cations, however, are that Carlton understood that Barnes was a rebel, and that said sum of $856.73 represented his proportional share of the earnings of the train.

In 1874 Barnes made a claim on the proper department of the government for the payment of this sum of $856.73 to him. He made no claim until 1874. The claim was rejected by the Second Comptroller November 23, 1874.

There was no evidence submitted to the Comptroller, nor is there any submitted to your committee, showing or tending to show that Barnes was loyal; but the claimant bases her right to relief upon the ground (as is stated in the petition) that her "husband was not tried by any tribunal, civil or military, upon the charge of being a secessionist, and, of course, was not convicted as such."

Actual war existed in New Mexico at the time General Carlton ordered this money to be paid to the Army quartermaster. We have a right to assume that the commanding general had sufficient evidence before him at the time the order was made to prove that Barnes was a public enemy, and that the order for the paying over of the money was properly made. Barnes himself seems to have acquiesced in this view for twelve years. The claim was rejected by the Comptroller.

We cannot now recommend its payment, and we recommend that the claim be rejected and the committee discharged.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

MARCH 11, 1880.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. FERRY, from the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads, submitted the following

REPORT:

[To accompany bill S. 1103.]

The Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads, to which was referred the bill (S. 1103) for the relief of Manly B. McNilt, have considered the same and report:

That it appears from the sworn statement of Manly B. McNilt, postmaster at Red Cloud, Nebr., supported by the report of a special agent of the Post-Office Department, sent to investigate the matter, that ou the night of September 29, 1879, the post-office at Red Cloud, Nebr., was broken open and robbed of sixteen registered packages and letters, $184.49 in money-order funds, and $34.10 in general or postal funds, the total amount of which funds the postmaster has since made good to the department.

The affidavit of the postmaster and the report of the special agent as aforesaid, show that the post-office was kept in a frame building, and the funds and registered matter were in a good $250 safe; that the robbery was effected by prying off the front door from its frame, cutting off the wheel that turns the combination characters, and driving through the door and into the safe with a punch the remaining part or shaft of said wheel, thus removing the "dogging" of the combination, when the safe door was easily opened and the funds stolen. No captures were made, although certain "professional cracksmen" were suspected. The special agent also reports that the "postmaster could have no reasonable grounds to suspect that his safe was not secure against the attacks of any ordinary burglar who would visit an out-of-the-way place like Red Cloud."

In reply to an inquiry from this committee, the superintendent of the money-order system of the Post-Office Department, officially states that the records of the office of the Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department show that the amount of money-order funds claimed to have been stolen on the night of September 29, 1879, was in the hands of the postmaster at that date, also that under the regulations of the department the postmaster had the right to withhold from deposit, and have in his possession the money-order funds retained by him on that date.

Your committee are of opinion that negligence or want of care cannot reasonably be imputed to the said postmaster, that the amount of moneyorder funds stolen has been shown by the books of the department to be as claimed, and that he should be reimbursed therefor, but that in this,

as in nearly all other similar cases, it is impracticable to verify from departmental records the amount of general or postal funds in the hands of a postmaster at the date of a robbery and at the same time separate or distinguish such sums from private funds which may or may not have been lost, and further that it is not good policy to relieve postmasters from responsibility where there is any degree of uncertainty as to the amount or nature of the funds lost or stolen.

Your committee, therefore, propose to amend the bill by striking out in line 8 the words "and thirty-four dollars postal funds" and recommend the passage of the bill as thus amended.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

MARCH 12, 1880.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. WITHERS, from the Committee on Pensions, submitted the fol

lowing REPORT:

[To accompany bill S. 1361.]

The Committee on Pensions having examined the provisions of Senate bill 1361 and the accompanying papers find that it provides for an increase of the pension of Elisha F. Rogers, late quartermaster-sergeant Company F, Second Battalion Missouri Militia, from $18 per month to $37.50. It appears that the applicant received a gunshot wound of the left lung in 1862; that for this he received a pension at the rate of $12 per month from October 17, 1873, which, one year after, to wit, the 17th day of October, 1874, was increased to $18 per month, and that he has received arrears of pension from December, 1862. He now asks for an increase to $37.50 per month, on the ground that his disability equals that produced by a hip-joint amputation. His application was rejected by the bureau on the ground that the amount of pension now allowed is fixed by the degree of disability which has been ascertained to exist, and that there has been no increase of disability. An effort is made to establish increased disability by the testimony of medical witnesses of his vicinage, but as the committee attach greater weight to the conclu. sions of the board of medical examiners, and can conceive no parallelism between the injury received and the results of an amputation at the hipjoint, they cannot recommend the passage of the bill, but ask that the same be indefinitely postponed.