CIRCULAR, No. 8. HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, February 28, 1901. Experiments with pent houses and other forms of shelter for seacoast artillery having developed their great cost and in most cases their comparative inutility, the Secretary of War decides that such shelters will not be provided, and that the deterioration of artillery material must be prevented by the unremitting care and watchfulness of the officers and troops to whom the use and care of the modern armaments are confided. BY COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL MILES: H. C. CORBIN, diers employed on extra duty, under the direction of the Quartermaster's Department, in the erection of barracks, quarters, and storehouses *** and other constant labor for periods of not less than ten days." The order directing Etzel to perform duty, designated as “special duty." in the Quartermaster's Department does not in itself create or destroy his right to receive extra pay if the duty performed comes within the terms of the foregoing appropriation. From the statement of the post quartermaster it would appear that he was employed in "constant labor" in the Quartermaster's Department for a period of “not less than ten days," and I am of the opinion that he is entitled to extra pay therefor under the terms of the appropriation. Respectfully, L. P. MITCHELL, Assistant Comptroller. BY COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL MILES: H. C. CORBIN, Adjutant General, Major General, U. S. Army. No. 10. ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, March 27, 1901. By direction of the Secretary of War, the following decision of the Comptroller of the Treasury is published to the Army for the information and guidance of all concerned: REOPENING SETTLEMENTS UPON NEWLY-DISCOVERED EVIDENCE AFTER ACCEPTANCE OF PAYMENT OF THE AMOUNT ALLOWED BY THE AUDITOR. Neither the Comptroller nor the Auditor has jurisdiction, upon the application of a claimant, to reopen a settlement upon newly-discovered evidence for the consideration of any item upon which payment has been accepted of the amount allowed by the Auditor. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY, March 15, 1901. James J. Aylward, seaman, U. S. Navy, on the 5th day of February, 1991, filed an application in this office for the reopening of settlement No. 24804, dated January 26, 1900, by the Auditor for the Navy Department. wherein he was allowed one month's extra pay as seaman in the temporary force of the Navy during the Spanish-American war, under the act of March 3, 1899 (30 Stat., 1228). This allowance was made by the Auditor on the supposition that the claimant had not served beyond the limits of the United States. In his application for a reopening the claimant alleges, and supports his application by competent newly-discovered evidence not before the Auditor at the time he acted upon said claim, that he served beyond the limits of the United States, which, unless claimant is estopped from having his claim reopened, would entitle him on a revision thereof to two months' extra pay instead of one as allowed by the Auditor's said settlement. From the original action of the Auditor in allowing him but one month's extra pay claimant appealed to this office within a year, which said appeal was dismissed on April 18, 1900, under the authority of paragraph 8, act of July 31, 1894 (28 Stat., 208), because the claimant had ac cepted payment of the amount allowed him by the Auditor on account of the item of extra pay so allowed by the Auditor in such settlement. That part of paragraph 8, supra, reads as follows: Any person accepting payment under a settlement by an Auditor shall be thereby precluded from obtaining a revision of such settlement as to any items upon which payment is accepted. * It was held by this office after mature consideration, in 4 Comp. Dec., 303, in the case of Clark Campbell, that the authority to reopen a settlement made by an Auditor vested exclusively in the Comptroller after he once had acquired jurisdiction over the claim by revision thereof; also that jurisdiction to reopen was exclusively with the Comptroller beture the expiration of the year after settlement by the Auditor, and tha where the Auditor had made a settlement and the Comptroller had not acquired jurisdiction over the same under and by virtue of revising the same within the year after such settlement, the jurisdiction to reopez said claim thereafter remained exclusively in the Auditor who made suri settlement. In the case under consideration the claimant appealed to the Comp troller for a revision of the action of the Auditor in allowing him only one month's extra pay within a year from the date of such certification by the Auditor. The Comptroller did not assume jurisdiction of this appeal in the sense of revising the claim, but dismissed the claim becaus under the section, supra, the claimant is precluded from having such item revised. It follows that if the claimant is entitled to have his claim reopeneu with a view to the allowance of another month's extra pay, the jurisdic tion to reopen is with the Auditor and not the Comptroller, under the doctrine laid down in the Clark Campbell case. It is, however, useless to further discuss the question of who shoald reopen this case, for it is apparent that neither the Comptroller nor the Auditor is authorized to reopen the case upon the application of the claimant where the sole purpose of such reopening is to procure an addi tional allowance on an item where payment has hitherto been accepted upon partial allowance of such item by an Auditor. I am persuaded that the word revision, as used in said paragraph 8, is used in its broadest sense; that if used in a narrower sense, as applying only to a revision by the Comptroller, we would have the strange anomaly in the accounting system of an Auditor being empowered to reopen and allow an item in an account, and the Comptroller, under exactly like cir cumstances, when the jurisdiction to reopen was in him, being prohibited by law from making the reopening. To illustrate: What if the claim under consideration had been origi nally filed with the Auditor, consisting of two separate items; that the Auditor had partially allowed the first item and disallowed in toto the second; that the claimant had accepted payment of the amount allowed on the first item and had then appealed to the Comptroller for a revision of said settlement within the year; that the Comptroller on this revision had allowed the second item in full which had been disallowed in toto by the Auditor, and dismissed the other part of the claim, viz, the item on which the claimant had accepted payment. Under such state of the case the jurisdiction to reopen is exclusively in the Comptroller. He is specifically precluded by the law, supra, from revising or allowing anything to the claimant which has not been allowed in full as claimed. It certainly can not be insisted that if the jurisdiction to reopen is in the Auditor he can make an allowance where the Comptroller under similar circumstances could not. Such difficulties and incongruities will be avoided by giving the language of the statute the plain and obvious meaning intended by Congress, viz, that when a claimant accepts payment on an item under a settlement by an Auditor that so far as such item is concerned he is estopped by such |