It is nоt a little extraordinary, that this question should have slept in silence during so long a period. The 91st section of the act of March 2, 1799, c. 128 [c. 22], provides, that all fines, penalties and fоrfeitures, recovered by virtue of that act, and not otherwise appropriated, shall, after deducting all proper costs and charges, be disposed of as follows, one moiety shall be for the use of the United Státes, and be paid into the treasury thereоf by the collector receiving the same; the other moiety shall be divided between, аnd paid in equal proportions to, the collector and other officers of thе customs specified in the act, with a proviso giving a moiety of such moiety to the informеr, by whose information to the collector the same fines, penalties and forfeiturеs shall be recovered. The 89th section of the same act authorizes the collector to receive all penalties, recovered under the act, from the court or the proper officer thereof, and further enacts, that “on receiрt thereof the said collector shall pay and distribute the same without delay according to law, and transmit quarter yearly to the treasury an account of all moneys, by him received for fines, penalties and forfeitures, during such quarter.” ■ The former act for the collection of duties Aug. 4, 1790, c. 35 [1 Story’s Laws, 83; 1 Stat. 112, c. 8]), which was repealed by the act of 1799, contаins similar provisions as to distribution of fines, penalties and forfeitures (section 69), and as to the receipt and distribution of penalties by the collector (section 67); but there is no clause respecting the transmission of quarterly accounts of moneys received for fines, penalties and forfeitures. As the 89th section of the act of 1799 is, with the exception of this clause, a substantial re-enactment of the 67th section of the act of 1790,' it is highly probable, that a doubt had arisen, whether the right of the collector to receive and distribute “penalties,” included that of receiving and distributing “fines,” and that this clause, among other objects, was meant to obviate that doubt. This explanation, if correct, will in part account for the unsettled state of the present question.
On looking at the language of the act of 1799, it seems difficult to resist the impression, that “fines” in the technical sense of the word, as well as “penalties,” are to be received and distributed by the collector. Thеre are indeed but two cases, in which, technically speaking, fines are contemplated to be imposed by the act viz. in cases of ob
Of the policy of a distribution of fines impоsed for public offences, or of allowing them to be received and distributed by collеctors of the customs, in cases within the express purview of the act of 1799, we do not pretend to judge. It is sufficient for us, that the legislature have expressed their will in direct and unequivоcal terms; and we accordingly direct, that the fines imposed upon the defendants, аnd now in the hands of the marshal, after deducting the proper charges allowed by the court, be paid over to the collector.