stantial rights in lawful property, and was never designed to apply to such rights as a person unlawfully in possession of counterfeit coin may have in it. To conclude, I believe that your Department had authority to seize these coins, to decide they were counterfeit, to determine they were unlawfully in possession, and to forfeit them. Such forfeiture inured to the benefit of the United States and covered the bullion as well as the stamp. After forfeiture, it is for the Secretary of the Treasury to direct in what manner the forfeited thing shall be disposed of. He is not obliged to reduce the coin to bullion and return it; nor to refine the bullion, ascertain its value, and account for that. He may destroy the counterfeit coin utterly if he deems it desirable, or he may dispose of it as he sees fit, remembering that it has been forfeited to the United States and must be disposed of for its benefit. Respectfully, Approved: P. C. KNOX. JOHN K. RICHARDS, The SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. CIVIL SERVICE-REINSTATEMENT. The third proviso of Rule IX of the civil service rules as amended May 29, 1899, which provides that any person who has been separated from the service by reason of a reduction of force specifically required by law, may be reinstated without regard to the length of time he or she has been separated from the service, does not authorize the restoration thereto of a person who has been employed to do a particular service, to be paid out of a specific appropriation, after the work which the person has been employed to perform has been completed and the appropriation therefor exhausted. The reinstatement permitted by that rule is a reinstatement in the same department or office and to the same branch of the service. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: I have received your letter of the 6th instant, asking my opinion upon the question whether Miss Sarah E. Nolan, who was discharged May 31, 1894, and has applied for reinstatement, comes within the third proviso of Rule IX of the civil service rules as amended May 29, 1899, reading as follows: person * * * by reason of * * * "That subject to the other conditions of these rules, any who has been separated from the service. a reduction of force specifically required by law, may be reinstated without regard to the length of time he or she has been separated from the service." You say: "Miss Nolan was appointed July 5, 1892, to the position of indexer of Confederate archives and continued in service. under the following appropriations: [Urgency deficiency bill, approved May 13, 1892.] "Office of Publication of Records of the Rebellion: For the preparation of a general card index of the books, muster rolls, orders, and other official papers preserved in the Confederate archives office and for the employment of such temporary expert services in connection therewith as may be deemed necessary by the Secretary of War, such experts to be appointed and selected by the Secretary of War from time to time as the necessity therefor arises, $14,600, to continue available until expended.' ***[Sundry civil bill, approved March 3, 1893.] ***Publication of official records of the War of the Rebel Index of Confederate records: For the preparation of a general card index of the books, muster rolls, orders, and other official papers preserved in the Confederate archives office, and for the employment of such temporary expert services in connection therewith as may be deemed necessary by the Secretary of War, all such experts in the Office of Publication of the Records of the Rebellion to be placed under such rules, regulations, and orders, in regard to employment, promotion, and discharge, as are applied to other employees in the classified service of the War Department, $14,600, to continue available until expended.' "Miss Nolan was discharged on May 31, 1894, under the following order: WAR DEPARTMENT, "Washington, D. C., May 26, 1894. "Miss Sarah E. Nolan, indexer of Confederate archives, at $900 per annum, in the Office of the Publication of Records of the Rebellion, is hereby discharged, to take effect May 31, 1894, on account of reduction of force, and is granted leave of absence until that date. "By order of the Secretary of War: 66 JOHN TWEEDALE, 666 Chief Clerk." * "The records of the Department show that at the close of May, 1894, there were about thirty-seven clerks employed on the work of indexing Confederate archives, fourteen of whom were borne on the 'Index of Confederate Archives' roll and paid from the above-cited appropriations, the remaining twenty-three being employees carried on other rolls of the Department and paid from other appropriations. On May 29, 1894, twelve of these fourteen employees carried on the Index of Confederate Archives' roll were transferred to the temporary expert' roll of the War Records Office, and on May 31, 1894, the other two, of whom Miss Nolan was one, were discharged. On June 1, 1894, the balance of the appropriation was $4.24, and on June 30, 1895, this sum was turned into the surplus fund of the Treasury. Subsequent to May 31, 1894, there were no persons appointed on the Index of Confederates Archives' roll. This work, however, was carried on until the end of June, 1894, by the employees detailed for that purpose from several of the bureaus of the Department, after which time the work was not further prosecuted." Rule IX permits the reinstatement within a year of a person who has through no delinquency or misconduct been separated from a position, the reinstatement to be in the same Department or office and same branch of the service; and there is a proviso that the position proposed to be filled by reinstatement does not necessitate an examination involving essential tests different from or higher than those 19395-VOL 23-02--30 involved in the examination for original entrance to the position formerly held. The rule then does away with the time limit in the case of the proposed reinstatement of persons who have served in the military or naval service in certain wars, etc., "and any person who has been separated from the service by reason of a reduction of force specifically required by law." In view of section 4 of the act of August 5, 1882, which forbids the employment of persons at the seat of government whose employment is not authorized and payment specifically provided for by law, it would seem that the two appropriations providing for the indexing of Confederate papers should be understood as authorizing the employment of no persons but the temporary experts mentioned in those appropriations. I assume that whatever name was given to the position held by Miss Nolan, she was selected by the Secretary of War as an expert in the business of indexing Confederate archives. 66 That business, I am informed by the papers furnished me. was completed in June, 1894; and as Congress doubtless contemplated some peculiar qualifications for such experts. it may well be questioned whether Rule IX, in providing for reinstatement," can properly be held to mean that a person who was found especially versed in Confederate war history and especially skillful in the art of indexing, and was temporarily employed in a very exceptional piece of work. was afterwards, without examination as to qualifications therefor, to be appointed to a position presumably altogether different. But I lay no particular stress upon this point, since there are others in which I place more confidence. It is an important rule of construction that all the words of a law shall if practicable be given effect, and another rule is that where the language of the law is plain and its obvious. meaning not absurd or impracticable, we are to follow the language and leave the responsibility upon the lawmaker. It is not the business of one who construes the law to improve it by omission or addition. The language of Rule IX seems to be of this character. Congress can very well specifically require a reduction of force, and has sometimes done so. It could prescribe, in so many words, that the force in a bureau of the Navy Department should be reduced from 100 employees to 75, or it could provide by one law for a force of 100 employees and by a subsequent law for a force of only 75 employees, which would constitute a sufficiently specific requirement by law of a reduction of force. I do not say that there are not several other ways in which there may be a reduction specifically required by law. But it seems to me that Congress, having in this case provided for the temporary employment of experts from a fund of so many thousand dollars, to continue available until expended, left a large discretion to the Secretary of War, under which he might have employed one or two persons only at such compensation as he saw fit, and that these persons might remain in the service for a very long time, the length of which would depend altogether upon the discretion of the Secretary. Moreover, it seems to be straining the natural meaning of language to say that if Congress should appropriate a thousand dollars for the performance of a special task to last six months, the running out of the employment at the end of six months would be a reduction of force. Yet that would be more nearly a reduction of force required by law than this, since there the law would undoubtedly require the termination of the employment at the time fixed by it. Undoubtedly, if an obvious purpose can be seen, the construction of a law may usually be bent to the accomplishment of that purpose. And it might be thought that the purpose here was to permit the reinstatement of a person who, without any fault of his own, and merely for reasons of public economy or some condition of the public business, has lost his position. But Rule IX itself precludes this theory, since it expressly provides that such a person may be reinstated within a year. Nor does any other obvious. purpose present itself to my mind, requiring any modification of the natural meaning of the language used. The President seems to have decided, perhaps upon a consideration of particular cases brought to his attention, in which Congress had specifically required the reduction of force, to extend the liberal provisions of Rule IX to such cases. He |