562 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 8,

provides that the salary of no public officer shall be
increased, or diminished during his term of office, the
former omits the language forbidding the increase of
salary, and provides only that the salaries, under the
circumstances in question, shall not be diminished.
This same difference of language existing in both the
24th and 31st sections of Article 4, we are not per-
mitted to regard as unintentional or idle. The fact
that it is repeated in the 31st section, after having
occurred in the 24th, is conclusive against any possi-
bility of inadvertence or mistake, and renders it clear,
in my judgment, upon ordinary principles of Statu-
tory and Constitutional construction, that the pro-
visions against increasing the salaries of officers, con-
tained in section 35 of Article 3, was riot intended to
apply to the Judiciary, Why forbid diminishing in
the case of the Judges, if that section already covered
their case, as well as that of officers generally? This
is made still more obvious by the further fact that, in
section 31, after having used the language already
quoted, to the effect that the salaries of the city Judges
shall not be diminished during their term of service,
the Constitution goes on to authorize the Mayor and
City Council of Baltimore to pay to each of the said
Judges an annual addition of $500 to their respective
salaries, and then directs that such addition, made by
the city, having been once granted, "shall not be
diminished nor increased, during the continuance of
said Judges in office. " This demonstrates, in the most
conclusive way, that the difference of language used,
in the different parts of the same section, was specifi-
cally intended to express a difference in meaning, and
that while the restriction upon the Legislature only
forbade a diminution of the salaries of the Judges,
during their term of service, the Mayor and City
Council were forbidden to increase or diminish their
addition to the same, after having once exercised
the authority to make it. To state the matter
still more pointedly and conclusively, it seems to
me only necessary to ask this question. Suppose
that section 35 of Article 3, instead of providing that
the salary of no public officer should be "increased
or diminished, " during his term of office, had simply
provided, as is done in the case of the Judges, that
the salaries of public officers should not be "dimin-