ments or bureaus may be delivered free; but where there is good reason to believe the omission to prepay the full postage thereon was intentional, such letter or packet shall be returned to the sender: Provided further, That this act shall not extend or apply to pension agents or other officers who receive a fixed allowance as compensation for their services, including expenses of postages. And section thirtynine hundred and fifteen of the Revised Statutes of the United States. so far as the same relates to stamps and stamped envelopes for official purposes, is hereby repealed. Sec. 3, Act of July 5, 1884 (23 Stat. 158).

CHAPTER VII.

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE-HABEAS CORPUS-
THE COURT OF CLAIMS, ETC.

241. Checks outstanding three years or more to be covered into the Treasury as "Outstanding liabilities."-At the termination of each fiscal year all amounts of moneys that are represented by certificates, drafts, or checks, issued by the Treasurer, or by any disbursing officer of any Department of the Government, upon the Treasurer or any assistant treasurer, or designated depositary of the United States, or upon any national bank designated as a depositary of the United States, and which shall be represented on the books of either of such offices as standing to the credit of any disbursing officer, and which were issued to facilitate the payment of warrants, or for any other purpose in liquidation of a debt due from the United States, and which have for three years or more remained outstanding, unsatisfied, and unpaid, shall be deposited by the Treasurer, to be covered into the Treasury by warrant, and to be carried to the credit of the parties in whose favor such certificates, drafts, or checks were respectively issued, or to the persons who are entitled to receive pay payments, disbursing officers will refuse to pay the assignee of any claim, except as to assignments authorized by paragraphs 1258 and 1383 of the Army Regulations of 1913.

When claims or vouchers which have been assigned are presented for payment, the holders will be informed that disbursing officers have no authority to make payments to them as assignees, and that payments can only be made to the original persons to whom the money is due. (Decision Asst. Sec. War, Nov. 7, 95-27033, A. G. O., 95. Circ. 13, A. G. O., 1895.)

Assignments of pay by officers and enlisted men.-The assignment of their pay accounts by any officers, after the same become due, is authorized by paragraph 1258, Army Regulations of 1913, and is legal. (3 Second Comp. Dec., 45; id., 47.) Such transfers are accomplished in accordance with paragraphs 1258 and 1383, Army Regulations of 1913.

Attachments.-An attachment can not be enforced against public money in the hands of a disbursing officer of the Government, and he is authorized to pay the Government's creditor without regard to such attempted levy. (1 Comp. Dec., 171; Buchanan v. Alexander, 4 How., 20.)

For later specific authority to make payments on assignments by Army officers see Act of March 2, 1913 (37 Stat. 710), par. 647 post.

The provision of the Revised Statutes (section 3477), making void transfers and assignments of claims against the United States, relates to voluntary assignments, and does not extend to transfers by operation of law, or interfere with the equitable doctrine of subrogation. (Amer. Tob. Co. v. U. S., 32 Ct. Cls., 207; 2 Comp. Dec., 49.) While section 3477 of the Revised Statutes declares null and void all powers of attorney given prior to the settlement of a claim and the issuing of a warrant in payment, yet when payments are made upon valid, unrevoked, and undisputed powers of attorney, credit must be given in settlements of the disbursing officer making them. (1 Comp. Dec., 431; id., 119; id., 453.) Under the decisions of the courts the accounting officers are required, notwithstanding the provisions of section 3477 of the Revised Statutes,. to credit disbursing officers with payments actually made by them under powers of attorney, provided it is shown that, at the time of such payment, such powers are undisputed and have not been revoked, either by the voluntary action of the principal or by his death. (Id., 142.) Payments may be made to a corporation under a contract entered into by an attorney duly authorized to act for the corporation in the making of such contract. (2 Comp. Dec., 30; id., 295.) See also decision of Secretary of War of November 7, 1895, in Circular 13, A. G. O., 1895.

The assignment of a quartermaster's voucher, unless made "after the allowance of such a claim" and in conformity with all the other requirements of section 3477 of the Revised Statutes, is "absolutely null and void." The exigencies of the war and of the Government service immediately after the war,

therefor, and into an appropriation account to be denominated "outstanding liabilities." Sec. 306, R. S.

242. Outstanding liabilities.-The certificate of the Secretary of the Treasury, stating that the amount of any draft issued by the Treasurer, to facilitate the payment of a warrant directed to him for payment, has remained outstanding and unpaid for three years or more, and has been deposited and covered into the Treasury in the manner prescribed by the preceding section, shall be, when attached to any such warrant, a sufficient voucher in satisfaction of any such warrant or part of any warrant, the same as if the drafts correctly indorsed and fully satisfied were attached to such warrant or part of warrant. And all such moneys mentioned in this and in the preceding section shall remain as a permanent appropriation for the redemption and payment of all such outstanding and unpaid certificates, drafts, and checks. Sec. 307, R. S.

which at one time were relied upon to support the practice of paying the assignees of such vouchers, can not be made available in deciding cases now asag. (3 Dig 2d Comp. Dec., par. 156.)

The mischiefs which this statute was intended to prevent were mainly two: (1) The danger that the rights of the Government might be embarrassed by lving to deal with several persons instead of one, and by the introduction of a party who was a stranger to the original transaction; (2) that, by a transfer of such claim against the Government to one or more persons not originally Interested in it, the way might be conveniently opened to such improper infences in prosecuting the claim before the Departments, the courts, or the Cizress as desperate cases, when the reward is contingent on success, so often zest. In Spofford v. Kirk (97 U. S., 490) the Supreme Court had said that the greater of the two evils was the possible combination of interests and intances in the prosecution of claims which might have no real foundation. Goodman r. Niblack, 102 U. S., 560; Bailey v. U. S., 109 U. S., 438; Milliken v. Errow, 65 Fed. Rep., 888, 892.)

The provisions of section 3477 of the Revised Statutes, prohibiting and makIng vold transfers of any claim against the United States before the allowance of such cialm, apply only to claims existing at the time of the transfer, in the form of a right to demand money from the United States, and not to cases where at the very inception of the transaction out of which a claim against the United States may arise, one party assigns to another the contingent profits he hores to make, but which do not then exist, and can only be secured by the loan of the as-quee's money to the assignor. (Milliken v. Barrow, 65 Fed. Rep., 888.) Ite word "claim" as used in section 3477, Revised Statutes, which provides that "all transfers and assignments made of any claim upon the United States

▪ shall be absolutely null and void" unless made as prescribed therein, rehends all demands against the United States for the payment of money weber liquidated or unliquidated; and an assignment of a judgment against the United States, made before the issuing of a warrant for the payment of is within the meaning of the statute and vold. (4 Comp. Dec., 196; I M. 276.) The provisions of section 3477, Revised Statutes, touching transfers 1 assignments of claims against the United States, and powers of attorney, e. for receiving payment thereof, do not apply to undisputed claims or any ens about which no question is made as to its validity or extent. (XVII Op Att. Gen., 545; XXI id., 75; XX id., 578.)

When a claim passes into the form of checks, its legal character changes hit of a demand for goods sold and delivered to a claim represented by the checks given in liquidation of the original demand. The fund established by section 306, Revised Statutes, bears upon it the impress of a trust and the statutes of limitation can not be set up against money credited to the nt in the permanent appropriation for outstanding liabilities. Such bey is held as a trust fund payable on demand without limit of time. (32 Ct Ca, 3); C. S. v. Taylor, 104 U. S., 216.)