Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/629

UNITED STATES V. ODENEAL. ���617 ���vertisements for proposais for supplies required in the Oregon super- intendency should be published, I have to advise you that, by direc- tion of the honorable secretary of the interior, you are hereby authorized to publish such advertisements in the Oregon Statesman, Salem, and the Oregonian, Portland, Oregon;" that such order was made gen- erai to avoid the delay incident to procuring a special direction from Washington whenever the purchase of supplies became necessary; that the same was unrevoked and in full force at the date of the advertisements and expenditures in question; and that a copy of such order was "attached" to each of the bills for publishing said adver- tisements. It is also alleged, but unnecessarily, that the proposais received under these advertisements were approved by the secretary of the interior, and the purchase made accordingly. �The plaintifE demurs to this defence as insuffieient, because it does not show that section 3828 of the Revised Statutes was complied with in expending said moneys. Said section 3828 (section 2 of the act of July 15, 1870; 16 St. 308) provides that "no advertisment, notice, or proposai for any executive department of the government, or fpr any bureau thereof, or for any oEBce therewith connected, shall be pub- lished in any newspaper whatever, exoept in pursuance of a written authority for such publication from the head of such department; and no bill for any such advertising or publication shall be paid, unless there be presented with such bill a copy of such written authority." �Admitting the truth of the answer, as the demurrer does, it does not distinctly appear from the statement of the account by the au- ditor, or the argument of the counsel for the plaintiff, wherein the defendant failed to comply with said section 3828 of the Revised Stat- utes. For anything in the letter of the statuee, or the subject-matter regulated by it, the authority to advertise might as well be general as special; that is, might, under the terms of the statute, be made to comprehend and authorize the publication of successive advertise- ments of a particular class or kind as well as a single one. Besides, these advertisments, being "for supplies," were such as the law re- quired to be made, (section 3709, Eev. St.,) and the order of the sec- retary could only limit the number or place of publishing them by prescribing the newspapers in which they should be inserted. When- ever the defendant undertook to procure supplies for his superintend- ent, he was authorized and required by statute (section 3709, Rev. St.) to advertise a "sufficient time" for proposais, subject only to the ��� �