Opinion of the Court. defined. It operated upon the entire enacting clause, and made loyalty a jurisdictional fact, since the consent to the prosecution of the suit was given upon the condition that that fact should be established. The Court of Claims was vested with jurisdiction to adjust the claim and render judgment, and the representatives of Austin were declared entitled to recover notwithstanding the two-year or the six-year bar, provided Austin were shown to the satisfaction of the court not to have given any aid or comfort to the late rebellion, and to have been loyal throughout the war to the government of the United States, and not otherwise, and the effect of the proviso cannot be confined to the right of recovery merely. Congress in making this requirement in no respect attempted to defeat the operation of the President's proclamation of fifteen years before, which could not control the power of Congress in the matter of giving or withholding jurisdiction. In declining to bestow jurisdiction in favor of pardoned offenders, whose claims were barred, Congress did not deny its proper constitutional effect to amnesty. To whom the privilege of suit should be accorded was for Congress alone to determine. It is contended that the words in reference to the establishment of loyalty are in substance the same as those used in the third section of the Captured and Abandoned Property Act, and that Congress must be held to have employed them in the Austin act in view of the interpretation of the former act by the decisions of the courts of the United States, and that that interpretation became as much a part of the Austin act as if written out there. If this were so, it would be difficult to assign any reason for the insertion of the proviso so far as Austin was concerned, for it would be made to read, provided, however, that it be shown to the satisfaction of the court that Austin was loyal in fact, although the amnesty proclamations have rendered that immaterial. But it is not so. Undoubtedly Congress framed this act with due regard to the state of decision under the prior act, and hence, instead of making proof of loyalty an integral part of claimant's case with his ownership of the property and his right to the proceeds, as in the Captured and Abandoned Prop Opinion of the Court. erty Act, it made the establishment of loyalty in fact, as contradistinguished from innocence in law produced by pardon, a prerequisite to jurisdiction. Consent to be sued was given only on this condition. Nor do we perceive any ground for imputing the intention to Congress to revive the Captured and Abandoned Property Act for the purposes of this action. This is not the case of the revival of a law by express reenactment, or by the repeal of a repealing clause; and if such had been the intention of Congress, no reason suggests itself why Congress should not have unequivocally said so. Again it is argued that because in the fourth section of the general act of March 3, 1883, the fact of loyalty was stated to be "a jurisdictional fact," therefore the proviso of the Austin act should not be construed to have that effect, because, while the same language was used as to the existence of loyalty, its establishment was not in terms expressed to be jurisdictional. But the structure of the two acts was different and required different treatment, and the special act cannot properly be construed as if it were a general act and part of a general system and the change of phraseology in this particular significant. On the contrary, as we have no doubt that the effect of the proviso is such as we have attributed to it, we think the argument for the Government not unreasonable that Congress, in employing the same language in both acts as to the condition of loyalty, did so in effectuation of a common object to be attained by the requirement. As the President's proclamation could neither give jurisdiction to nor take it away from the Court of Claims, and Congress had the power to determine what classes of persons should be recognized in that court, and over what claims its jurisdiction should be exercised, we are of opinion that the court rightly held it to be its duty to determine as a preliminary question whether the decedent had given any aid or comfort to the late rebellion or was loyal throughout the war to the government of the United States, and, having found that he was not thus loyal, properly dismissed the petition. VOL. CLV-28 Judgment affirmed. Opinion of the Court. INGRAHAM v. UNITED STATES. ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND. No. 379. Submitted October 23, 1894. - Decided December 17, 1894. Pointer v. United States, 151 U. S. 396, sustained and applied to the point that it is not error to join distinct offences in one indictment, in separate counts, against the same person. A person who presents to the Third Auditor of the Treasury what purports to be an affidavit before a justice of the peace in support of a fraudulent claim against the Government, is estopped to deny that the document was not an affidavit when presented in evidence in criminal proceedings against him for such fraudulent act. It is not necessary, in the first instance, in order to prove such offence, to produce the commission of the justice, or to introduce other official evidence of his appointment. THE case is stated in the opinion. Mr. Charles H. Page and Mr. Franklin P. Owen for plaintiff in error. Mr. Assistant Attorney General Whitney for defendants in error. MR. JUSTICE HARLAN delivered the opinion of the court. By the first count of an indictment in the court below it was charged that the plaintiff in error, Royal Ingraham, on the 11th day of December, 1890, within the District of Rhode Island, did knowingly, wilfully and unlawfully make and present and cause to be made and presented for payment and approval to the Third Auditor of the Treasury of the United States of America a claim for payment and reimbursement to him of certain alleged expenses of the last sickness and burial of his mother, Freelove Ingraham, who in her lifetime had been a pensioner of the United States of America under a pension issued to her, and who prior to the above date had died leaving no widower or minor child surviving her; which claim Opinion of the Court. it was alleged was false, fraudulent, and fictitious in that it was stated in it that the last sickness of the pensioner continued uninterruptedly from July 21, 1889, to the date of her death on the 19th day of September, A.D. 1890, that he had actually paid to Perry Ingraham and Mary Ingraham for board, nursing, and medicines furnished to the pensioner the sum of three hundred and eighteen dollars, and to one Zylphia Ingraham for services as nurse the sum of one hundred and forty-eight dollars and fifty-seven cents; whereas, the last sickness of the pensioner was of only a few days' duration, and the defendant had not at the time when he made his claim paid to Perry Ingraham and Mary Ingraham any sum for board, nursing, and medicine so furnished, and to Zylphia Ingraham any sum for services as nurse, he then and there well knowing his claim to be false, fraudulent, and fictitious, and the Third Auditor being then and there authorized to approve and allow it. By a second count in the indictment it was charged that the plaintiff in error on the 11th day of December, 1890, for the purpose of obtaining and aiding to obtain the payment and approval of the above claim, did knowingly, wilfully and unlawfully use and cause to be used a certain false affidavit, to wit, the affidavit of Perry Ingraham and Mary E. Ingraham, subscribed and sworn to on the 9th day of December, A.D. 1890, before Daniel H. Remington, a justice of the peace, he then and there well knowing that said affidavit contained the fraudulent and fictitious statement that on the 1st day of November, 1890, they, Perry Ingraham and Mary E. Ingraham, received from him the sum of $318 in payment of an account. therein stated for board, nursing, and medicine furnished to the pensioner, Freelove Ingraham, in her lifetime; whereas they, or either of them, did not, at any time prior to the making of such affidavit, receive from him any sum in payment of an account for board, nursing or medicine so furnished or services rendered to said pensioner. for any There was evidence before the jury tending to show that the accused presented to the Third Auditor of the Treasury of the United States and used and caused to be used before that officer in the prosecution of his claim against the government Opinion of the Court. of the United States a certain paper in the form of and purporting to be an affidavit signed by Perry Ingraham and Mary E. Ingraham, and purporting to be sworn to before Daniel H. Remington as a justice of the peace, and certified to that effect by him. But there was no further testimony tending to show that Remington was duly commissioned and qualified as a justice of the peace and was authorized to administer oaths. Nor does the bill of exceptions state what evidence, relating to other points, was adduced before the jury. At the conclusion of the evidence the prisoner presented several requests for instructions to the jury. These requests were refused, and an exception was properly taken to the action of the court. After a verdict of guilty, and the denial of a motion in arrest of judgment, the defendant was sentenced to one year's impris onment at hard labor in the state-prison. 49 Fed. Rep. 155. The indictment in this case was based on section 5438 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. So much of that section as is relevant to this case is in these words: "Every person who makes or causes to be made, or presents or causes to be presented, for payment or approval, to or by any person or officer in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, any claim upon or against the government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof, knowing such claim to be false, fictitious or fraudulent, or who, for the purpose of obtaining or aiding to obtain the payment or approval of such claim, makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, any false bill, receipt, voucher, roll, account, claim, certifi cate, affidavit or deposition, knowing the same to contain any fraudulent or fictitious statement or entry, every person so offending in any of the matters set forth in this section shall be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than one nor more than five years, or fined not less than one thousand nor more than five thousand dollars." 1. Although each count of the indictment charged a distinct offence, it was not error to embrace both offences in one indictment in separate counts. Such joinder, where two or more acts or transactions are connected together, or are of the same |