that purpose, a number of small balls of marble or other material equal to the number of members and delegates, which balls shall be consecutively numbered and thoroughly intermingled, and at such hour as shall be fixed by the House for that purpose, by the hands of a page, draw said balls one by one from the box and announce the number as it is drawn, upon which announcement the member or delegate whose name on a numbered alphabetical list shall correspond with the number on the ball shall advance and choose his seat for the term for which he is elected.

2. Before said drawing shall commence each seat shall be vacated and so remain until selected under this rule, and any seat having been selected shall be deemed forfeited if left unoccupied before the call of the roll is finished, and whenever the seats of members and delegates shall have been drawn, no proposition for a second drawing shall be in order during that Congress.

RULE XXXIII.

HALL OF THE HOUSE.

The hall of the House shall be used only for the legislative business of the House, and for the caucus meetings of its members, except upon occasions where the House by resolution agree to take part in any ceremonies to be observed therein; and the Speaker shall not entertain a motion for the suspension of this rule.

RULE XXXIV.

OF ADMISSION TO THE FLOOR.

The persons hereinafter named, and none other, shall be admitted to the hall of the House or rooms leading thereto, viz: The President and VicePresident of the United States and their private secretaries, judges of the Supreme Court, members of Congress and members-elect, contestants in election cases during the pendency of their cases in the House, the Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, heads of Departments, foreign ministers, governors of States, the Architect of the Capitol, the Librarian of Congress and his assistant in charge of the Law Library, such persons as have, by name, received the thanks of Congress, ex-members of the House of Representatives who are not interested in any claim or bill pending before Congress, and clerks of committees, when business from their committee is under consideration; and it shall not be in order for the Speaker to entertain a request for the suspension of this rule or to present from the Chair the request of any member for unanimous consent.

RULE XXXV.

OF ADMISSION TO THE GALLERIES.

The Speaker shall set aside a portion of the west gallery for the use of the President of the United States, the members of his Cabinet, justices of the Supreme Court, foreign ministers and suites, and the members of their respective families, and shall also set aside another portion of the same gallery for the accommodation of persons to be admitted on the card of members. The southerly half of the east gallery shall be assigned exclusively for the use of the families of members of Congress, in which the Speaker shall control one bench, and on request of a member the Speaker shall issue a card of admission to his family, which shall include their visitors, and no other person shall be admitted to this section.

RULE XXXVI.

OFFICIAL AND OTHER REPORTERS.

1. The appointment and removal, for cause, of the official reporters of the House, including stenographers of committees, and the manner of the execution of their duties, shall be vested in the Speaker.

2. Stenographers and reporters, other than the official reporters of the House, wishing to take down the debates and proceedings, may be admitted by the Speaker to the reporters' gallery over the Speaker's chair, under such regulations as he may, from time to time, prescribe; and he may assign seats on the floor to a representative of both the Associated and the United Press Associations, and may admit to the privileges of the floor an assistant to each of such representatives.

RULE XXXVII.

PAY OF WITNESSES.

The rule for paying witnesses subpoenaed to appear before the House, or any of its committees, shall be as follows: For each day a witness shall attend, the sum of two dollars; for each mile he shall travel in coming to or going from the place of examination, the sum of five cents each way; but nothing shall be paid for traveling when the witness has been summoned at the place of trial.

RULE XXXVIII.

PAPERS.

1. The clerks of the several committees of the House shall, within three days after the final adjournment of a Congress, deliver to the clerk of the House all bills, joint resolutions, petitions, and other papers referred to the committee, together with all evidence taken by such committee under the order of the House during the said Congress, and not reported to the House; and in the event of the failure or neglect of any clerk of a committee to comply with this rule, the Clerk of the House shall, within three days thereafter, take into his keeping all such papers and testimony.

RULE XXXIX.

WITHDRAWAL OF PAPERS.

No memorial or other paper presented to the House shall be withdrawn from its files without its leave, and if withdrawn therefrom, certified copies thereof shall be left in the office of the Clerk; but when an act may pass for the settlement of a claim, the Clerk is authorized to transmit to the officer charged with the settlement thereof the papers on file in his office relating to such claim, or may loan temporarily to any officer or Bureau of the Executive Departments any papers on file in his office relating to any matter pending before such officer or Bureau, taking proper receipt therefor.

RULE XL.

BALLOT.

In all other cases of ballot than for committees, a majority of the votes given shall be necessary to an election, and where there shall not be such a majority on the first ballot, the ballots shall be repeated until a majority be obtained; and in all balloting blanks shall be rejected and not taken into the count in enumeration of votes or reported by the tellers.

RULE XLI.

MESSAGES.

Messages received from the Senate and the President of the United States, giving notice of bills passed or approved, shall be entered in the journal and published in the record of that day's proceedings.

RULE XLII.

EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS.

Estimates of appropriations, and all other communications from the Executive Departments, intended for the consideration of any committees of the House, shall be addressed to the Speaker and by him submitted to the House for reference.

RULE XLIII.

QUALIFICATIONS OF OFFICERS AND EMPLOYÉS.

No person shall be an officer of the House, or continue in its employment, who shall be an agent for the prosecution of any claim against the government, or be interested in such claim otherwise than as an original claimant; and it shall be the duty of the Committee on Accounts to inquire into and report to the House any violation of this rule.

RULE XLIV.

JEFFERSON'S MANUAL.

The rules of parliamentary practice comprised in Jefferson's Manual shall govern the House in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with the standing rules and orders of the House and joint rules of the Senate and House of Representatives.

RULE XLV.

RULES OF THE HOUSE.

These rules shall be the rules of the House of Representatives of the present and succeeding Congresses unless otherwise ordered.

RULE XLVI.

AS TO PRINTING BILLS.

There shall be printed 500 copies of each bill of a public nature, of which 25 shall be deposited in the office of the Clerk of the House, 100 copies shall be delivered to the Senate document room, and the remainder shall be deposited in the document room of the House for the use of members; and there shall be printed 100 copies of each private bill and bills relating to rivers and harbors, of which 25 copies shall be delivered to the Senate document room, and the remainder shall be deposited in the document room of the House for the use of members. Motions to print additional numbers of any bill, report, resolution, or other public document, shall be referred to the Committee on Printing; and the report of the committee thereon shall be accompanied by an estimate of the probable cost thereof. Unless ordered by the House no bill, resolution, or other proposition reported by a committee shall be reprinted unless the same be placed upon the Calendar.

RULE XLVII.

PROPOSITIONS INTRODUCED "BY REQUEST."

When a bill, resolution, or memorial is introduced "by request" these words shall be entered upon the journal.

AFFECTING THE RULES OF THE FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS.

(Handed down February 29, 1892.)

Supreme Court of the United States. No. 1061. October term, 1891. The United States, appellant, vs. Ballin, Joseph & Co. Appeal from the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of New York.

In July, 1890, the appellees imported into New York certain goods, which they claimed to be dutiable as manufactures of worsted at the rate described in Schedule K of the act of March 3, 1883 (22 Statutes, 509). The collector assessed them at the rate prescribed in that schedule as manufactures of wool (22 Statutes, 508). This he did by reason of an act claimed to have been passed by Congress in 1890, as follows:

66

Chapter 200.-An act providing for the classification of worsted cloths as

woolens.

"Be it enacted, etc., That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he hereby is, authorized and directed to classify as woolen cloths all imports of worsted cloth, whether known under the name of worsted cloth or under the names of worsteds, or diagonals, or otherwise.

"Approved May 9, 1890." (26 Statutes, 105.)

The board of general appraisers found these facts:

"1. That the goods in question are worsted, and not woolen goods.

"2. That the Secretary of the Treasury never examined or classified the goods in question.

"3. That the journal of the House of Representatives shows the facts attending the passage of the act of May 9, 1890, thus:

"The Speaker laid before the House the bill of the House (H. R. 9548) providing for the classification of worsted cloths as woolens, coming over from last night as unfinished business, with the previous question and the yeas and nays ordered.

put

"The House having proceeded to the consideration and the question being

"Shall the bill pass?

"There appeared "Yeas-138.

"Nays-0.

"Not voting-189.

"The said roll-call having been recapitulated, the Speaker announced, from a list noted and furnished by the Clerk, at the suggestion of the Speaker, the following-named members as present in the hall when their names were called, and not voting, viz.:"

[Here follows an alphabetical list of the names of 74 members.]

64

The Speaker thereupon stated that the said members present and refusing to vote (74 in number), together with those recorded as voting (138 in number), showed a total of 212 members present, constituting a quorum present to do business; and that, the yeas being 138 and the nays none, the said bill was passed.'

On appeal, the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of New York sustained the claim of the importers and reversed the decision of the collector, from which judgment the United States appealed to this

court.

[February 29, 1892.]

Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the court.

Two questions only are presented: First, was the act of May 9, 1890, legally passed? and second, what is its meaning? The first is the important question. The enrolled bill is found in the proper office, that of the Secretary of State, authenticated and approved in the customary and legal form. There is nothing on the face of it to suggest any invalidity. Is there anything in the facts disclosed by the journal of the House, as found by the general appraisers, which vitiates it? We are not unmindful of the general observations found in Gardiner vs. The Collector (6 Wall., 499,511), "that whenever a question arises in a court of law of the existence of a statute, or of the time when a statute took effect, or of the precise terms of a statute, the judges who are called upon to decide it have a right to resort to any source of information which in its nature is capable of conveying to the judicial mind a clear and satisfactory answer to such question, always seeking first for that which in its nature is most appropriate, unless the positive law has enacted a different rule."

And we have at the present term, in the cases of Field et al. vs. The United States, had occasion to consider the subject of an appeal to the journal in a disputed matter of this nature. It is unnecessary to add anything here to that general discussion. The Constitution (Article I., section 5) provides that "each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings;" and that “the yeas and nays of the members of either House, on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present be entered on the journal." Assuming that by reason of this latter clause, reference may be had to the journal to see whether the yeas and nays were ordered, and if so, what was the vote disclosed thereby; and assuming, though without deciding, that the facts which the Constitution requires to be placed on the journal may be appealed to on the question whether a law has been legally enacted, yet, if reference may be had to such journal, it must be assumed to speak the truth. It can not be that we can refer to the journal for the purpose of impeaching a statute properly authenticated and approved, and then supplement and strengthen this impeachment by parol evidence that the facts stated on the journal are not true, or that other facts existed which, if stated on the journal, would give force to the impeachment.

If it be suggested that the Speaker might have made a mistake as to some one or more of these 74 members, or that the Clerk may have falsified the journal in entering therein a record of their presence, it is equally possible that in reference to a roll-call and the yeas and nays there should be a like mistake or falsification. The possibility of such inaccuracy or falsehood only suggests the unreliability of the evidence and the danger of appealing to it to overthrow that furnished by the bill enrolled and authenticated by the signatures of the presiding officers of the two Houses and the President of the United States. The facts, then, as appearing from this journal, are that at the time of the roll-call there were present 212 members of the House, more than a quorum; and that 138 voted in favor of the bill, which was a majority of those present. The Constitution, in the same section, provides that "each House may determine the rules of its proceedings. It appears that in pursuance of this authority the House had, prior to this day, passed this as one of its rules:

"3. On the demand of any member, or at the suggestion of the Speaker, the names of members sufficient to make a quorum in the Hall of the House who do not vote shall be noted by the Clerk and recorded in the journal, and reported to the Speaker with the names of the members voting, and be counted and announced in determining the presence of a quorum to do business." (House Journal, 230, February 14, 1890.)