598 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Mar. 8,

"No extra compensation shall be granted or allowed
by the General Assembly to any public officer, agent,
servant or contractor, after the service shall have been
rendered or the contract entered into; nor shall the
salary or compensation of any public officer be in-
creased or diminished during his term of office. "

And the last clause of the first section of Article 15.

"And no person holding any office created by, or ex-
isting under this Constitution, or holding any ap-
pointment under any Court in this State, shall receive
more than $3, 000 a year, as compensation for the dis-
charge of his official duties, except in cases specially
provided for in this Constitution. "

The latter clause, plainly, does not apply. The
answer to the 35th section of Article 3 is, that where
the Constitution has prescribed the particular man-
ner in which salaries should be fixed, it had dealt
with the subject specially, and a general provision
such as this, would not control.

It seems to us that the question was settled when
the present language was deliberately adopted, and
the former language deliberately discarded. This
shows that the intention was, that the Legislature
should be as fee to increase the salaries of the Judges
as Congress is to increase the salaries of the Federal
Judges.

Very respectfully,

COWEN & CROSS.

BALTIMORE, MD., Feb'y 29th, 1892.
The Hon, James P. Gorter, Senate Chamber;

DEAR SIR: —We notice that the bill to increase the
compensation of the Judges has been referred to the
Judiciary Committee of the Senate, upon the question
of its constitutionality. As this bill was prepared by
the Committee on the amendment of the law of the
Bar Association of Baltimore city, it is perhaps
proper that that Committee should express in this
way its views upon that question.

It will be observed that by section 24, of Article 4,
of the Constitution, the salaries of the Chief Judges
of the Circuits and of the Judge of the Court of Ap-