17. Military punishment cannot be inflicted after June 1, 1821, on those who do not then constitute a part of the peace establishment under the act of March 2, 1821.-(5: 735.) 18. Military storekeepers are subject to removal from office at the discretion of the President of the United States.-(6: 4.) 19. Military storekeepers are all of one grade, and alike subject, as to their place of duty, to the orders of the Secretary of War.-(6: 7.) 20. Provision of statute exists by which the statute regulations of the army may, within certain limits, be altered by the Secretary of War, but there is no such provision in regard to the statute regulations of the navy.-(6: 10.) 21. The Secretary of War is not under obligation by law to discharge minors from the army on the application of alleged parents or guardians not domiciled in the United States.-(6: 607.) 22. Under the acts of February 11, 1847, and July 19, 1848, no promotion in the Quartermaster's Department can be made from the grade of assistant quartermaster to that of quartermaster until the number of officers in the latter shall be reduced by vacancies occurring, so that the sum total of the grade shall not exceed the statute standard of the peace establishment of the United States.-(7: 108.) 23. Army sutlers are not subject to a license in the State of California on sales made by them to officers or soldiers of the army, nor to tax on goods kept by them at a military post for that purpose; but sutlers may be compelled to pay license if they enter into general trade within the State.-(7: 578.) 31 D WASHINGTON CITY. 1. The act of July 16, 1790, for establishing the seat of govern-* ment of the United States, authorized commissioners, who were to be appointed by the President, to purchase or accept such quantity of land on the eastern side of the Potomac, within the District of Columbia, as the President should deem proper for the use of the United States; and by a liberal construction of that provision, only, has it been claimed that the President had power to establish a plan of the city; but the deeds of the original proprietors require the trustees appointed by them to convey to the commissioners such streets, squares, parcels, and lots as the President should deem proper. In pursuance of the power thus conferred, President Washington, in 1797, executed an instrument of writing, in which he directed the trustees to convey to the commissioners all the streets delineated in a plan intended to be, but not, annexed. President Washington having previously ratified Ellicott's engraved plan of the city, it must now be presumed that Ellicott's plan was what he intended to annex; and that, as it indicated streets through the mall, it was originally intended that streets might be opened through it.—(1: 416.) 2. Although President Adams subsequently gave his sanction to another plan, said by the commissioners to have been annexed, which did not indicate streets through the mall, the promulgation, publication, and exhibition of Ellicott's plan, on the day of sale of lots, amount to a pledge of the public faith that the streets thus indicated should be opened.—(Ibid.) 3. The corporation of the city of Washington has power to establish a board of health, to make regulations for the preservation of health, to open all necessary drains, and to do every act which the health of the city may require; and to lay taxes, &c., for the purpose of defraying the expenses.-(1: 615.) 4. The act of May 7, 1822, specially authorized the draining and filling up of the low grounds near Tiber creek and the canal, and appropriated funds for that purpose.—(1bid.) 5. Although the corporation of Washington have the power by their charter, with the approbation of the President of the United States, to draw lotteries, the amount to be thus raised cannot exceed $10,000 in any one year.-(1: 720.) 6. If the corporation has not improved this provision during any former years, the right to do so for those years has gone; for the President during those years only had the right to judge of the expediency of a lottery or lotteries by the circumstances then existing.— (Ibid.) 7. The power is a limited one and must be exercised as specified in the charter.-(Ibid.) 8. A surveyor of Washington who is appointed by the Commissioner of Public Buildings, with the understanding that no salary is to be claimed, cannot receive any pay out of the fund appropriated for the District.-(2: 471.) 9. But the President is advised to make an unconditional appointment of surveyor, leaving the necessity of the office to Congress, which will apply the remedy, if it be unnecessary, and the salary be too great.-(Ibid.) 10. The power to grade the streets in the city of Washington is in the corporation, not in the Commissioner of Public Buildings, and can be exercised only under its authority.-(2: 541.) 11. Congress did not grant to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company the right to pass through the public reservations in the city of Washington, the same not being included in the "other squares and lots" in the city. 12. The Secretary of the Treasury may give to the corporation of Washington the certificate described in the seventh section of the act vesting in that corporation the rights of the Canal Company, passed 31st May, 1832, notwithstanding the work was not completed by the 1st March, 1833; provided the work has been finished in the manner prescribed, and the time when it was actually completed be stated.— (3: 290.) 13. Repairs in front of leased tenements in the city of Washington are, by the corporation act of 1st August, 1831, required to be made by the owners, who are, in general, the lessors; and where the leases are silent upon the subject of such repairs, the law regulating repairs in the District may properly be considered and taken as a part of the contract. (3: 496.) 14. The inspectors of the penitentiary in the District of Columbia have, notwithstanding the authority conferred on the warden by the act of 25th February, 1831, the responsibility and duty of a general superintendence and management of the institution; and it belongs to them to limit the number of subordinate officers and servants, and to regulate their salaries.-(5: 128.) 15. In them, and not in the warden, is vested the authority to appoint the physician and chaplain, they not being "inferior officers" within the meaning of the law.-(Ibid.) 16. The act of 1820 pledged the proceeds of sales of public lots in the city of Washington to the payment of certain expenses to be incurred by the corporation in making certain improvements; wherefore, the funds in the treasury derived from that source should be applied to reimburse certain advances made by the corporation, notwithstanding the act of 17th May, 1848.-(5: 151.) 17. The commissioners appointed under the act of 16th July, 1790, to purchase or accept a site for the seat of government of the United States, had no power to convey any lands in the city of Washington. which had been appropriated as a public reservation for the use of the United States: Held, therefore, that the conveyance of such commissioners, made on the 25th May, 1798, of a part of the President's square to the minister of Portugal, in behalf of his government, was void, though approved by the President.-(5: 464.) 18. The non-user of the land so granted, by any minister of Portugal, for fifty years and more next after the date of the deed, supports the inference that the want of authority to make the grant was known to and acquiesced in by the grantee.-(Ibid.) 19. Consideration of a bill for the relief of George Mattingly, presented to the President for his approval.-(6: 336.) 20. The United States may lawfully make title to land in one of the States by expropriation as of the eminent domain of such State, and with assent thereof.-(7: 114.) 21. The act of the legislature of Maryland, empowering the United States to acquire land in said State for the use of the Washington aqueduct, is not in conflict with the constitution either of that State or of the United States.-(Ibid.) 22. The acquisition of land by the United States through the means of a statute process of expropriation is a "purchase," which, if done in strict accordance with the form of the statute, may be certified by the Attorney General as vesting a valid title in the United States.(Ibid.) 23. At the foundation of the government's title to city lots in the city of Washington are trust deeds from the original proprietors of the land to Thomas Beall and John M. Gantt, who thus held the fee in trust for the original proprietors and for the United States.―(7: 355.) 24. By force of a legislative act of the State of Maryland of 1791, the fee of these lots became vested in the several cestui que trusts, whether the original grantors, the United States, or purchasers under either.-(Ibid.) 25. By force of the same act of the State of Maryland, as construed by subsequent acts of Congress, the power to convey the government lots became vested in different statute officers of the United States, namely, first, a Board of Commissioners, then a Superintendent, and, finally, the Commissioner of Public Buildings.—(Ibid.) 26. All conveyances heretofore made by the Board of Commisioners, the Superintendent, or the Commissioner, suffice to pass the title, provided the conveyances were otherwise valid, and the sales were made by the direction of, and in the time and manner prescribed by, the President of the United States -(Ibid.) 27. The same power is held by the present Commissioner.-(Ibid.) WHARVES. 1. So long as the law of Maryland, and the order of the commissioners under it, remain unrepealed, the wharves proposed to be built by the owners of water-lots on the Potomac and Eastern Branch must follow the direction of the present streets of the city, and cannot be projected at right angles from Water street to the channel-(1: 223.) |