"WASHINGTON, July 21, 1882. "Hon. H. M. Teller, Secretary of the Interior-SIR: To relieve your department from further embarassment in reference to what has been styled Gen. Ward B. Burnett's claim of double pension, I hereby return to you my certificate, and relinquish any claim that I may have under it from date of this letter, made under a special act of congress, (increase,) dated March 3, 1879, upon which I have been drawing $50 per month, and shall be satisfied with receiving my pension under the general pension laws, granted by yourself, under the several opinions of the attorney general, dated July 17, 1882, until congress, in its bounty, shall think it proper to increase my pension of $72 per month, under said general pension laws, again.

"I have the honor to be, very respectfully, yours,

"WARD B. BURNETT."

The case having, by stipulation of parties, been heard in the first instance at the general term of the supreme court of the district, a judgment was rendered dismissing the petition. This writ of error is prosecuted to review that judgment.

Jas. H. Mandeville, for plaintiff in error.

Sol. Gen. Phillips, for defendant in error.

WOODS, J. The relator does not claim that there is anything due him under the pension laws prior to June 4, 1872. It appears from the answer of the secretary of the interior, and there is no evidence. to the contrary, that since June 4, 1872, the relator has received. every cent that is due him under the general pension laws. The special act of March 3, 1879, declared that the pension of $50 thereby granted should be in lieu of the pension the relator was then receiving, and, at least, cut off all claim to arrears of pensions under that act. All, therefore, that is left of his case is his contention that he is entitled not only to the pension of $72 per month allowed him by the general act of June 16, 1880, and which has been paid him, but in addition thereto the pension of $50 per month granted him by name by the special act of March 3, 1879. It appears from the answer of the secretary of the interior that the relator was, under the advice of the department of justice, paid both pensions from March 3, 1879, to June 4, 1882. The complaint of the relator is that the payment of double pensions is not continued, and it is for the purpose of enforcing his right to his special pension of $50, in addition to the general pension of $72, that he asks that the secretary of the interior may be compelled to return the certificate issued to him under the special act. The right of the relator to double pensions, if he ever had such right, has been effectually cut off by section 5 of the act of July 25, 1882, which declares "that no person who is now receiving

or shall hereafter receive a pension under a special act shall be enti tled to receive, in addition thereto, a pension under the general law, unless the special act expressly states that the pension granted thereby is in addition to the pension which said person is entitled to receive under the general law.”

*It was competent for congress to pass this act. No pensioner has a vested legal right to his pension. Pensions are the bounties of the government, which congress has the right to give, withhold, distribute, or recall, at its discretion. Walton v. Cotton, 19 How. 355. Therefore, the contention of the relator, that having received the pension of $72 under the general law, he is also entitled to the pension of $50 granted him by the special act, is without ground to rest on. His pension certificate, issued under the special act, can be of no service to him unless he wishes to relinquish the pension of $72 under the general law, and fall back upon the pension of $50 granted him by the special act. But he expresses no such purpose. His object is to get the certificate in order to draw double pensions, which the law says he shall not have. He voluntarily surrendered his pension under the special act, in order to receive the larger pension to which he became entitled on the passage of the general act of June 16, 1880. As he is not entitled to any pension money upon the certificate under the special act, which he voluntarily surrendered, unless he waives his right to receive the larger pension given him by the general law, which he does not do, a judgment that the certificate be returned to him would be futile. From all that appears by the record the relator has been accorded by the officers of the department of the interior and of the pension bureau all his rights. Up to September 4, 1882, he has been paid all the pension money due him under any act of congress. After that date he is entitled under existing laws to a pension of $72 per month and no more, and this the pension bureau is ready to pay him. The supreme court of the district was, therefore, right in refusing the writ of mandamus, and its judgment must be affirmed.

(107 U. S. 38)

TURNER V. STATE OF MARYLAND.

(February 5, 1883.)

TOBACCO INSPECTION-STATE Statutes-VALIDITY-CHARGE FOR OUTRAGE

Section 41 of chapter 346 of the Laws of Maryland of 1864, as amended and re-enacted by chapter 291 of the laws of 1870, provides as follows: "After the passage of this act, it shall not be lawful to carry out of this state, in hogsheads, any tobacco raised in this state, except in hogsheads which shall have been inspected, passed, and marked agreeably to the provisions of this act, unless such tobacco shall have been inspected and passed before this act goes into operation; and any person violating the provisions of this section shall forfeit and pay the sum of $300, which may be recovered in any court of law of this state, and which shall go to the credit of the tobacco fund: provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to prohibit any grower of tobacco, or any purchaser thereof, who may pack the same in the county or neighborhood where grown, from exporting or carrying out of this state any such tobacco without having the same opened for inspection; but such tobacco so exported or carried out of this state without inspection shall in all cases be marked with the name in full of the owner thereof, and the place of residence of such owner, and shall be liable to the same charge of outage and storage as in other cases; and any person who shall carry or send out of this state any such tobacco without having it so marked, shall be subject to the penalty prescribed by this section." Under that proviso, no requirement of the act of 1864 is dispensed with, except that of having the hogshead opened for inspection. The hogshead must still be delivered at a state tobacco warehouse, and there numbered and recorded, and weighed and marked, and be found to be of the dimensions prescribed by statute, and to have been packed and marked as required. Said section 41, as so amended and re-enacted, is not, in its provisions as to charges for outage and storage, in violation of clause 2 of section 10 of article 1 of the constitution of the United States, as respects any impost or duty imposed by it on exports, or in violation of the clause of section 8 of article 1, which gives power to the congress "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states."

The charge for outage, under the proviso of said section 41, as so amended and reenacted, is an inspection duty, within the meaning of the constitution.

Dispensing with an opening for inspection of the hogsheads mentioned in said proviso, does not, in view of the other provisions of the tobacco inspection statutes of Maryland, deprive those statutes of the character of inspection laws. The characteristics of inspection laws considered, with reference to the legislation of the American colonies and the states on the subject.

It is not foreign to the character of an inspection law to require every hogshead of tobacco to be brought to a state tobacco warehouse.

Whether it is not exclusively the province of congress, and not at all that of a court, to decide whether a charge or duty, under an inspection law, is or is not excessive, quære.

Said section 41, as so amended and re-enacted, is not a regulation of commerce or unconstitutional, as discriminating between the state buyer and manufacturer

of leaf tobacco and the purchaser who buys for the purpose of transporting the tobacco to another state or to a foreign country, or as discriminating between different classes of exporters of tobacco.

The charge for outage in this case appears to be a charge for services properly rendered.

In Error to the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland.
John K. Cowen and E. J. D. Cross, for plaintiff in error.
Chas. J. M. Gwinn, for defendant in error.

BLATCHFORD, J. This is a writ of error to the court of appeals of the state of Maryland, and the question presented for our consideration is the constitutional validity of certain provisions in the tobacco inspection statutes of Maryland.

The plaintiff in error, Turner, was indicted in the criminal court of Baltimore. The indictments contained two counts. The first count alleged that Turner packed in a hogshead tobacco grown by him on a farm belonging to him in Charles county, in Maryland, and marked the hogshead with his full name and his place of residence in said county, and shipped it to the city of Baltimore; that it was not delivered at any tobacco warehouse in said city, under the management or control of any inspector of tobacco appointed for said warehouse by the governor of the state of Maryland, under the constitu tion and laws of said state, nor to any one of said inspectors of tobacco, nor to any one acting under the authority of any one of said inspectors of tobacco, to be weighed, passed, or marked, and it was not weighed, passed, and marked by any such inspector of tobacco, nor by any person acting under the authority of any one of said inspectors of tobacco; but that the said Turner exported it from said city to Bremen, in Germany, without hav ing procured it to be weighed, passed, and marked by any such inspector of tobacco, or by any person acting under the authority of any one of said inspectors of tobacco. The second count contained the same allegations, and the further averment that the said Turner did not, prior to said exportation, pay or cause to be paid any sum of money due for outage, or any sum of money due for storage, to the state of Maryland, on said hogshead, to any such inspector of tobacco, or to any other person having authority to receive the same, although certain sums of money were due and payable by him to said state for outage and storage on said hogshead.

Separate demurrers were filed to each count of the indictment, and then a written stipulation was filed by the parties, as follows:

46

"It is agreed in this case (1) that the matters and facts charged in the indictment in this case are true, as therein stated; (2) that for the more speedy final determination of the questions of law involved in this case the demurrers which the traverser has entered to this indictment shall be overruled pro forma by the court; (3) that after such overruling of the demurrers the case shall be forthwith submitted to the court, without the intervention of a jury, upon the admission contained in the first paragraph of this agreement."

The court then rendered a

On the same day, Turner,

The demurrers were then overruled. judgment that Turner pay a fine of $300. by petition to said criminal court, setting forth that he had been adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor, and by the judgment of said court ordered to pay the sum of $300 to said state, prayed an appeal to the court of appeals of Maryland, assigning errors in the record. That court affirmed the judgment, and Turner has brought the case into this court by a writ of error, alleging that the statutes of Maryland on which the indictment was founded, and the validity of which was sustained by the state court, are repugnant to the constitution of the United States.

It is claimed by the defendant in error that the statutory provisions, the validity of which is denied by the plaintiff in*error, are "inspection laws," within the meaning of clause 2 of section 10 of article 1 of the constitution of the United States, which clause is as. follows:

"No state shall, without the consent of the congress, lay any imposts or duties. on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net proceeds of all duties and imposts laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the congress."

By chapter 346 of the Laws of Maryland of 1864, a new tobacco inspection law was enacted, as part of the Code of Public Local Laws, in place of and expressly repealing certain portions of said Code. It. provides (section 1) for the appointment of five tobacco inspectors, one for each state tobacco warehouse in the city of Baltimore. By section 5 each tobacco inspector is required to employ such clerks and laborers, and provide and keep on hand such books, implements, and materials, as may be necessary for the economical and effective discharge of his duties as such inspector, and the salaries of the various clerks and laborers are prescribed, to be paid from the receipts. in the respective offices, with the requirement that the inspectors.