UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

1. Before a depositary of public money can, in a suit against him by the United States for a balance, offer proof of credits for clerk hire, he must show by evidence from the books of the Treasury -- a transcript of the proceedings of the officers being a proper form of such evidence -- that a claim for such credits had been presented to the proper officers of the Treasury (that is to say, to the First Auditor and afterwards to the First Comptroller for his final decision), and by them had been, in whole or in part, disallowed.

2. If proof of such credits have been permitted to go to the jury without clubjuris

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such proper foundation for it having been first laid, it must be afterwards excluded, and all consideration of the claims withdrawn from their consideration. To allow them to remain, even with instructions whose purpose was to control and cure its effect or with any instructions short of withdrawal, is error.

3. Whether testimony in support of such claims was properly in the case, was a question for the court, and not for the jury.