Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/154

 142 FKDBBA.Ii BBPOBTSB. �in any respect discriminates in favor of or for the greater pro- tection of this clasB of informers. On the contrary, the stat- ute of 18 Elizabeth and the New York act of 1788 show that this very class of informera has been regarded as the least entitled to favor, and as requiring in a greater degree than any other class stringent legal and legislative regulation. And it woald be clearly a violation- of that principle of publie policy which governs this subject-matter to give this statutea strained construction for their benefit, or to base an inference that they were intended to be excepted out of its beneficiai operation upon any expressions of intention in their favor so inconclusive as are contained in section 5294. �Taking the whole statute together, then, I think it subjects ail pecuniary penalties to the eecretary's power of remission, provided the informer's claim shaU not have been actually determined by the court. The power was therefore rightf ally exercised in this case. Where the suit is by the United States, though prosecuted partly for the benefit of the in- former, the secretary haa power to discontinue it. In this case the warrant of remission does not purport to order th© discontinuance of the suit, and probably it is proper that it should not do so, because it is the sait of a private party ; but the court is bound to give effect, in some proper way, to the remission which the secretary had the power to make. The precise question involved in this case seems to have been decided by Judge Blatchford, in the case of The Tmlight, in Deoember, 1875. In that case, after issue joined in a suit for a, similar penalty, the secretary remitted the penalty on certain terms, "subject to the decision of the court as to whether the plaintif! is an informer under section 5294 of the Revised Statutes, and the forfeiture incurred under sec- tion 4465 of said statute is remissible by the secretary of the treasury." It appears by the record in that case that, after hearing the parties, the court made an order perpetually sfcaying libellant's prosecution of the suit. As no opinion was filed, nor any briefs, it may be true, as claimed by the libel- lant's counsel, that the points made in this case for libellant were not presented to the court in that caae. As the amount ����