mous sum of $20,150 was allowed, are not indicated in any report made to Congress. In the report of the 18th of April, 1832, the contract is set down at $14,950, and nothing is any where said to to the public of increased service or increased compensation. The extra amount thus paid on this contract, without legal warrant or adequate consideration, during its continuance four years, is 80,600 dollars, besides the $3,150 a year paid for the express mail on the same line.

In the above case, it will be perceived that the contract is, in the aggregate, for eleven mail routes; so interweaving and complicating the transaction as to render it exceedingly difficult to unravel it, and to find whether the bids at which the routes were struck off are the most favorable for the Department; and still more difficult is it to ascertain the reality of any alleged improvements, and their actual value, if they exist. The same objection occurs in numerous cases. Improvements are said to be made by expediting on one route, changing the schedule on another, and ordering additional trips on a third; so that a single contract is, in this manner, rendered so complex as to require the labor of several days to reduce it to its elements, and ascertain its true condition.

E. Porter & Co. are contractors for carrying the mail from Staunton, in Virginia, to Catlettsburg, Kentucky, three times a week, in four-horse post coaches, from the 1st of January, 1831, to the 31st of December, 1834, at an annual compensation of $7,566.

On this contract, legal and regular in its inception, are ingrafted extra allowance compensation for extension and private contracts to the enormous yearly sum of $18,156. The two largest of the items which compose this extra sum, namely, $2,000 for extending a steamboat mail between Guyandotte, Virginia, and Cincinnati, Ohio; and $11,000 a year for extending the steamboat mail to Louisville, is, in the opinion of your committee, not only an unnecessary and extravagant expenditure of the public funds, but is an act wholly unauthorized by law.

Every one acquainted with the situation of the country, and the course of business between those points, will be at once satisfied that it is unnecessary. It is wholly im. material whether the mail be carried between those points in a two-horse coach or in a steamboat, provided it be carried safely; and the lines on which it was carried before the establishment of this route were ample for that purpose. No one travels in stages from Guyandotte to Cincinnati, or from Cincinnati to Louisville; and the aid of the Department is not necessary to keep up a constant and regular communication by steamboats between them. The establishment of this line was therefore unnecessary, either for the transportation of the mail or the accommodation of passengers.

[23d CONG. 1st SESS.

ment of a steamboat line by contract for the purpose of carrying the mail: the whole frame and language of the section forbids it. "The Postmaster General is authorized to have the mail carried in any steamboat which shall be used as a packet." He may avail himself of such means of transportation when he finds it already existing, but he is not authorized to incur the expense of providing it. The law also provides that he shall not pay more than three cents for each letter, nor more than half a cent for each newspaper so carried-a restriction wholly inconsistent with the supposition that he had power to get up steamboat lines by contract for the transportation of the mail. And the reason that this is not permitted is obvious: the expense of getting up a steamboat line, by contract, for the transportation of the mail, is enormously disproportioned to the object; while, at the same time, the Department may avail itself most advantageously of an existing line of packets for the cheap and expeditious transportation of the mail. The fifth section of the act, above referred to, is a transcript of the third section of the act of the 27th of February, 1815. And while the last-named act was in force, it was thought expedient by the Department to contract for carrying the mail from New Orleans to Louisville by steamboats; but, as the power was not supposed to be conferred by that law, a special act was passed on the 2d March, 1819, authorizing such contract, with the express proviso that the whole expense of sending the mail in steamboats should not exceed that of transporting the same by land. In the steamboat contracts made by the present Postmaster General, not the slightest attention is paid to the restrictions in either of the above-named statutes, and the sum paid for the transportation of the mail from Cincinnati to Louisville consumes greatly more than half the nett revenue received by the Department in both those cities.

There is another transaction with the same individual which is liable to the same and still stronger objections. It seems that a person by the name of Rhodes under. took to carry the mail from New Orleans to Mobile, but failed, and gave up the contract. Afterwards, Messrs. Stockton and Stokes, James Reeside, and Avery and Por ter, undertook to carry the mail on the same route, three times a week, in steamboats, for $25,000 a year. They also failed to comply, and their contract was also given up. Edwin Porter then undertook, by private agreement with the Department, to carry the mail daily on that route, in steamboats, for four years, at $40,000 a year; which agreement is still subsisting. Within the last year, there were 150 failures on this improved line, for which the contractor says he is fined on the books of the Department $5,800; yet no part of this sum appears to have been retained out of his pay; on the contrary, he was permitted to overdraw very largely, and his draft for $20,000, accepted by the Postmaster General, and not yet paid, was discounted some time since at New Orleans, to enable him to raise money to go on with the contract, which was likely to fail by the unskilfulness and inefficiency of his agent. This contractor (Edwin Porter) is also the bor rower of large sums of money of Obadiah B. Brown$3,500 early in the year 1832, and $4,500 in November, 1833, making an aggregate loan of $8,000.

The waste of money on this contract is enormous. The nett proceeds of all the postages in the city of New Or

sustain it. The law has been violated by entering into a contract to get up a steamboat line for the transportation of the mail, without any regard to legal restrictions. It was violated by the Department when it entered into a contract for the transportation of the mail without an advertisement inviting public competition. And there is another feature in this and some other cases which your committee have examined, which, in their opinion, is deserving of the most decisive condemnation: it is the blend

ing and connecting the fiscal affairs of the Department with those of individual contractors. Thus, while advancing its funds, and lending its credit to this individual to enable him to repair his errors and carry on his contract, the Department itself did, in several cases, call in the aid of other contractors to assist it in raising money to pay its ordinary and current expenses. Two instances of this kind are stated in the testimony of James Reeside. About two years ago, he drew a draft of $6,000, at the request of the Department, and for its use, and got it negotiated at the Western Bank of Philadelphia; and some time last winter he "arranged" $10,000 through the assistant postmaster at New York, for the use of the Department. No other cases of the like kind are distinctly in evidence before the committee, but, from general information, they believe the practice to have prevailed to a considerable extent. Your committee condemn this practice most decisively. In their opinion, it is placing the Department in an improper and injurious connexion with individuals. As a matter of mere prudence, independently of the question of power, it should neither venture its own money or plight its credit, to sustain any individual, much less should it ask pecuniary assistance of its contractors, to enable it to keep up its credit. Those contractors should be required to do their duty, and they should be asked for nothing more.. Favors are expected to be reciprocal; and if the Department ask and receive them, it cannot deny them when something is asked in return. But the Department has placed itself in this undignified relation with its contractors. It has become the acceptor for one to enable him to sustain his credit and carry on his contact; and it has become the debtor to another for his name, to enable it to raise money to answer its own pressing ne. cessities. The relations in which it is thus involved are partly the cause and partly the consequence of its present insolvent condition. The individuals who, variously connected and combined, hold extravagant private contracts, and who receive extra allowances, which exhaust the revenues of whole Stites, are the same who lend their credit to keep up the credit of the Department-who furnish funds to pay off the debts and relieve the embaarassments of its chief officer-who advance large sums of money to enable another of its officers to purchase real estate at a reduced price," and who send presents of choice wines to furnish the tables of both.

William Smith is the contractor for carrying the mail from Washington city to Lynchburg, (document 138, page 157,) 200 miles, three times a week, in four-horse post coaches, at the yearly compensation of $6,000 00 He was allowed for two changes of schedule, the propriety and utility of which is not shown, $800 and $300,

For a daily mail from Washington to Warrenton, fifty-two miles,

1,100 00

1,200 00

1,600

4,000 00

7,900 00

4,900 00

·

3,000 00

1,100 00

1,900 00

duced, in consequence of it, but $4,900; leaving him an additional yearly allowance of For which no service whatever is rendered. There is also an extra allowance of $975 made to William Smith (document 138, page 166) for an extension of his line from Dobson's cross-roads to Lexington, North Carolina. Prior to this arrangement, this mail went on the route from Dobson's cross-roads to Salem, and from Salem to Lexington, which increased his distance only seven miles, passing through a very flourishing town. This extension, as it is called, was therefore wholly use. less, except so far as it served the convenience of the contractor, and enabled him to draw off upon his newlyadjusted line the passengers which had theretofore gone upon the old line of Peck and Wellford. It does not touch a single post office in the twenty-five miles which is not also passed on the regular mail route established by law. The extra allowances made on this route of William Smith, (doument 119 of 1830 and 1831,) from Washington until it unites with the route of Peck and Wellford, at Lexington, North Carolina, was $8,875, as stated in the report of the 3d of March, 1834. The true sum is believed to be larger, but taking that to be the actual amount, the extra allowances exceed the whole nett proceeds of postages on that line from Alexandria, where it first diverges from the line of Stockton & Co. to Lexington, where it unites with the line of Peck and Wellford, by more than $2,000, including all the postages of the large towns of Warren, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg. E. P. Johnson is the contractor for carrying the mail on several routes in Indiana, numbered 11, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25, 27, and 41, from the 1st of January, 1830, to the 31st of December, 1833, at a yearly compensation of $3,300. There are no less than eighteen different modifications and additions to this single contract, for which he receives in the aggregate, yearly, $14,502 18, in addition to what he receives by contract-amounting in the four years to $58,008 72; and all this by private arrangement, without advertisement or competition.

The nett amount of postages received in the State of Indiana, according to the report of the Postmaster General of the 28th of February, 1831, was $9,609 67, falling short by $4,892 51 of paying the yearly extra allow ance on this single contract. The increase of the postages during the continuance of the contract will not, in all probability, bring up the receipts to a sum sufficient to discharge these extra allowances in the four years by the nett proceeds of postages for the same four years in the whole State.

* E. P. Johnson, John Hutchins, Joseph H. Hough, William Henny, and J. C. Chiles, are stated in the report of the Postmaster General of the 18th of April, 1832, (document 212, page 22,) as contractors for carrying the mail from Maysville to Louisville daily; from Frankfort to Nashville three times a week; from Louisville tf Nashville six times a week, and from Lexington to Bean station six times a week, in four-horse post coaches, at the annual compensation of $37,760.

Your committee called for the bids pursuant to which this contract was made, and they find those that are marked accepted as follows:

1731. From Maysville to Louisville daily,

1746. From Lexington to Bean's station, one hundred and seventy-one miles, twice a week, in four-horse post coaches, J. G. Chiles, ("accepted and executed,") 1742. From Louisville to Nashville, one hundred and seventy-four miles, in four-horse post coaches, six times a week, to Bowling Green, and the remainder three times a week, E. P. Johnson & Co., ("accepted and executed,")

Amounting in the whole to

[23d CoNG. 1st SESS.

4,500 00 $22,580 00

Being less than the sum reported by the Postmaster General in his report of April 18, 1832, by $15,180.

Opposite the accepted bid on route 1742, from Louisville to Nashville, is noted in red ink, “to run alternate between Franklin and Russelville at pro rata allowance," showing that one of the routes which he run from Bowling Green to Nashville under this contract, passed through Russelville.

1743. And in document 212, page 23, of

April 18, 1832, we find that John Gray
receives on the route from Bowling
Green to Nashville,

·

And by the report of the 3d of March, 1834, (document 138, page 218,) he appears to be allowed for running three additional trips from Bowling Green to Russelville, on the same route,

Amounting to

"For running, besides a tri-weekly line in a four-horse wagon, so as to exclude passengers, and ensure the regular arrival of the mail during the winter season, they were allowed, from December 1, 1832, an additional compensation, at the annual rate of 2,500 dollars." Thus, after paying these individuals a large compensation by contract for carrying the mail, and giving them further large extra allowances for carrying it, they are paid 2,500 dollars a year further extra, for carrying it in a wagon.

In examining the proportions which the money paid for the transportation of the mail bears to the receipts for postages in particular districts of country, and even in whole States, the disproportion is in some cases remarkable.

The extra allowances of E. P. Johnson, on one single contract, as has been shown, consume the whole revenue

of Indiana.

1,019 55

$3,999 55

So it appears that John Gray is paid three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars and fifty-five cents for carrying the mail from Bowling Green to Nashville, on the same route on which it is carried by E. P. Johnson & Co. as above.

James F. Robinson contracted to carry the mail daily, in four-horse post coaches, from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Georgetown, Kentucky, seventy-two miles, in fourteen hours, at a yearly compensation of 1,000 dollars. His schedule was so changed that he was required to run through in twelve hours, instead of fourteen, making part of the trip in the night; for which he was allowed the additional yearly compensation of 3,000 dollars. It is not perceived by your committee that the change of a schedule was at all essential to the public interest.

One among the many contracts of Avery, Tompkins, & Co., and others who are connected with them, and whose contracts are interlaced with theirs, is taken as a specimen of another very large class of cases-a leading feature of which is complication and confusion.

The annual report of the Postmaster General of the 25th of February, 1831, states that E. Porter, James Reeside, John H. Avery, Isaac Tompkins, D A. Saltmarsh, Charles P. Mallett, John McLean, and Sidney Porter, are contractors on routes 1901, 1902, 1903, 2047, 2101, 2102, 2104, 2105, 2254, 2255, 2352, 2353, in stages and steamboats, at 67,950 dollars yearly.

The Postmaster General, in his report of 3d March, 1834, (document 138, p. 144,) states that Avery, Tomp. kins, & Co., are contractors on routes Nos. 1903 and 2101, at a compensation of 24,000 dollars; and they receive, for divers improvements on routes Nos. 1903, 2101, and 2102, which are all included in the grand aggregate of contracts above named, and also for improvements on 2107, which is not included in it, an extra allowance yearly VOL. X.-D d

In North Carolina, the extra allowances fall short of the nett receipts for postages six hundred dollars.

In Alabama, the extra allowances are to the nett proceeds for postages as two to one.

The whole nett proceeds of postages in Virginia, as appears by the Postmaster General's report of the 28th of February, 1831, was $79,262 91. The whole cost for transportation in that State, by the contracts of October, 1831, and allowances and extra allowances made to contractors, is 233,959 dollars: falling short but 3,829 dollars of three to one.

The whole nett receipts in Alabama were 22,678 dollars. The cost of transportation within it is reported at 157,566 dollars: being something more than five to one.

These estimates are subject to variation equal to the increase of postages in those States from January, 1830, until the contracts took effect, and the extra allowances were made. When those corrections are made, the disproportion between the nett receipts for postages, and the expenditures in those States, though lessened, will still be enormous.

The law contemplates that on new routes, and consequently in new States, a considerable expenditure should be allowed over and above the amount of receipts; but even where the money is fairly and judiciously applied for the benefit of the public, there is a limit beyond which such expenditure is not permitted to pass without the consent of Congress. By the thirty-ninth section of the act of 1825, reducing into one the acts regulating the Post Office Department, it is provided "that it shall be the duty of the Postmaster General to report annually to Congress every post route which shall not, after the second year from its establishment, have produced onethird of the expenses of carrying the mail on the same."

If this provision of law had been attended to, the aggregate of the routes in Indiana, Illinois, and Alabama, ought to have been reported as unproductive routes; and Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, would but just have escaped its provisions; the expenditure in each of these last-named States being more than double the amount of receipts.

There are two States which lie side by side, nearly equal in population, extent of territory, and in the reve

ed, the whole of it might have been transcribed from the Post Office books, by a tolerable clerk, in one day. When, after repeated inquiries for this paper, it was at length, for the first time, communicated to the Senate, it appear. ed in secret session, in company with another paper giving an account marked "confidential." On the last paper, over which the veil of secrecy still hangs, your committee make no comment; but to the paper on which the injunction of secrecy does not rest, they invite the atten. tion of the Senate.

While examining this document with a view to the correction of the abuses which it disclosed, the attention of your committee was arrested by the extent of official patronage to printers which it develops, and the amount of that patronage as exhibited in the "Blue Book." The resolution of Congress, of the 14th of July, 1832, directed that there should be included in the next (present) edition of this book a correct list of all printers in any way employed by any department or officer of the Govern ment, within the period between the 30th of September, 1831, and the 30th of September, 1833, with the compensation allowed to each. The resolution of Congress, to enable the Secretary of State to comply with it, enjoins it upon the "several heads of departments directing or incurring the expense, to cause the list, and the matter thereby required to be added, to be lodged in the Depart ment of State." The document in the Blue Book, (pages 182, '3, and '4,) entitled "List of all printers employed by the Post Office Department between the 30th of September, 1831, and the 30th of September, 1833, with the compensation of each," is the official paper furnished in obedience to this resolution, and is the first publication of any portion of the incidental expenses that has ever been made in obedience to the requisitions of law.

The object of the resolution was to interpose the check of public opinion to arrest the abuse of official patronage to printers, no other check having been provided. To the end, also, that this patronage might not be abused, without detection, by employing the owners of the press, in any other way than in printing, it is provided that the list to be furnished should embrace all printers in any way employed, with the compensation to each, no matter for what allowed. If a printer be a mail contractor, it was intended by the resolution that the fact should appear. If any one of those who control the public press enjoys for years a monopoly in supplying the Department with articles to the great profit of the contractor, the fact was designed to be shown, in order that the public might judge of the extent and influence of the Executive patronage over the press so controlled. But, so far from accomplishing this, or any other proper object of this part of the resolution, it has been the means of eliciting a report from the Post Office Department precisely adapted to mislead the public, in reference to the whole subject.

On the list of printers in the Blue Book, True & Greene, proprietors and printers of the Boston Statesman, are thus stated to be employed;

True & Greene, for printing blanks,
For advertising proposals, -

$6,692 75 206 50

Total compensation reported in the Blue Book, $6,899 25

But the exhibit now made by the account of the Department, hereto appended, shows that they have been employed during the whole time, (as the present Post master General had in fact before employed them,) in furnishing paper, printed blanks, and twine, to the amount of $29,907 75.

See the account for the following items: 1832. January 25. True & Greene's compensation for furnishing blanks, paper,

and twine, to various post offices in New

[23d CONG. 1st SESS.

York and elsewhere, from 1st October to 31st December, 1831, inclusive, May 9. True & Greene's compensation for furnishing paper and twine, &c., from the 1st of January to the 31st of March, 1832, inclusive,

August 27. True & Greene, do. for blanks, paper, and twine, to 30th June, 1832, Dec'r 15. True & Greene, do, for blanks, paper, and twine, from 1st July to the 30th September, 1832, .

1833. March 23. True & Greene, do. for blanks, paper, and twine, from 1st October, 1832, to 31st December, 1832, April 23. True & Greene, do. for blanks, paper, and twine, from 1st October, 1832, to 15th April, 1833,

$3,944 10

2,144 35

2,824 10

2,455 05

2,164 85

3,727 23

July 24. True & Greene, for paper, blanks, and twine, from 1st October, 1832, to 30th September, 1833, October 16.

Real compensation,

So that the printers of "the Boston Statesman,” thus employed by the Department, received compensation for the articles which they were employed to furnish, within the period named in the resolution, exceeding, by $23,008 50, the sums published by the Department in the Blue Book.

And from an accurate examination of the original vouchers for these payments to them, the following facts appear: First, that the real sum paid for "the printed blanks," including the press work, type setting, and the paper on which the blanks were actually printed, was And that the real sum paid for wrapping paper and twine, was

$16,463 25

13,444 50 $29,907 75

So that the sum paid for the printed blanks alone exceeds the sums published in the Blue Book, by 9,564 dollars.

Secondly. It appears that the only evidence upon which these large sums were paid, is the certificate of Nathaniel Greene, the postmaster at Boston. He is the brother of Charles G. Greene, of the firm of True and Greene. He undertakes to certify, in all cases, that blanks, paper, and twine, were furnished to the various postmasters "in New York and elsewhere," of the quality stated in these vouchers. He is the same person who edited "the Boston Statesman," before that press was transferred to its present proprietors, and, from the information we have, it appears to us, that the postmaster himself was interested in it at the time of granting his certificates.

This is but one of a class of cases presented by "the incidental expenses," and we think it proper to remark, that, profitable as such contracts are, there is no competition admitted for them; no advertisement, or other notice invites other persons to enter the lists in rivalry with the favored newspaper editor upon whom such compensation is to be bestowed. Established in a city where its patron. age from other sources than Executive favor was probably not very great, the press of "the Boston Statesman" appears by the vouchers and receipts, to have been sustained in the year 1832, when the last presidential election occurred, by the employment of its proprietors in rendering services to the amount of nearly sixteen thou sand dollars, which were paid out of the revenues of this Department.