the Indian tribes among whom Mitchell was assigned to duty, "at $300 per annum, $2,100." 19 Stat. 271. In those acts there was also a clause to this effect: "For additional pay of said interpreters, to be distributed in the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior, $6,000." It was held that these acts manifested a change of policy upon the part of Congress, "namely, that instead of establishing a salary for interpreters at a fixed amount, and cutting off all other emoluments and allowances, Congress intended to reduce the salaries, and place a fund at the disposal of the Secretary of the Interior from which, at his discretion, additional allowances and emoluments might be given to the interpreters." The appropriation by those acts for a fixed sum as compensation for certain interpreters during a prescribed period, followed by the appropriation of a round sum as additional pay, to be distributed among them in the discretion of one of the Executive Departments, evinced the intention of Congress not to allow further compensation to such appointees during the periods specified. The case before us does not come within the principle that controlled the determination of the other cases. The salary of the minister to Hayti was originally fixed at the sum of $7,500. Neither of the acts appropriating $5,000 for his benefit, during the years in question, contains any language to the effect that such sum shall be "in full compensation" for those years; nor was there in either of them an appropriation of money "for additional pay," from which it might be inferred that Congress intended to repeal the act fixing his annual salary at $7,500. Repeals by implication are not favored. It cannot be said that there is a positive repugnancy between the old and the new statutes in question. If by any reasonable construction they can be made to stand together, our duty is to give effect to the provisions of each. Chew Heong v. United States, 112 U. S. 536, 549; State v. Stoll, 17 Wall. 425, 430; Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall 85, 105; Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U. S. 556, 570. The suggestion of most weight in support of the view that Congress intended to reduce the salary of the diplomatic representative at Hayti, is in the improbability, that that body would neglect, in any year, to appropriate the full sum to which that officer was entitled under the law as it then existed. On the other hand, it is not probable that Congress, knowing, as we must presume it did, that that officer had, in virtue of a statute-whose object was to fix his salary. -received annually a salary of $7,500 from the date of the creation of his office, and after expressly declaring in the act of 1878, 20 Stat. 91, 98, that he should receive that salary from and after July 1, 1878, and again, in 1879, that he should receive the same amount from and after July 1, 1879, should at a subsequent date, make a permanent reduction of his salary without indicating its purpose to do so, either by express words or repeal, or by such provisions as would compel the courts to say that harmony between the old and new statute was impossible. While the case is not free from difficulty, the court is of opinion that, according to the settled rules of interpretation, a statute fixing the annual salary of a public officer at a named sum, without limitation as to time, should not be deemed abrogated or suspended by subsequent enactments which merely appropriated a less amount for the services of that officer for particular fiscal years, and which contained no words that expressly or by clear implication modified or repealed the previous law. The judgment is affirmed. FISK V. JEFFERSON POLICE JURY. Supreme Court of the United States. December, 1885. Mr. Justice MILLER delivered the opinion of the court. Josiah Fisk, who was an attorney-at-law brought three suits in the proper court of the Parish of Jefferson to recover the salary and fees due him from the parish as district attorney, and he obtained judgments in each case against the Police Jury, which is the governing body of the parish. Being unable to obtain the payment of these judgments in any other mode, he first made application for a writ of mandamus to compel the assessment and collection of a tax for the payment of two of these judgments, and afterwards for another writ in regard to the third judgment; the two judgments being for his salary and fees under one appointment, and the other under a second appointment. The inferior court granted the writ in one case and denied it in the other. But, on appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, the writs were denied in both cases. The ground of the jurisdiction of this court to review these judg ments is the assertion by plaintiff in error that they were founded on a law of the state which impaired the obligation of his contract, to wit, the contract on which he procured the judgments already mentioned. The services for which the judgments were recovered were rendered in the year 1871, 1872, 1873 and 1874. During this period there was in force the act of the legislature of 1871, of which Sec. 7 is as follows: "That no city or other municipal corporation shall levy a tax for any purpose which shall exceed two per centum on the assessed cash value of all the property therein listed for taxation, nor shall the police jury of any parish levy a tax for any parish purpose during any year which shall exceed one hundred per centum of the state tax for that year, unless such tax shall be first sanctioned by a vote of the majority of the voters." Acts of 1871, p. 109. But by the constitution of the state of 1880 it was declared that no parish or municipal tax, for all purposes whatsoever, shall exceed ten mills on the dollar of valuation. The Police Jury showed that they had exhausted their power when the application for mandamus was made, by levying the full amount of taxes permissible under this constitutional provision, and the Supreme Court held that they could not be compelled to levy more. In answer to the argument that, as applied to plantiff's case, the constitutional provision impaired the obligation of his contract, the Supreme Court held that his employment as attorney for the parish did not constitute a contract, either in reference to his regular salary, or to his compensation by fees. And this question is the only one discussed in the opinion, and on that ground the decision rested. It seems to us that the Supreme Court confounded two very different things in their discussion of this question. We do not assert the proposition that a person elected to an office for a definite term has any such contract with the government or with the appointing body as to prevent the legislature or other proper authority from abolishing the office or diminishing its duration or removing him from office. So, though when appointed the law has provided a fixed compensation for his services, there is no contract which forbids the legislature or other proper authority to change the rate of compensation for salary or services after the change is made, though this may include a part of the term of the office then unexpired. Butler v. Pennsylvania, 10 How. 402. But, after the services have been rendered, under a law, resolu tion or ordinance, which fixes the rate of compensation, there arises an implied contract to pay for those services at that rate. This contract is a completed contract. Its obligation is perfect and rests on the remedies which the law then gives for its enforcement. The vice of the argument of the Supreme Court of Louisiana is in limiting the protecting power of the constitutional provision against impairing the obligation of contracts, to specific agreements, and rejecting that much larger class in which one party having delivered property, paid money, rendered service, or suffered loss at the request of or for the use of another, the law completes the contract by implying an obligation on the part of the latter to make compensation. This obligation can no more be impaired by a law of the state than that arising on a promissory note. The case of Fisk was of this character. His appointment as district attorney was lawful and was a request made to him by the proper authority to render the services demanded of that office. He did render these services for the parish, and the obligation of the police jury to pay for them was complete. Not only were the services requested and rendered, and the obligation to pay for them perfect, but the measure of compensation was also fixed by the previous order of the police jury. There was here wanting no element of a contract. The judgment in the court for the recovery of this compensation concluded all these questions. Hall v. Wisconsin, 103 U. S. 5, 10; Newton v. Commissioners, 100 U. S. 548, 559. The provision of the constitution restricting the limit of taxation, so far as it was in conflict with the act of 1871, and as applied to the contract of plaintiff, impaired its obligation by destroying the remedy pro tanto. It is apparent that, if the officers whose duty it is to assess the taxes of this parish, were to perform that duty as it is governed by the law of 1871, the plaintiff would get his money. If not by a first year's levy, then by the next. But the constitutional provision has repealed that law, and stands in the way of enforcing the obligation of plaintiff's contract as that obligation stood at the time the contract was made. It is well settled that a provision in a state constitution may be a law impairing the obligation of a contract as well as one found in an ordinary statute. We are of opinion, therefore, that, as it regards plaintiff's case, this restrictive provision of the constitution of 1880 does impair the obligation of a contract. Van Hoffman V. Quincy, 4 Wall. 535; Nelson v. St. Martin's Parish, 111 U. S. The judgments of the Supreme Court of Louisiana are reversed and the cases are remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. IV. ASSIGNMENT OF COMPENSATION. BLISS V. LAWRENCE. Court of Appeals of New York. October, 1874. JOHNSON, J. The controlling question in these cases is that of the lawfulness of an assignment, by way of anticipation, of the salary to become due to a public officer. The particular cases presented are of assignments of a month's salary in advance. But if these cases can be sustained in law, then such assignment may cover the whole period of possible service. In the particular cases before us, the claim to a month's salary seem to have been sold at a discount of about ten per cent. While this presents no question of usury (since it was a sale and not a loan for which the parties were dealing), it does present a quite glaring instance and example of the consequence likely to follow the establishment of the validity of such transfers, and thus illustrates one at least of the grounds on which the alleged rule of public policy rests, by which such transfers are forbidden. The public service is protected by protecting those engaged in performing public duties; and this, not upon the ground of their private interest, but upon that of the necessity of securing the efficiency of the public service, by seeing to it that the funds provided for its maintenance should be received by those who are to perform the work, at such periods as the law has appointed for their payment. It is argued that a public officer may better submit to a loss, in order to get his pay into his hands in advance, than to deal on credit for his necessary expenses This may be true in fact, in individual instances, and yet may in general not be in accordance with the fact. Salaries are, by law, payable after work is performed and not before, and while this remains the law, it must be presumed to be a wise regulation, and necessary, in the view of law-makers, to the efficiency of the public service. The contrary rule would permit the public service to be undermined |