or done, by or before any such officer, when certified under his hand and seal of office, shall be as valid, and of like force and effect within the United States, to all intents and purposes, as if administered, sworn, affirmed, taken, had, or done, by or before any other person within the United States duly authorized and competent thereto. If any person shall willfully and corruptly commit perjury, or by any means procure any person to commit perjury in any such oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, within the intent and meaning of any act of Congress now or hereafter made, such offender may be charged, proceeded against, tried, convicted, and dealt with in any district of the United States, in the same manner, in all respects, as if such offense had been committed in the United States, before any officer duly authorized therein to administer or take such oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, and shall be subject to the same punishment and disability therefor as are or shall be prescribed by any such act for such offense; and any document purporting to have affixed, impressed, or subscribed thereto or thereon the seal and signature of the officer administering or taking the same in testimony thereof, shall be admitted in evidence without proof of any such seal or signature being genuine or of the official character of such person; and if any person shall forge any such seal or signature, or shall tender in evidence any such document with a false or counterfeit seal or signature thereto, knowing the same to be false or counterfeit, he shall be deemed and taken to be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be imprisoned not exceeding three years nor less than one year, and fined in a sum not to exceed three thousand dollars, and may be charged, proceeded against, tried, convicted, and dealt with, therefor, in the district where he may be arrested or in custody. [See $5392, 5393.] 846. SEC. 1751. No diplomatic or consular officer shall correspond in regard to the public affairs of any foreign government with any private person, newspaper, or other periodical, or otherwise than with the proper officers of the United States, nor recommend any person, at home or abroad, for any employment of trust or profit under the government of the country in which he is located; nor ask or accept, for himself or any other person, any present, emolument, pecuniary favor, office, or title of any kind, from any such government. 847. SEC. 1752. The President is authorized to prescribe such regulations, and make and issue such orders and instructions, not inconsistent with the Constitution or any law of the United States, in relation to the duties of all diplomatic and consular officers, the transaction of their business, the rendering of accounts and returns, the payment of compensation, the safe keeping of the archives and public property in the hands of all such officers, the communication of information, and the procurement and transmission of the products of the arts, sciences, manufactures, agriculture, and commerce, from time to time, as he may think conducive to the public interest. It shall be the duty of all such officers to conform to such regulations, orders, and instructions. TITLE XIX. (Sec. 1753-1790.) PROVISIONS APPLICABLE TO SEVERAL CLASSES OF OFFICERS. 848. SEC. 1757. Whenever any person who is not rendered ineligible to office by the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution is elected or appointed to any office of honor or trust under the Government of the United States, and is not able, on account of his participation in the late rebellion, to take the oath prescribed in the preceding section, he shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, take and subscribe in lieu of that oath the following oath: "I, A B, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” 849. SEC. 1758. The oath of office required by either of the two preceding sections may be taken before any officer who is authorized either by the laws of the United States, or by the local municipal law, to administer oaths, in the State, Territory, or District where such oath may be administered. [See § 2617.] 850. SEC. 1759. The oath of office taken by any person pursuant to the requirements of section seventeen hundred and fifty-six, or of section seventeen hundred and fifty-seven, shall be delivered in by him to be preserved among the files of the House of Congress, Department, or court to which the office in respect to which the oath is made may appertain. 851. SEC. 1766. No money shall be paid to any person for his compensation who is in arrears to the United States, until he has accounted for and paid into the Treasury all sums for which he may be liable. In all cases where the pay or salary of any person is withheld in pursuance of this section, the accounting officers of the Treasury, if required to do so by the party, his agent or attorney, shall report forthwith to the Solicitor of the Treasury the balance due; and the Solicitor shall, within sixty days thereafter, order suit to be commenced against such delinquent and his sureties. 852. SEC. 1777. The various officers of the United States, to whom, in virtue of their offices and for the uses thereof, copies of the United States Statutes at Large, published by Little, Brown and Company, have been or may be distributed at the public expense, by authority of law, shall preserve such copies, and deliver them to their successors respectively as a part of the property appertaining to the office. A printed copy of this section shall be inserted in each volume of the Statutes distributed to any such officers. CHAP. 275.-An act making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic service of the Government for the year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, and for other purposes. 1 853. [Par. 2.] The bonds which consular officers who are not compensated by salaries are required by the thirteenth section of the act of August eighteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, 1 to enter into, shall hereafter be made with such sureties as the Secretary of State shall approve. 854. SEC. 3. That the President shall be, and is hereby, authorized to appoint interpreters to the consulates at Shanghai, Tien Tsin, Fowchow, and Kanagawa, and to allow them salaries not to exceed, in either case, the rate of two thousand dollars a year; And to appoint interpreters to the consulates at Hankow, Amoy, Canton, and Hong-Kong, and to allow them salaries not to exceed, in efther case, the rate of seven hundred and fifty dollars a year; And also to allow, at his discretion, a sum not exceeding the rate of five hundred dollars for any one year to any one consulate in China or The provisions here referred to of the act of 1856, ch. 127 (11 Stat. L., 52), are incorporated into Revised Statutes in section 1697. Japan, respectively, not herein named, for expenses of interpretation; and that section six of the act entitled "An act to regulate the diplomatic and consular systems of the United States," approved August eighteenth, eighteen hundred and fifty-six, is hereby repealed.' 855. SEC. 4. That the Secretary of State shall, as soon as practicable, establish and determine the maximum amount of time actually neces sary to make the transit between each diplomatic and consular post and the city of Washington, and vice versa, and shall make the same public. He may also, from time to time, revise his decision in this respect; but in each case the decision is to be in like manner made public. And the allowance for time actually and necessarily occupied by each diplomatic and consular officer who may be entitled to such allowance shall in no case exceed that for the time thus established and determined, with the addition of the time usually occupied by the shortest and most direct mode of conveyance from Washington to the place of residence in the United States of such officer. 856. SEC. 5. That from and after the first day of July next, the annual salary of consular clerks who shall have remained continuously in service as such for the period of five years and upward shall be one thousand two hundred dollars. 857. SEC. 6. That any vice-consul who may be temporarily acting as consul during the absence of such consul may receive compensation, notwithstanding that he is not a citizen of the United States. [June 11, 1874.] * CHAP. 294.-An act relating to ambassadors, consuls and other officers. 858. Be it enacted, &c., That no Ambassador, Envoy Extraordinary, Minister Plenipotentiary, Minister Resident, Commissioner to any foreign country, chargé d'affaires, Secretary of Legation, Assistant Secretary of Legation, Interpreter to any legation in any foreign country, Consul General, Consul, Commercial Agent, consular pupils, or consular agent shall be absent from his post or the performance of his duties for a longer period than ten days at any one time, without the 1 Section 6 of the act of 1856, ch. 127 (11 Stat. L., 55), here repealed, forms § 1692 of the Revised Statutes, which therefore seems to be superseded or repealed by the provisions of this act. 2 The provision of this section seems to have reference to that part of section 21 of the act of 1856, ch. 127 (11 Stat. L., 60), which provided that compensation to officers mentioned in Schedules B and C should not apply to the payment of any such officer who shall not be a citizen of the United States, but which was omitted from the Revised Statutes as the section was incorporated therein in section 1744. permission previously obtained of the President. And no compensation shall be allowed for the time of any such absence in any case except in cases of sickness; Nor shall any diplomatic or consular officer correspond in regard to the public affairs of any foreign government with any private person, newspaper, or other periodical, or otherwise than with the proper officers of the United States; Nor without the consent of the Secretary of State previously obtained, recommend any person at home or abroad for any employment of trust or profit under the Government of the country in which he is located; Nor ask or accept, for himself or any other person, any present, emolument, pecuniary favor, office, or title of any kind from any such government. [June 17, 1874.] CHAP. 157.-An act to abolish the consulate at Amoor River and establish a consulate at Vladivostock, Russia, and for other purposes. 859. Be it enacted, &c. * * * And that the consul at Vladivostock and the consuls at Fayal and Auckland be, and they severally hereby are, exempted from the prohibition to engage in business and trade embraced in sections one thousand six hundred and ninety-nine and one thousand and seven hundred of the Revised Statutes of the United States. [March 3, 1875.] CHAP. 28.-An act making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic service of the government for the year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty, and for other purposes. * * * 860. Be it enacted, &c. [Par. 1.] And it shall be the duty of consuls to make to the Secretary of State a quarterly statement of exports from, and imports to, the different places to which they are accredited, giving, as near as may be, the market price of the various articles of exports and imports, the duty and port charges, if any, on articles imported and exported, together with such general information as they may be able to obtain as to how, where, and through what channels a market may be opened for American products and manufactures. In addition to the duties now imposed by law, it shall be the duty of consuls and commercial agents of the United States, annually, to procure and transmit to the Department of State, as far as practicable, information respecting the rate of wages paid for skilled and unskilled labor within their respective jurisdictions. * |