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 The statutory prohibition upon the use of appropriated moneys for telephones in private residences applies likewise to the use of the revenues from operation of the railroad—such telephones can not be classed as operating expenses to overcome the statutory prohibition upon private residence telephones at Government expense.

Decision by Comptroller General McCarl, July 7, 1924:

Alex Bremer has requested review of settlement No. M-19808, this office, dated December 12, 1923, disallowing his claim for $700 representing $20 per acre for 35 acres in excess of the acreage stated in an agreement to sell to the United States a tract of land adjacent to the Leon Springs Military Reservation, Tex., authorized to be purchased by the appropriation act of July 9, 1918, 40 Stat. 877.

Under date of September 14, 1917, the United States entered into a lease for the fiscal year 1918, with Alex Bremer, covering a tract of land adjacent to the Leon Springs Military Reservation in Texas, described by naming the owners of the land by which the tract was bounded and stated as containing 1,753 acres, more or less. A similar lease was executed April 22, 1918, for the fiscal year 1919, with a right of renewal. Each of these leases contained an option to purchase by the United States. Renewal agreement was entered into July 1, 1919, for the fiscal year 1920, and again on June 8, 1920, for the fiscal year 1921. June 30, 1919, there was entered into the following agreement of sale and purchase between the United States and the lessor of the land:

{{smaller block|That said party of the first part, for and in consideration of the sum of one dollar ($1.00) and other good and valuable consideration, to him in hand paid by said party of the second part as part of the purchase price, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, hereby agrees to sell to said party of the second part, and said party of the second part hereby agrees to purchase from said party of the first part, for the sum or price of thirty-five thousand and sixty ($35,060.00) dollars, which is at the rate of twenty ($20.00) dollars per acre for each acre that the survey to be made of the said property hereinafter described may disclose, all of the following real property, to wit:

All that certain tract or parcel of land lying and being situated in the county of Bexar, State of Texas, adjacent to the Leon Springs Reservation of the United States Government, and bounded on the north by the lands of Otto Scheel and Max Toepperwein; on the east by Stowers Ranch; on the south by the Stowers Ranch; on the west by the John B. Muesser lands. Said land above described containing 1,753 acres, more or less. {{nop}}