FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS, 1889-1891. 1351 
tion of the people’ evidently means all the people of the Union who may desire to 
visit the Capital for the advantages it offers in these respects,’’ while proper argu- 
ments to be used before Congress, while the bill was being formulated and while on 
its passage, shed but little light on the proper interpretation of the law. While the 
importance of such measures is conceded, the fact that zoological parks have been 
established by local taxation and private enterprise in most of the leading cities of 
the Union should not be overlooked, when resort is had to that kind of an argument 
to discover the legislative intent. 
The record of the Congressional debates on the subject shows that effort had been 
made by the citizens of the District to establish this park by local subscriptions, and 
as certain parties, who lived on portions of the land desired to be taken would not 
sell at a fair price, legislation had to be resorted to in order to reach them. The 
soundness of this reason will be readily conceded. The subscriptions could not be 
utilized until the title to the land could be obtained, and this could not be reached 
but by an act of Congress. An examination of the debates will also show that it was 
understood that the United States only undertook to pay one-half of the $200,000 
appropriated. 
It may be suggested that the words ‘‘being for the expenses of the government of 
the District of Columbia for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1890,’ may limit the 
words immediately preceding them in the same section, and may confine all the ap- 
propriations, the payment of which is equally divided between the District and the 
United States, to the current expenses of the District. The scope and meaning of 
the act will not justify this interpretation, as you will readily observe by an exam- 
ination of the bill. For instance: For the repair of roads and suburban streets there 
is appropriated $50,000. This may be held to be a current expense, and properly so. 
There is, however, an appropriation of $135,525 for the construction of county roads 
and suburban streets. This can not be held as ‘‘ being for the expenses of the gov- 
ernment of the District of Columbia,”’ or as current expenses, and yet it is provided 
for under the same title. The same is true of $50,000 for suburban sewers, which is 
appropriated. This language it seems to me was wholly unnecessary, and was but a 
repetition of the title of the bill itself. 
From all this I conclude that it was the intention of Congress to place one-half of 
this burden of expense of the park on the taxpayers of the District.’ I should have 
been pleased to have reached a different conclusion, but the question is not what the 
law should be, but what is the law—what did Congress intend? Did Congress intend 
the United States should pay the whole expense or that the expense should be 
divided equally between the United States and the District? I think the latter is 
the proper conclusion. 
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
A. C. Marruews, Comptroller. 
Hon. J. W. Douauass, 
President Board of Commissioners District of Columbia. 
In the District of Columbia appropriation act for the current fiscal 
year an appropriation of $200,000 was made for the establishment of 
a Zoological Park in the District of Columbia, and a commission, 
consisting of the Secretary of the Interior, the president of the Board 
of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and the Secretary of 
the Smithsonian Institution, was authorized to procure a site for the 
park. 
The above commission, in a report to this Congress, which will be 
found in extenso in House Miscellaneous Document No. 72, states 
