and the preparation of vouchers for the issue of registered bonds; the examination and record of transfers of registered United States securities; notice of caveats filed against the United States securities alleged to be destroyed, lost, or stolen, and, in connection therewith, the procuring of evidence for the courts and law officers of the Department, and, in case of reissue, the securing of the requisite indemnity for the Government; the record of issues of gold and currency certificates, and their cancellation upon redemption; and the receipt, counting, cancellation, record, and destruction of redeemed District of Columbia securities. The supervision of all matters under the immediate charge of the Secretary of the Treasury relating to the counting, cancellation, record, and destruction of all redeemed and mutilated United States notes and fractional currency, and Internal Revenue stamps redeemed or mutilated in printing.

The charge of the distinctive paper for United States notes, bonds, and currency;-embracing its receipt from the superintendent at the manufactory; its issue upon proper requisitions; the keeping of accounts thereof with the superintendent at the manufactory, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the various bank-note companies, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Treasurer of the United States, and the Register of the Treasury, and other necessary accounts to show the disposition of said paper from the time of its manufacture until its final destruction as redeemed money and securities, or mutilations; a similar account of all paper used for Internal Revenue stamps from the time of its receipt by the superintendent at the manufactory until its delivery to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue in stamps; and, generally, all business relating to the foregoing.

THE DEBT OF THE UNITED STATES.

it had reached $524,176,412. On July 1, 1863, it had increased to $1,119,772,138. During the following year it increased nearly seven hundred millions, reaching on July 1, 1864, the sum of $1,815,784,370. During the next nine months, to the close of the war, April 1, 1865, the debt increased at the rate of about two millions a day, or sixty millions a month; and for the five months next thereafter, at the rate of about three millions a day, or ninety millions a month, reaching its maximum on August 31, 1865, at which date it amounted to $2,845,907,626, less cash in the Treasury of $88.218,055, and was composed of the following items:

This table shows an aggregate of more than one thousand two hundred and seventy-five millions of temporary obligations of the Government, of which eight hundred and thirty millions bore interest at 7.30 per cent. annually.

This immense amount of temporary obligations was funded within the three years which followed the close of the war.

The temporary loans, certificates of indebtedness, seven-thirty notes, and all the other items of the debt-except the legal-tender notes and fractional currency, which have been largely reduced -have either been paid, have matured and ceased to bear interest, or have been funded into five-twenty six per cents, of which more than one thousand six hundred millions ($1,602,698,950) were issued.

The acts of July 14, 1870, and January 20, 1871, authorized the issue of bonds for the purpose of refunding the fivetwenty six per cents. The former act authorized the issue of fifteen hundred millions in bonds, two hundred millions of which were to be five per cents payable ten years after date, at the pleasure of the United States, three hundred millions of four and a half per cents payable in fifteen years, and one thousand mil

lions payable in thirty years from the date of their issue, and bearing interest at the rate of four per cent. per annum. The act provided that these bonds should not be sold for less than their par value in coin, and that the proceeds should be applied to the redemption of the fivetwenty bonds. The latter act increased the amount of the five per cent. bonds to five hundred millions, but provided that the whole amount of bonds issued should not exceed the amount originally authorized and the subsequent act of January 25, 1879, authorized the refunding or exchanging of any other of the five or six per cent. bonds which were redeemable at the pleasure of the Government.

The whole amount of the funded debt on the first of January, 1871, was $1,935,342,700, of which $1,437,097,300 consisted of five-twenty six per cent. bonds, and $194,567,300 of ten-forty five per cent. bonds. On the first day of August, 1871, nearly sixty-six millions ($65,775,550) of new five per cent. bonds had been subscribed for. During the same month an agreement was entered into by the Secretary with Jay Cooke & Co. for the sale of the remaining two hundred millions of said bonds, and in the month of January, 1873, similar arrangements were made for the sale of a large additional amount. The remainder of the five hundred millions ($178,548,300) was sold during the next three years.

On August 24, 1876, a new contract was made by the Secretary with A. Belmont & Co. and associates, for the sale of the three hundred millions of four and a half per cent. bonds authorized. In this contract the Secretary reserved the right to terminate it by giving ten days'

notice to the contractors, and under the contract calls were made prior to March 4, 1877, for the redemption of one hundred millions of six per cents. In May, 1877, the Secretary, availing himself of the privilege secured in the contract, gave notice that he would limit the sale of four and a half per cents to two hundred millions; and additional subscriptions were rapidly made until that amount was taken.

The reduction on the interest-bearing debt of the United States, from its highest point, on August 31, 1865, to November 1, 1879, is $583,886,594, of which amount $105,160,900 has been effected since the refunding operations were commenced on May 1, 1871.

At its highest point the annual interest on the debt was $150,977,697, while it is now $83,773,778 only. There has, therefore, been a total reduction in this charge of $67,203,919 annually.

The total annual reduction of interest under these refunding operations, accomplished since March 1, 1877, is $14,290,416, while the saving on this account growing out of the operations of the year 1879, is nearly nine millions ($8,803,707), and the total annual saving in all the refunding operations of the Government since 1871 is nearly twenty millions ($19,900,846). These funding tansactions are believed to be without parallel in financial history.

The following table exhibits the classification of the unmatured, interest-bearing bonded debt of the United States on August 31, 1865, when it reached its maximum, and on the first day of July annually thereafter, together with the amount outstanding on November 1, 1879:

1,696,685,450

1,697,888,500

...

FIVE-TWENTIES OF 1864:

TEN-FORTIES:

$5000

payable twenty years from November 1, 1864.

payable forty years from March 1, 1864.

FIVE-TWENTIES OF 1865:

payable twenty years from November 1, 1864.

payable twenty years from November 1, 1865.

COUPON BONDS.

The coupon bonds of the United States are payable to bearer, and they pass by delivery, without endorsement; except those authorized by the act of March 2, 1861,-known as the Oregon War Loan, -which, being payable to certain parties or their assigns, are transferable only by assignment; such assignment to be executed and acknowledged in like manner as in the case of registered bonds of other loans.

Coupon bonds, with the exception above mentioned, are convertible into registered bonds of the same loan; but the law does not authorize the conversion of registered into coupon bonds.

Coupon bonds forwarded to the Treas

ury Department for exchange into registered bonds should be addressed to the

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, Loan Division; and when bonds of more than one issue are transmitted in the same package, a separate letter of explicit instructions should accompany the bonds of each issue.

REGISTERED BONDS.

The registered bonds of the United. States differ from the coupon bonds in the following respects, namely: (1) They have inscribed or expressed upon their face the names of the parties who own them, denominated payees; (2) they are payable only to such payees or their assigns; and (3) the property or ownership