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a report assigning certain rooms to the Senate, the House, and the Supreme Court, respectively.

Thereupon the following was agreed to by the House:

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, That the distribution of the rooms in the center building of the Capitol be made agreeably to the above report."

It was then resolved by the House: "That a committee be appointed to make distribution of the rooms in the Capitol appropriated to the use of the House of Representatives."

May 26, 1824 (1, 18, pp. 593, 594): The above-mentioned committee made a report assigning rooms to the several committees and officers of the House, and providing that "The unappropriated rooms shall be subject to the order and disposal of the Speaker until the further order of the House."

March 18, 1867 (1, 40, p. 57): A concurrent resolution was agreed to by the House amending the nineteenth joint rule so as to prohibit the sale of liquors in the Capitol building.

March 25, 1867 (1, 40, p. 108): A resolution was agreed to by the House, that in consideration of the changes made in the privileges of the keeper of the House restaurant, "the Clerk be authorized to cancel the contract with William Smelt and receive new bids for the privilege of keeping said restaurant."

December 4, 1867 (2, 40, p. 32): A resolution permitting James Penny to resume his surrendered contract for keeping the House restaurant, and be allowed to sell small beer and malt liquors, $200 to be paid by him for the privileges, was referred to the Committee on Rules.

The following order was then made:

"Ordered, That the Clerk of the House be directed to suspend the letting of the contract for keeping the House restaurant until the Committee on Rules have reported on the resolution just referred to it."

December 16, 1867 (2, 40, p. 111): The following resolution was reported by the Committee on Rules and agreed to, viz: "Resolved, That the subject of leasing the restaurant and prescribing the rules under which it shall be kept is hereby committed to the Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business, with full power to make such regulations as may to them seem

expedient; and all resolutions heretofore passed relating thereto are hereby repealed."

April 8, 1869 (1, 41, p. 201): The following was agreed to by the House:

"Resolved, That the House restaurant be placed in charge of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, with the same powers heretofore possessed by the Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business."

The last-mentioned resolution of April 8, 1869, could only bind the House for that, the Forty-first Congress. It has since been the practice, however, for the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds in each succeeding Congress to assume jurisdiction of the restaurant, and elect a keeper thereof, without further warrant or authority from the House, which action has been acquiesced in by the House.

CHAPLAIN.

The Chaplain shall attend at the commencement of each day's sitting of the House and open the same with prayer.-Rule VII. The practice which had prevailed for several years, of the election by each House of a Chaplain, who should open their daily sessions with prayer, alternating weekly between the House and Senate, was suspended during the Thirty-fifth Congress. At the first session of that Congress a resolution was adopted by the House, which directed "that the daily sessions of that body be opened with prayer, and requesting the ministers of the gospel in this city to attend and alternately perform this solemn duty."-Journal, 1, 35, p. 58. The clergymen of Washington generally responded to this request, and for the remainder of the Congress performed the duty of chaplains. At the first session of the Thirty-sixth Congress the old practice of the election of a Chaplain by each House was revived, and it was at that time decided that a proposition to proceed to such election presented a question of privilege.-Journal, 1, 36, pp. 442, 443.

CHARTS OF COAST SURVEY.

Each Member and Delegate is entitled to ten charts of the coast survey for each regular session of Congress. (See Stat. L., vol. 20, p. 382.)

CLAIMS.

No bill for the payment or adjudication of any private claim against the Government shall be referred, except by unanimous consent, to any other than the following-named committees, viz, to the Committee on Invalid Pensions, to the Committee on Pensions, to the Committee on Claims, to the Committee on War Claims, to the Committee on Private Land Claims, and to the Committee on Accounts.-Rule XXI, clause 4. CLAIMS, ADJUDICATED AND ALLOWED.

The Secretary of the Treasury shall, at the commencement of each session of Congress, report the amount due each claimant whose claim has been allowed in whole or in part to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the presiding officer of the Senate, who shall lay the same before their respective Houses for consideration.-Sess. Laws, 1, 48, p. 254, act of July 7, 1884.

CLAIM AGENTS.

No person shall be an officer of the House, or continue in its employment, who shall be an agent for the prosecution of any claim against the Government, or be interested in such claim otherwise than as an original claimant; and it shall be the duty of the Committee on Accounts to inquire into and report to the House any violation of this rule.-Rule XLIII.

Every officer of the United States, or person holding any place of trust or profit, or discharging any official function under, or in connection with, any Executive Department of the Government of the United States, or under the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, who acts as an agent or attorney for prosecuting any claim against the United States, or in any manner, or by any means, otherwise than in discharge of his proper official duties, aids or assists in the prosecution or support of any such claim, or receives any gratuity, or any share of or interest in any claim, from any claimant against the United States, with intent to aid or assist, or in consideration of having aided or assisted, in the prosecution of such claim, shall pay a fine of not more than five thousand dollars, or suffer imprisonment not more than one year, or both.-R. S.,

sec. 5498.

CLAIMS, COMMITTEE ON.

(See Committees.)

CLAIMS, Court of.

The Court of Claims was established by act of February 24, 1855.-Stat. L., Vol. 10, p. 612.

The act of July 4, 1864 (Stat., Vol. 13, p. 381), restricted the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims in respect to war claims, and provided that claims for quartermasters' stores, etc., should be submitted to the Quartermaster-General.

These claims are reported on by the Quartermaster-General to Congress, and referred to the Committee on War Claims, which committee usually reports a bill for their payment.

Members of either House of Congress shall not practice in the Court of Claïms.—R. S. 1058.

All petitions and bills praying or providing for the satisfaction of private claims against the Government, founded upon any law of Congress, or upon any regulation of an Executive Department, or upon any contract, expressed or implied, with the Government of the United States, shall, unless otherwise ordered by resolution of the House in which they are introduced, be transmitted by the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House of Representatives, with all the accompanying documents, to the Court of Claims.-R. S., sec. 1060.

The said court shall have power to call upon any of the Departments for any information or papers it may deem necessary, and shall have the use of all recorded and printed reports made by the committees of each House of Congress, when deemed necessary in the prosecution of its business. But the head of any Department may refuse and omit to comply with any call for information or papers when, in his opinion, such compliance would be injurious to the public interest.-R. S., sec. 1076.

JURISDICTION OF.

By the act of February 24, 1855, and subsequent acts the jurisdiction of the court was established and is prescribed in the Revised Statutes of 1878 as follows:

SEC. 1059. The Court of Claims shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine the following matters:

First. All claims founded upon any law of Congress, or upon any regulation of an Executive Department, or upon any contract, expressed or implied, with the Government of the United States, and all claims which may be referred to it by either House of Congress.

Second. All set-offs, counterclaims, claims for damages, whether liquidated or unliquidated, or other demands whatsoever, on the part of the Government of the United States against any person making claim against the Government in said court.

Third. The claim of any paymaster, quartermaster, commissary of subsistence, or other disbursing officer of the United States, or of his administrators or executors, for relief from responsibility on account of capture or otherwise, while in the line of his duty, of Government funds, vouchers, record's, or papers in his charge, and for which such officer was and is held responsible.

Fourth. Of all claims for the proceeds of captured or abandoned property, as provided by the act of March 12, 1863, chapter 120, entitled An act to provide for the collection of abandoned property and for the prevention of frauds in insurrectionary districts within the United States," or by the act of July 2, 1864, chapter 225, being an act in addition thereto: Provided, That the remedy given in cases of seizure under the said acts, by preferring claim in the Court of Claims, shall be exclusive, precluding the owner of any property taken by agents of the Treasury Department as abandoned or captured property in virtue or under color of said acts from suit at common law, or any other mode of redress whatever, before any court other than said Court of Claims: [Provided also, That the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims shall not extend to any claim against the United States growing out of the destruction or appropriation of, or damage to, property by the Army or Navy engaged in the suppression of the rebellion.]

Additional jurisdiction was conferred upon the Court of Claims by acts passed subsequently to the Revised Statutes, as follows:

THE BOWMAN ACT.

The act (commonly known as the "Bowman Act"), approved March 3, 1883 (Stats., Vol. 22, p. 485), entitled "An act to afford assistance and relief to Congress and the Executive Departments in the investigation of claims and demands. against the Government" provides

That whenever a claim or matter is pending before any committee of the Senate or House of Representatives, or before either House of Congress, which involves the investigation and determination of facts, the committee or House may cause the same, with the vouchers, papers, proofs, and documents pertaining thereto, to be transmitted to the Court of Claims of the United States, and the same shall there be proceeded in under such

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