Ocean Mail Service-Conditional bids-Discontinuance of Service-Contract. tracts which would tend to impair seriously the usefulness of the act. The act requires (section 3) that contractors for mail service under it shall construct ships of several classes "after the latest and most approved types, with all the modern improvements and appliances for ocean steamers," the vessels of each class to be capable of maintaining a certain speed in ordinary weather. It also provides (section 4) that vessels of the first, second, and third classes shall be constructed "with particular ref erence to prompt and economical conversion into auxiliary naval cruisers, and according to plans and specifications to be agreed upon by and between the owners and the Secretary of the Navy, and they shall be of sufficient strength and stability to carry and sustain the working and operation of at least four effective rifled cannon of a caliber of not less than 6 inches, and shall be of the highest rating known to maritime commerce." It is further provided (section 9) that such steamers may be taken and used by the United States as transports or cruisers upon paying their actual value at the time of taking. Having regard now to the large amount of capital necessary to enable a contractor under this law to furnish the plant requisite for executing his contract, and to the fact that all vessels to be built must be of a particular construction and have a certain speed, it seems to me only reasonable to say that Congress intended that a contract under this law should not be discontinued or modified, as indicated in regulation 817, unless authorized by the terms of the contract itself. In other words, Congress intended that the law governing these contracts, in the particulars stated, should be given by the contracts themselves and not by the will of one of the contracting parties. Your next inquiry is in the following words: "The Department is also desirous of ascertaining if, in the event of Hughes's failure to execute his contract for route 11, he can be proceeded against under Revised Statutes 3954, as amended by act of Congress of August 11, 1876 (19 Stat., 130); penalty for making straw bids." The provision of law referred to declares "that any" per Ocean Mail Service-Conditional bids-Discontinuance of Service-Contract. son bidding for the transportation of the mails upon any route which may be advertised to be let, and receiving an award of the contract for such service, who shall "wrongfully refuse or fail" to enter into a contract with the Postmaster-General shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be punished by a fine of not more than $5,000, and by imprisonment for not more than twelve months. It appears by the correspondence accompanying your communication that Mr. Hughes bases his refusal to execute a contract for route No. 11 upon what he claims to be a verbal understanding between him and the Postmaster General. It is true, that officer denies the existence of any such understanding, but if Mr. Hughes has been acting on the belief that such an understanding was to be collected from conversations between him and the Postmaster-General that occurred before the proposals were accepted, I do not see how Mr. Hughes can be said to have "wrongfully" refused or failed to execute the contract in question. Congress evidently meant to make a distinction between a refusal or failure on some honest ground or reason, however bad in point of law, and a "wrongful" refusal or failure proceeding from intentional disregard of the contract rights of the United States. I am next asked "if action can be brought under Revised Statutes 3945, as amended by act of June 23, 1874, section 12 (18 Stat., 235), against the accepted bidder and his sureties," by which I understand you to ask whether an action will lie against Mr. Hughes and his sureties on the bond that accompanied his bid, and which the above legislation requires shall accompany every bid. From the facts before me it seems that Mr. Hughes has been guilty of a breach of the condition of his bond. I am asked to say whether "the fact that notice was given of the award of routes 31 and 32 binds the Department, not. withstanding the Postmaster-General has not yet affixed his signature to the contracts." In my judgment, a contract between the successful bidders for routes 31 and 32 and the United States resulted from notice to them of the acceptance of their bids by the Postmaster-General, although he had not signed the contracts for said routes. Public Building-Jurisdiction. In Garfielde v. United States (93 U. S., 242, 244) this court said "the Court of Claims holds that the proposal on the part of Garfielde and the acceptance of the proposal by the [Post-Office] Department created a contract of the same force and effect as if a formal contract had been written out and signed by the parties. Many authorities are cited to sustain the proposition. We believe it to be sound, and that it should be so held in the present case." (See also Taylor v. Merchants' Fire Insurance Company, 9 How., 390.) This I believe disposes of all the questions submitted for opinion. Very respectfully, The POSTMASTER-GENERAL. W. H. H. MILLER. PUBLIC BUILDING—JURISDICTION. A State statute that the United States shall have over land to be taken for a public building "the right of exclusive legislation and concurrent jurisdiction together with the State of Louisiana" is not a compliance with the act of April 26, 1890, chapter 160, requiring a cession to the United States of jurisdiction over the site selected. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, January 25, 1892. SIR: On the 19th instant you invited the attention of the Attorney-General to the act of Congress approved April 26, 1890 (26 Stat., 67), authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to erect a public building at Baton Rouge, La., and to procure a suitable site therefor. You request him to advise you whether the State of Louisiana has complied with the requirement of that statute in its cession of jurisdiction to the United States over the site about to be purchased. The act provides that payment for the property selected for the site shall not be made until the receipt of the written opinion of the Attorney-General in favor of the validity of the title to the site selected, and when the State of Louisiana shall have ceded to the United States jurisdiction over the site selected, during the time that the United States shall be or remain the owner thereof, for all purposes excepting the administration of the criminal laws of said State and the service of Public Building-Jurisdiction. civil process therein. The State of Louisiana, by the act of its legislature, volume 118, page 166, approved July 6, 1882, has provided that the United States shall have over all property selected for the purposes of the Federal Government "the right of exclusive legislation and concurrent jurisdiction together with the State of Louisiana" and "shall hold the same free from all State, parochial, municipal, or other taxation." Is this cession of jurisdiction within the requirements of the act of April 26, 1890, above referred to? Section 355 of the Revised Statutes provides that no public money shall be expended upon any site or land purchased by the United States for the purpose of erecting thereon a public building until the written opinion of the AttorneyGeneral shall be had in favor of the validity of the title, or until the consent of the legislature of the State in which the land or site may be to such purchase has been given. The act of the legislature of Louisiana would seem to be a compliance with section 355, but of course the special act controls the section in the general statutes in so far as it is more restrictive. Section 355, therefore, does not aid the discussion. By an opinion rendered August 13, 1891, the Attorney-General decided that acts of the legislatures of Kansas and Illinois, providing that the United States should have "the right of exclusive legislation and concurrent jurisdiction" over sites selected for Federal public buildings did not comply with a requirement of the statute that these States shall cede to the United States "exclusive jurisdiction over the same during the time the United States shall be or remain the owner thereof for all purposes except the administration of the criminal laws of said State and the service of civil process therein." The only difference between the case now presented and that upon which the AttorneyGeneral passed, in the opinion referred to, is the omission in the Baton Rouge act of the word "exclusive." The difference does not change the construction. The cession required is of jurisdiction for all purposes except the administration of the criminal laws of the State and the service of civil process therein. The exception is of jurisdiction, which could only, under any circumstances, be exercised by the State. If the requirements were satisfied Appropriation-Transfer. by a cession of concurrent jurisdiction, no such exception would be necessary. Jurisdiction in the United States Government for all purposes, except a jurisdiction which only the State can exercise, must mean exclusive jurisdiction in the United States with the exception named. For these reasons the cession by the State of Louisiana of jurisdiction to the United States by the act of the legislature in 1882 is not a compliance with the requirements of the act of Congress authorizing the construction of the public building at Baton Rouge. The appropriations in the act of June 14, 1880, chapter 211, and in the act of March 3, 1881, chapter 136, were general and available for payment of damages sustained by the improvements contemplated to be made by those acts as well as for the actual work of construction. Consequently the transfer made of a portion of this appropriation to the Interior Department, to be used in payment to Indians, was proper, but the act of August 19, 1890, chapter 807, relieved the amount so transferred from the use to which by such transfer it had been assigned, and, unless the money has now been covered back into the Treasury, the unexpended balance of the portion so transferred can properly go back into the original fund. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SIR: By your letter of January 21 you submit for opinion the construction of the language of certain statutes: First, in the act of June 14, 1880 (21 Stat., p. 193), is an appropriation in these words: "For the reservoirs at the head waters of the Mississippi River, to be used in the construction of a dam at Lake Winnibigoshish, seventy-five thousand dollars: Provided, That all injuries occasioned to individuals by overflow of their lands shall be ascertained and determined by agreement or |