stables were authorized for each of the commissioners' districts and were required "before entering upon the discharge of their duties," to give a bond to be approved by the judge appointing them. It is clear that the constable whose bond was approved April 4 is entitled to salary only from and including that date. Respectfully, yours, Mr. HENRY RECHTIN, R. B. BOWLER, Comptroller. Disbursing Clerk, Department of Justice. FEES OF WITNESSES BEFORE THE BOARD OF GENERAL APPRAISERS. A witness summoned to appear before the Board of United States General Appraisers is entitled to the allowances for witnesses prescribed in section 848, Revised Statutes, and if an expert witness to such further allowance as the Secretary of the Treasury may direct, payable from the appropriation for collecting the revenue from customs. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY, March 14, 1896. SIR: I am in receipt of your letter of the 12th instant, inclosing the claim of James D. Parsons, of Springfield, Mass., for his time and expenses incurred in going to New York as a witness before the Board of United States General Appraisers, having been cited to appear in pursuance of section 16 of the act of June 10, 1890 (26 Stat., 138), as a witness in a protest case involving the classification, for duty, of so-called clothlined or envelope paper. You ask whether the claim, amounting to $18, should be paid under section 848 of the Revised Statutes, or from the appropriation "Collecting the revenue from customs." Section 848 of the Revised Statutes provides for fees of witnesses in the following language: "For each day's attendance in court, or before any officer pursuant to law, one dollar and fifty cents, and five cents a mile for going from his place of residence to the place of trial or hearing, and five cents a mile for returning." 11268-VOL 2—29 * It was held by this office that a civilian witness attending upon a court-martial was entitled only to the fees and mileage provided by section 848 (1 Comp. Dec., 79). In the present case, if the witness attending before the Board of General Appraisers was not an expert witness he is, in my opinion, entitled to the per diem fees and mileage allowed by section 848, and the amount thereof is properly payable from the appropriation "Collecting the revenue from customs." If he is an expert witness he may be allowed in addition to these fees such sum as you may deem proper to allow, payable also from the same appropriation. Respectfully, yours, R. B. BOWLER, Comptroller. The SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. CONTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES WITH A DISSOLVED PARTNERSHIP. A copartnership which is dissolved continues as a partnership so far as its liability under contract with the United States as such partnership is concerned. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY, March 16, 1896. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, by your reference, of a letter from Maj. Wells Willard, purchasing commissary, United States Army, stating that the copartnership of Sprague, Warner & Co., with whom the United States have a contract for the furnishing and delivery of certain articles of merchandise between July 1, 1895, and June 30, 1896, has become a corporation under the name of Sprague, Warner and Company, and asking "whether, under the circumstances, the contract should be terminated by the Commissary-General of Subsistence, or whether further deliveries thereunder can be made and paid for as heretofore on vouchers made out in the firm name and signed with the firm signature, by one of the firm,' or whether they should be made in the corporate name and payments made to the corporation on vouchers duly receipted by the treasurer or other authorized officer thereof." In answer, I have to say that the mere dissolution of the partnership and its merger into a corporation does not terminate its (the partnership's) contract with the United States. Its dissolution affects only things future and not those passed or existing at the time of the dissolution, and is therefore in contemplation of law still in existence for the purpose of carrying out its unfulfilled contract. There being nothing in the papers showing the inability or failure of the copartnership to carry out its contract, or any attempt to assign or transfer the same in contravention of section 3737, Revised Statutes, the necessity for an opinion as to the advisability of rescinding the contract does not appear. As the matter now stands, the corporation can not be recognized, but the contract should be carried out by the copartnership and payments made to it upon the customary vouchers. Respectfully, yours, The SECRETARY OF WAR. EDW. A. BOWERS, IN RE CLAIM OF EXECUTRIX OF JAMES CORNICK, UNITED STATES NAVY, FOR LATE SURGEON MILEAGE. The prohibition found in section 3480, Revised Statutes, against the payment of certain claims, affects not only the disloyal persons on whose account the claims arise, but also the heirs and all other persons seeking the payment of such claims, since the prohibition is directed against the claims without regard to the persons presenting the same. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY, Lizzie A. B. Cornick, executrix, through her attorney, Charles W. Claggett, of Washington, D. C., appeals from the action of the Auditor for the Navy Department as evidenced by his decision of October 11, 1894. The claim under consideration is for $1,028.90, for mileage at the rate of 10 cents a mile, under the act of March 3, 1835 (4 Stat., 755), while traveling outside of the United States under orders of the Navy Department, dated April 20 and 24, 1850, September 13, 1858, and February 19, 1859. · In presenting this claim reliance is based on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Graham v. United States (110 U. S., 219). This claim has been presented for the full amount alleged to have become due for the mileage traveled, and no deduction has been made for the actual expenses incurred on the journeys, which have heretofore been paid by the United States. The claim was disallowed by the Auditor for the reasons— "It appears from the accompanying letter from the Navy Department that Surgeon James Cornick entered the Confederate service. He thereby forfeited any amount that may have been due him from the United States on account of mileage for travel in obedience to orders, and consequently it can not now be paid to his heirs." Although not so distinctly set forth, the action of the Auditor in disallowing the claim was based on the prohibition found in joint resolution of March 2, 1867 (14 Stat., 571), now section 3480, Revised Statutes, which reads as follows: "It shall be unlawful for any officer to pay any account, claim, or demand against the United States which accrued or existed prior to the thirteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty one, in favor of any person who promoted, encouraged, or in any manner sustained the late rebellion, or in favor of any person who during such rebellion was not known to be opposed thereto and distinctly in favor of its suppression; and no pardon heretofore granted, or hereafter to be granted, shall authorize the payment of such account, claim, or demand until this section is modified or repealed. But this section shall not be construed to prohibit the payment of claims founded upon contracts made by any of the Departments, where such claims were assigned or contracted to be assigned prior to the first day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, to the creditors of such contractors, loyal citizens of loyal States, in payment of debts incurred prior to the first day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one." The officer, James Cornick, is alleged to be dead, and the claim has been presented by the alleged executrix for the bene fit of the estate, but neither of these facts is sufficiently shown. The attorney for the claimant contends that the prohibition or disability imposed by the statute above cited is a personal one, and therefore does not extend and apply to the heirs. He says: "No act of Congress has ever authorized the forfeiture of a claim without some judicial proceedings, and in this case the claim has never been declared forfeited. The remedy has been suspended in all such cases as to a particular class of persons, composed of those who were engaged in promoting the rebel lion, but the right of property has never been forfeited. No action has ever been taken under the act of July 17, 1862, or any other act, to forfeit the claim, and all Congress has ever done was to erect a bar to the recovery of the claim, by section 3480, as to a certain class of persons; or, in other words, it suspended the remedy as to all persons engaged in promoting the rebellion." It is no doubt true that section 3480, Revised Statutes, does not work a forfeiture of the claims, or the right of property in the claims therein mentioned. The statute merely takes away the remedy as to all accounts, claims, or demands of the class described. The contention of the attorney that the disability or prohi bition found in the statute is a personal one is, in my opinion, erroneous. The language of the statute is: * "It shall be unlawful for any officer to pay any account, claim, or demand against the United States." So far, the prohibition is leveled at claims, etc., and not at persons. Then the law proceeds to particularize-to prescribe and specify the class of claims the payment of which is prohibited. The prohibited claims are those "which accrued or existed prior to the thirteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, in favor of any person who promoted, encouraged, or in any manner sustained the late rebellion." The error of the attorney for the claimant lies in his contention that the prohibition is merely leveled at disloyal persons and not at the claims specified. His contention, if correct, would require an interpolation into the statute of words not found therein by inserting after the word "pay," in the first line, the words "any person who promoted, encouraged, or in any manner sustained the late rebellion, for," so as to make the statute read as follows: "It shall be unlawful for any officer to pay any person who promoted, encouraged, or in any manner sustained the late rebellion, for any account, claim, or demand against the United States." It needs no argument to show that such an interpolation is unauthorized. The word "person," found in the fifth line of section 3480, is not used to particularize the person upon whom the disability rests, but the account, claim, or demand the payment of which is prohibited. So far as the statute may be considered as raising a disability, it rests upon all persons seeking to recover upon the class of claims therein described. In the case of Hart v. United States (15 C. Cls. R., 414; 16 C. |