the Court of Claims on the 18th of February, 1885, by a district attorney of the United States to recover a balance of $320, alleged to be due him for services performed under section 824 of the Revised Statutes, and withheld from him by the accounting officers of the Treasury Department, under instructions from the Attorney General. The material facts in the case, as found by the court below, are substantially as follows: The claimant, Charles C. Waters, for six years immediately preceding the commencement of the action, had been United States district attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and in his official capacity, during that period, had tried twenty-two indictments for crimes, before a jury, securing a conviction in each case. The District Court before which those causes were tried allowed him $30 counsel fee in each case, in addition to the fees otherwise provided for, in accordance, as is claimed, with the provisions of section 824 of the Revised Statutes. When his accounts were forwarded to the accounting officers of the Treasury Department they were submitted to the Attorney General for his supervision, Rev. Stat. § 368, who reduced the amounts, allowed claimant $10 in five, $15 in fourteen, and $20 in three of the cases — in all $320. The accounting officers of the Treasury Department followed the action of the Attorney General and passed the accounts as reduced. The practice of reducing the allowances made to district attorneys for counsel fees first began about 1878, when Attorney General Devens issued the following circular: "SIR: Your attention is invited to the concluding clause of section 824 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, permitting an allowance not exceeding $30, in addition to the VOL. CXXXIII-14 Opinion of the Court. other legal fees of the United States attorney, in proportion to the importance and difficulty of the cause, when a conviction is had before a jury on an indictment for crime. Whenever you have obtained the approval of the court to a special fee under this clause, you will forward with your account of the same to the First Auditor a brief statement of the points and circumstances in each case, which render it one of the importance and difficulty contemplated by the statutes. Your account, together with the statement, will be submitted by the First Auditor (in such cases as he deems necessary) to the Attorney General, in order to determine from the means afforded whether such special counsel fees should be allowed in the final settlement. "Very respectfully, CHARLES DEVENS, Previous to that time such allowances by the court were accepted without alteration. The claimant's whole counsel fees would not exceed the maximum of $6000 in any one year. It is to recover this balance of $320 that the suit is brought. The Court of Claims, upon the foregoing facts, rendered judgment in favor of claimant for the amount in dispute 21 C. Cl. 30. The assignment of errors is a general one, and is merely to the effect that the court below erred, upon the facts found, in its conclusion of law, that the appellee was entitled to recover from the United States the sum of $320. The fees in question were allowed by the court under sections 823 and 824 of the Revised Statutes. Section 823 provides that "the following and no other compensation shall be taxed and allowed to attorneys, solicitors and proctors in the courts of the United States, to district attorneys, clerks, etc., except in cases otherwise expressly provided for by law." Section 824, after limiting the fees to the district attorneys for their official services therein named, each at a specific amount, irrespective of the labor and responsibility involved, provides in its concluding clause that, "When an indictment for crime is tried before a jury and a conviction is Opinion of the Court. had, the district attorney may be allowed, in addition to the attorney's fees herein provided, a counsel fee, in proportion to the importance and difficulty of the cause, not exceeding thirty dollars." The exact amount of the allowance, within the prescribed limit, thus authorized, is left discretionary; but the section does not, in so many words, designate the person or tribunal by whom that discretion shall be exercised. The contention of the United States is, that this discretionary power is vested in the Attorney General; and that the fixing of the amount of a special counsel fee, in the absence of express legislative provision, is not a judicial but an executive act, to be exercised by the Attorney General, as the chief of the department to which district attorneys belong. The view on which the court below rested its decision was, that this discretionary power pertains to the judicial functions of the court before which the cause was tried, and by which Congress manifestly intended that its importance and difficulty should be determined; and that, therefore, the allowance by the District Court of the fees in question was conclusive upon the Attorney General and the accounting officers of the Treasury Department. It will be observed that none of the provisions of these sections have any reference whatever to the matter of rendering or revising accounts, or to the powers and duties of the Attorney General, or of the accounting officers of the Treasury Department, in relation to the accounts of district attorneys. They relate exclusively to the compensation or fees to be taxed and allowed those officers; and the concluding paragraph applies alone to the allowance of the additional fee to the district attorney, for services rendered within the court on the trial of a cause, all the steps and incidents of which, including the taxation of costs arising in the course of the proceedings, are within the knowledge and under the jurisdiction of the court. They, in express terms, require the district attorney's fees to be taxed, and no other tribunal can tax them, except the court having jurisdiction. In the case of The Baltimore, 8 Wall. 377, referring to the provision of the statute of February 26, 1853, 10 Stat. 161, part of the first section of which |