ent method. Reduction in some salaries as now fixed is as justly due as are allowances to some officers who now pay from their salaries expenses fairly belonging to the Government. Probably the Department's share of cost should not be, in the total, much more than it now is; but however that shall eventuate upon a just examination, the amount now appropriated for salaries and allowances to Presidential offices might be more justly distributed. To realize the best results will, however, demand such change in the existing statutes relating to the first, second, and third classes, and perhaps require such experi ence of trial, that it may be deemed wiser to take steps in the beginning which shall partially relieve the inequalities mentioned and at the same time tend in the direction of desirable ultimate arrangement.

In this view, it may now be suggested that at least offices of the third class, whose gross receipts reach three thousand five hundred dollars or more, are generally of such consequence as to properly require an apartment exclusively employed for the service, and some clerical service in addition to the postmaster's; and that such offices should be leased by the Government, allowances for fuel, light, and clerks, to an amount, with salary, not in excess of box-rents and commissions should be permissible. This maintains the same limitation which is placed on the first and second class offices, and affords proportionable assistance by the same rule.

The following table shows the gross and average receipts, box-rents, commissions, allowances, and surplus at the third-class offices ranging from $1,500 to $1,900 in salary.

Slatement showing the number of offices, aggregate gross receipts, box rents, box rents and commissions, salaries of postmasters, allowances for separating labor, surplus and excess box rents and commissions, for each grade from $1,500 to $1,900, inclusive.

Grade.

Average amounts for each grade, from $1,500 to $1,900, inclusive, compiled from the above

table.

grade. Average gross receipts per

The Government would be the gainer in money if somewhat lower limitation were fixed. graduated by business, upon offices whose gross receipts range from $3,500 to $20,000; the service would not be impaired, and a fairer proportionable dealing would be established.

Fourth Class to Presidential.-The statute prescribing when a fourth class office shall become Presidential requires an additional modifying condition, in order to prevent what may be termed the seesawing of an office between the two classes. As it now stands the Auditor must report, and the Department assign to the third class, some offices during a fiscal year which at the end of it must be relegated to the fourth class; with liability to a renewal of the transmigration in the following year. As a new appointment is legally necessary at each such change, requiring once confirmation by the Senate, and involving each time a new bond by the postmaster, the inconvenience then becomes vexatious. Two such cases happened during the last year. The difficulty arises because the box-rents and commissions to a fourth-class postmaster will often yield him over $250 per quarter during the year, although his gross receipts do not sum up $1,900 for the year; and the office cannot remain in the third class, under the statute, unless the latter be also the case. Consult the foregoing table for illustration. The insertion in the first proviso of the second section of the act of March 3, 1883 (22 Statutes, 602) of an additional condition upon the Auditor's reporting a case, to the effect that the returns shall show gross receipts for the four preceding quarters of $1,900 or more, would apparently relieve the defect in the law. Nor would it impair the postmaster's income, because the Auditor must continue to allow him in the case supposed the same compensation while such an office remains in the fourth class, which would be fixed as his salary upon declaring the office Presidential.

47 Ab

The Washington Post-Office is occupied by the Government as a tenant holding over, the lease of the premises having expired on the 16th day of November, 1884. The rental is $5,000 per year. The sundry civil act, approved March 3, 1885, made appropriation for pay. ment of the rent at that rate until the 30th of June, 1886. The Congress omitted appropriation, no doubt inadvertently, at the late session, and provision may be expected when its attention shall be called to the subject. It would seem prudent to provide for a continuing lease for a term of years.

A branch of the Washington post-office was some years ago estab lished on F street northwest, and is known as Station C. Inquiry has disclosed to me that no lease has ever been made of the property, but that it is maintained by an allowance to F. A. Brown, jr., of $2,320 per annum as a superintendent or clerk, for which he furnishes the apartment, himself paying the owner an agreed rental of, as I am informed, $300 per year. The station is a useful public convenience, and should be at least maintained, if not enlarged; nor perhaps could it be more economically supported. But the method of its establish. ment and continuance is not free from a question of irregularity, inasmuch as the act of June 22, 1874, forbade contracts for renting any public building in Washington, not at that time in use by the Government, until after an appropriation therefor by the Congress; the spirit of which, at least, is unambiguous and plain. It would appear a proper subject for direct Congressional disposition; and it is to be hoped this will result in a more commodious station.

The Official Postal Guide has become an indispensable means of periodically communicating to the vast force of officials who man the postal service much of the current information and instruction necessary to the right performance of their duties, as well as of utility to the general public. Its history and the Department's experience suggest the gains which might be secured by appropriate legislation upon the subject.

The publication appears to have first become a charge upon the Department under a provision in the sundry civil act of June 23, 1874, that authorized a contract for a quarterly publication, in magazine form, limited to 30,000 copies, for a period of five years. PostmasterGeneral Marshall accordingly contracted with H. O. Houghton & Co., of Cambridge, Mass., to publish it at an agreed price per copy for such as were furnished the Department, varying according to the numbers ordered and the matter inserted, requiring the contractor to edit it, and allowing him the privilege of selling copies to the public and of a limited number of pages for advertisements; the Department paying the charges of wrapping the copies mailed to its officials, fixed at threequarters of a cent per copy; and the Guide was so published until June, 1879. The contract was then renewed for one year from the first of

July, for a monthly publication of the general character of the present, of which 45,000 copies were to be furnished, at the price of $11,250 for the annual Guide, or January number, not exceeding 600 pages, and $800 for each monthly number of not more than 36 pages; and it was stipulated that additional matter should be paid for at a discount of not less than 50 per cent. from the contractor's "regular advertising rates"a pregnant provision.

From that time a contract, generally similar in terms, was annually renewed with the same firm, or its successors, Houghton, Osgood & Co. and Houghton, Mifflin & Co., until the 30th of June, 1885; the chief variations being in the price per copy and in the number of copies required, the latter gradually rising as the requirements of the service enlarged. In making the contract for the year ending June 30, 1885, competition was for the first time, so far as appears from the Department files or records, invited from publishers, by sending to a limited number letters of invitation to bid; but the contract was awarded to the same contractors as before. A change was made in its terms by requiring the publisher to wrap and mail the issues to the officials of the service, and by the Department's assuming its editorial preparation. In consequence of the latter, the contractors proffered to furnish 60,000 copies, at 27 cents per copy for the annual and 14 cents for the monthlies.

During several years the size of the monthly numbers was swelled and the cost greatly enhanced by the insertion of matter, under the advertisement-rate clause, as will appear from the table given below; which led to the direction, in the departmental appropriation act for the year 1883, that "hereafter the annual report of the Postmaster-General shall not be published in said Official Postal Guide."

In anticipation of the contract for the year ending June 30, 1886, a letter of invitation for bids was directed to be addressed to the principal publishing houses of the country, so far as known, which awakened such competition that the annual Guide, limited to 800 pages, and the monthlies, limited to 36 pages, exclusive of advertisements, were furnished by Callaghan & Co., of Chicago, at the prices per copy of 11 cents for the former and 1 cent for the latter, all expenses of wrapping and addressing being borne by the contractors. As theretofore a limited amount of advertising, subject to censorship of the Depart ment, and the product of sales to the public, were permitted to the contractors. The following table exhibits in convenient form the principal figures of previous years' experience:

6 Monthly.

7 Annual.

1 Quarterly number, with list of offices by counties.

2 Quarterly number, without list of offices by counties.

3 Quarterly number, without list of offices by counties, where order was or exceeded 30, 000 copies. 4 Quarterly number, without list of offices by counties, where order exceeded 20,000 but was less than 30, 000 copies.

Quarterly number, with list of offices by counties, where order for 40, 000 copies or over.

Includes $150 paid for binding 600 copies in cloth. For previous years this could not be shown, vouchers being incomplete.

Bids for the contract for the current fiscal year were invited from the principal publishing-houses, and the contract awarded to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the lowest bidders, at 15 cents per copy for the annual and 1 cent for the monthly Guides, the terms being otherwise substantially unchanged.

The recounted experience of the last two contracts not only indicates unnecessary expenditure during former years, but suggests the possi