Readjustment of Account for Mail Service. Your second inquiry is: "Whether said power of attorney amounts to such a transfer of an interest in the contract as to cause the annulment thereof under section 3737, Revised Statutes?" The construction of this instrument is that it is a power of attorney to receive moneys due the contractor. It does not assume to transfer the contract or any interest therein. What are the relations between the contractor and attorney, what was the consideration of the power, are not shown. All that appears is that it was thereby intended to authorize the attorney to collect moneys which might be then due, or thereafter become due, to the contractor. It does not profess to give the attorney any interest in the contract. I am therefore of opinion that this instrument does not cause an annulment of the contract under the section mentioned. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. GEORGE W. MCCRARY, Secretary of War. CHAS. DEVENS. READJUSTMENT OF ACCOUNT FOR MAIL SERVICE. An oral demand by a railroad company, through its authorized agent, for a readjustment of its account under the act of March 3, 1873, chap. 231, is sufficient in order to rebut the presumption of acquiescence in an adverse ruling of the Post-Office Department, unless there is an established practice in the Department, having the force of law, by which such demands are required to be made in writing. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: The question presented in your letter of the 6th instant, concerning the claim of the Saint Louis and San Francisco Railroad Company, is whether, in order to rebut the presumption of acquiescence in a ruling of your Department adverse to its claim, an oral demand for readjustment of its account under the act of March 3, 1873, is sufficient. I know of no rule of law which requires that a demand upon a Department of the Government for readjustment of an account, or a protest against its decision upon a claim, Providing and Repairing Lock-boxes. should be made formally in a written communication signed by the party or an agent of the party; and, unless there is an established practice in your Department that such demands and protests be in writing, or that in some way they shall be made to appear upon the files and records of your Department, which practice is generally known and understood so as to have the force of law, I am of opinion that evidence that demand was made orally by the claimant or his authorized agent is admissible, and that you are not confined to the records and files of your Department for such proof. That demand was made is a question of fact to be proved by competent testimony. Upon this point, if the case were before a court of law, the persons who made the affidavits, copies of which accompany your letter, would be allowed to testify, and if their evidence, or evidence of a like character, should satisfy the court, it would hold that a demand was proved, and that the demand was evidence that the party had not acquiesced in the ruling of the Department. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. DAVID M. KEY, Postmaster-General. CHAS. DEVENS. PROVIDING AND REPAIRING LOCK-BOXES. Opinion of January 18, 1879 (ante, p. 255), reconsidered, and in view of the fact that expenditures for providing and repairing lock-boxes in public buildings occupied for post-offices have hitherto been made and are still being made from an appropriation under the control of the Secretary of the Treasury, and other circumstances: Advised that no immediate change of this practice be made, it not being so clearly without warrant of law as to render an immediate change imperative. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, February 10, 1879. SIR: As requested by your letter of the 29th of January, I have reviewed my opinion of the 18th of the same month, in which opinion I suggested that the expense of providing and repairing lock-boxes in the public buildings occupied for post-offices should be met from appropriations provided for the Post-Office Department. Appraisers at the Port of Baltimore. Although I still think that this work should be done and paid for by that Department, yet, in view of the fact stated by you that such "expenditures have hitherto been made and are still being made from a specific appropriation" in the control of the Secretary of the Treasury (though the terms of that appropriation do not seem strictly to include the object), and believing that this practice has been acquiesced in; considering, moreover, the grave objections stated by the Postmaster-General in his letter to you of the 27th ultimo to the adoption of the course indicated in the opinion referred to, I would not advise an immediate change of the practice that has prevailed concerning this matter. I do not consider this practice so clearly without warrant of law as to render an immediate change imperative, nor did I intend so to intimate in my opinion of the 18th ultimo; but I thought then, and still think, that the course I pointed out would better accord with the intent of the statutes which I cited as applicable to the subject, and with the rule to which I referred of the Post-Office Department. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. JOHN SHERMAN, Secretary of the Treasury. CHAS. DEVENS. APPRAISERS AT THE PORT OF BALTIMORE. Section 2549 Rev. Stat. provides for two appraisers at the port of Baltimore; but, under section 2950 Rev. Stat., an appraisement may be made by any one of them. Held that, in case of vacancy in the office of one of the appraisers of that port, there is no duty devolving upon the President to provide an incumbent for it, if, in his opinion, it is unnecessary to do so. Section 1768 Rev. Stat. recognizes the existence of a discretion in the President to not fill an office which has become vacant, where, in his judgment, it is unnecessary in order to execute the laws. The office is not thereby abolished, but is merely left unfilled. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, February 20, 1879. SIR: A letter of Mr. H. H. Goldsborough, one of the local appraisers at the port of Baltimore, to the President, is referred Appraisers at the Port of Baltimore. to me by you with a request for my opinion in the matter. From this letter I understand that the question desired to be passed upon by me is whether under existing statutes the law requires two appraisers at the port named, or whether one of them may be legally dispensed with. Session 2549 of the Revised Statutes provides for two appraisers, who shall reside at the port of Baltimore; and the argument of Mr. Goldsborough is that, as Congress has provided for two such officers, it is not competent for the Secretary of the Treasury to dispense with one of these officials, if, in his opinion and that of the President, the duties could be efficiently performed by one appraiser-that the Congressional will having been expressed by the act, one of the offices created cannot be abolished, but that it is the duty of the President, acting through the Secretary of the Treasury, to fill it with a suitable incumbent. The section 2549 is derived from the act of March 1, 1823, before the passage of which there were no official appraisers, but the appraisement was made under the direction of the collector by an appraiser appointed by him in each case and another appointed by the merchant whose goods were to be appraised. The two appraisers contemplated by this act were evidently intended to take the place of the two unofficial appraisers who had theretofore executed the law. Since the statute of March 3, 1851 (embodied in section 2950 of the Revised Statutes, which provides: "The certificate of any one of the appraisers of the dutiable value of any imported merchandise required to be appraised shall be deemed to be the appraisement of such merchandise required by law to be made by such appraisers" ), there seems to be no difficulty in making an appraisement with but one appraiser; and it is probable that the intention of the law was to enable this to be done, especially as it also contains provision as to the mode to be adopted where there are no appraisers. If, then, the work to be done at Baltimore can be done by one appraiser, and if to-day there were a vacancy in the office, which, on account of the limited amount of business or for any other reason, the President should desire not to fill, it would seem that the provision of the tenure of office enactment, Discharge of Seamen in Foreign Port. section 1768 of the Revised Statutes, would authorize him not to fill it. One clause of this provision enacts that "the President shall, within thirty days after the commencement of each session of the Senate, except for any office which in his opinion ought not to be filled, nominate persons to fill all vacancies in office," &c. This is a recognition by the law that the President is not obliged to fill an office if in his opinion it is unnecessary in order to execute the laws. It is suggested in the letter of Mr. Goldsborough that it is not competent for the President to abolish an office which has been instituted by Congress; and this is true. But in the case mentioned the President does not abolish the office. It is merely left unfilled, because in his opinion it is unnecessary to fill it. It is, therefore, in the condition of an existing office, and it may undoubtedly thereafter be filled if subsequent experience should show, either to the President or his successor, the necessity of filling it. In the case presented by Mr. Goldsborough, therefore, should the office be vacated by his resignation, there is no duty devolving upon the President to provide an incumbent for it, if, in his opinion, such incumbency is unnecessary. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. JOHN SHERMAN, Secretary of the Treasury. DISCHARGE OF SEAMEN IN FOREIGN PORT. The action of a consul, in the exercise of the discretion given him by sections 4580, 4581, 4583, and 4584, respecting the discharge of seamen in a foreign port, is not reviewable otherwise than by some competent court. Where a consul has collected extra wages of the master of a vessel in a foreign port, or requested collection of such extra wages on the arrival of the vessel in the United States, it is not competent to the Secretary of the Treasury or any bureau of the Treasury Department, in the examination of the accounts of the consul, to do anything more than revise the amount of the collection and determine its arithmetical accuracy. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: Yours of the 2d ultimo calls my attention to sections 4580, 4581, 4583, and 4584 of the Revised Statutes, relating |