The Federal System. 
147 
carrying on some of the most notorious and fraudulent land 
swindles, to the injury of actual settlers. 
G. MISCELLANEOUS FEES. 
The consular and diplomatic offices collect each year certain 
fees for passports, consular papers, and other services. Orig¬ 
inally these formed part of the salary 1 of the consul or minister, 
as did the fees collected in the consular courts; but in 1860 
these officials were required to account 2 for all fees received in 
any way in the exercise of their judicial authority. 3 Many of 
the fees were diminished in amount and some of them entirely 
abolished by the act of 1891. Postmasters were also paid orig¬ 
inally by means of fees; and a remnant of the old system exists 
even today, in the fact that the salary of postmasters in the 
small towns depends upon the average receipts of their respec¬ 
tive offices for the four years preceding. As far back as 1845 
an attempt was made to limit the compensation of these officials 
by an act which provided that none of them should retain more 
than $5,000 per year including his salary. Any excess should 
be accounted for and paid into the treasury. This act was soon 
superseded by the present law. Other fees regulated from time 
to. time by Congress are the municipal fees of all kinds in the 
District of Columbia. Fees for liquor licenses and for licenses 
to innkeepers, peddlers, and many other occupations have been 
fixed and changed again and again by Congress. One act which 
very well illustrates the tendency of changing from fees to reg¬ 
ular salaries, is that of 1842, which expressly prohibits any 
police official in the District of Columbia from receiving any 
gift, fee, or emolument other than his regular salary. 
The spirituous liquor, or excise licenses, as they are called, 
and the industrial licenses of the war-period were not fees, but 
taxes pure and simple. They were levied mainly for revenue, 
and were essentially the same as the other indirect taxes of 
this period, because no real privileges or services of any kind 
were granted in return for their payment. 
1 Revised Statutes, I, 255. 
2 12 Statutes at Large , p. 75. 
3 Revised Statutes, U. S., XIV, 226. 
