Opinion of the Court.

The act referred to therein gave to counties full power to issue bonds for the building of bridges and prescribed the proceedings, including therein a vote of the people, essential to the vesting of authority in the county commissioners. The recital that the bond was executed and issued in pursuance of and in accordance with that act, and also in accordance with the vote of the majority of the qualified electors, is, within repeated rulings of this court, sufficient to validate the bonds in the hands of a bona fide holder. It shows, in the language of School District v. Stone, 106 U. S. 183, "a compliance in all substantial respects with the statute giving authority to issue the bonds," and does not come within the limitations noticed in that case. Further than that, the bonds are endorsed with the official certificate of the auditor of the State that the bonds had been regularly and legally issued; that the signatures were genuine; and that the bonds had been duly. registered in his office in accordance with the act of the legislature of March 2, 1872. Inasmuch as these bonds were issued after the act of 1872 went into effect, they fall within the decision in the case of Lewis v. Commissioners, 105 Ụ. S. 739, rather than within that in the case of Bissell v. Spring Valley Township, 110 U. S. 162, as to the conclusiveness of the certificate of the auditor.

The suggestion that the recitals are not sufficient because the particular bridge, for the building of which the bonds were to be issued, is not specified, carries no weight. Power is given by the first section of the act of 1872 to issue bonds for building bridges, and while the subsequent sections providing for a vote and other preliminaries seem to contemplate that a particular bridge should be the subject of consideration, yet it has never been held by this court, and ought not to be, that a full and minute detail of all the proceedings is essential to the validity of a recital. The main thing is that the county has promised to pay, and that the people by their vote have authorized such a promise for one of the purposes for which, under the statute, they may bind themselves.

The other series of bonds is what is known as "court-house bonds," so named on the face of the bonds themselves. The

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:

"DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON,

, 1878,

"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

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,

66

Attorney General."

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