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and for fortifications are submitted separately. Whatever amount Congress may deem proper to appropriate for these purposes will be expended.

"The recommendation of the General of the Army, that appropriations be made for the forts at Boston, Portland, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Francisco, if for no other, is concurred in. I also ask your special attention to the recommendation of the general commanding the military division of the Pacific for the sale of the seal islands of St. Paul and St. George, Alaska Territory, and suggest that it either be complied with, or that legislation be had for the protection of the seal fisheries, from which a revenue should be derived.

"The report of the Secretary of War contains a synopsis of the reports of the heads of bureaus, of the commanders of military divisions, and of the districts of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas, and the report of the General of the Army in full. The recommendations therein contained have been well considered, and are submitted for your action. I, however, call special attention to the recommendation of the Chief of Ordnance, for the sale of arsenals and lands no longer of use to the Government; also to the recommendation of the Secretary of War, that the Act of March 3, 1869, prohibiting promotions and appointments in the staff corps of the army, be repealed. The extent of country to be garrisoned, and the number of military posts to be occupied, is the same with a reduced army as with a large one. The number of staff-officers required is more dependent upon the latter than the former condition.

"The report of the Secretary of the Navy, accompanying this, shows the condition of the navy when this Administration came into office, and the changes made since. Strenuous efforts have been made to place as many vessels 'in commission,' or render them fit for service, if required, as possible, and to substitute the sail for steam whilst cruising, thus materially reducing the expenses of the navy and adding greatly to its efficiency. Looking to our future, I recommend a liberal though not extravagant policy toward this branch of the public service.

"The report of the Postmaster-General furnishes a clear and comprehensive exhibit of the operations of the postal service, and of the financial condition of the Post-office Department. The ordinary postal revenues for the year ending the 30th of June, 1869, amounted to $18,344,510, and the expenditures to $23,698,131, showing an excess of expenditures over receipts of $5,353,620. The excess of expenditures over receipts for the previous year amounted to $6,437,992. The increase of revenues for 1869 over those of 1868 was $2,051,909, and the increase of expenditures was $967,538. The increased revenue in 1869 exceeded the increased revenue in 1868 by $996,336; and the increased expenditure in 1869 was $2,527,570 less than the increased expenditure in 1868, showing by comparison this gratifying feature of improvement, that while the increase of expenditures over the increase of receipts in 1868 was

$2,439,535, the increase of receipts over the increase of expenditures in 1869 was $1,084,371.

"Your attention is respectfully called to the recommendations made by the Postmaster-General for authority to change the rate of compensation to the main trunk railroad lines for their services in carrying the mails; for having post-route maps executed; for reorganizing and increasing the efficiency of the special agency service; for increase of the mail service on the Pacific, and for establishing mail service, under the flag of the Union, on the Atlantic; and most especially do I call your attention to his recommendation for the total abolition of the franking privilege. This is an abuse from which no one receives a commensurate advantage; it reduces the receipts for postal service from tweny-five to thirty per cent., and largely increases the service to be performed. The method by which postage should be paid upon public matter is set forth fully in the report of the Postmaster-General.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior shows that the quantity of public lands disposed of during the year ending the 30th of June, 1869, was 7,666,152 acres, exceeding that of the preceding year by 1,010,409 acres. Of this amount 2,899,544 acres were sold for cash, and 2,737,365 acres entered under the homestead laws. The remainder was granted to aid in the construction of works of internal improvement, approved to the States as swamp-land, and located with warrants and scrip. The cash receipts from all sources were $4,472,886, exceeding those of the preceding year $2,840,140.

"During the last fiscal year 23,196 names were added to the pension rolls, and 4876 dropped therefrom, leaving at its close 187,963. The amount paid to pensioners, including the compensation of disbursing agents, was $28,422,884, an increase of $4,411,902 on that of the previous year. The munificence of Congress has been conspicuously manifested in its legislation for the soldiers and sailors who suffered in the recent struggle to maintain that unity of government which makes us one people.' The additions to the pension rolls of each successive year, since the conclusion of hostilities, result in a great degree from the repeated amendments of the Act of the 14th of July, 1862, which extended its provisions to cases not falling within its original scope. The large outlay which is thus occasioned is further increased by the more liberal allowance bestowed since that date upon those who in the line of duty were wholly or permanently disabled. Public opinion has given an emphatic sanction to these measures of Congress, and it will be conceded that no part of our public burden is more cheerfully borne than that which is imposed by this branch of the service. It necessitates for the next fiscal year, in addition to the amount justly chargeable to the naval pension fund, an appropriation of thirty millions of dollars.

"During the year ending the 30th of September, 1869, the Patent Office issued 13,762 patents, and its receipts were $686,389, being $213,926 more than the expenditures.

"I would respectfully call your attention to the recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior for uniting the duties of supervising the education of freedmen with the other duties devolving upon the Commissioner of Education.

"If it is the desire of Congress to make the census, which must be taken during the year 1870, more complete and perfect than heretofore, I would suggest early action upon any plan that may be agreed upon. As Congress, at the last session, appointed a committee to take into consideration such measures as might be deemed proper in reference to the census, and report a plan, I desist from saying more.

"I recommend to your favourable consideration the claims of the Agricultural Bureau for liberal appropriations. In a country so diversified in climate and soil as ours, and with a population so largely dependent upon agriculture, the benefits that can be conferred by properly fostering this bureau are incalculable.

"I desire respectfully to call the attention of Congress to the inadequate salaries of a number of the most important offices of the Government. In this Message I will not enumerate them, but will specify only the justices of the Supreme Court. No change has been made in their salaries for fifteen years. Within that time the labours of the court have largely increased, and the expenses of living have at least doubled. During the same time Congress has twice found it necessary to increase largely the compensation of its own members; and the duty which it owes to another department of the Government deserves, and will undoubtedly receive, its due consideration. "There are many subjects not alluded to in this Message which might with propriety be introduced, but I abstain, believing that your patriotism and statesmanship will suggest the topics and the legislation most conducive to the interests of the whole people. my part, I promise a rigid adherence to the laws, and their strict enforcement.

"U. S. GRANT."

On

RETROSPECT

OF

LITERATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE IN 1869.

WE propose adopting in our Retrospect for the year 1869 a somewhat similar plan to that we made use of the preceding year, and to group what we think more especially worthy of note under certain leading heads. Thus we shall take -1. Works relating to History, more strictly so called, including therein Notices of Public Records; 2. Biographical Sketches of Eminent Personages, for the most part recently deceased; 3. Miscellaneous Literature, including Novels, Poetry, Translations, &c., and the like. Works purely scientific in their character and object would seem to be most appropriately arranged under the special Science to which they refer. To take

1. DOCUMENTS MORE OR LESS NATIONAL OR OFFICIAL. "The Calendar of Treasury Papers, A.D. 1556-1696, preserved in Her Majesty's Public Record Office," prepared by Joseph Redington, though perhaps not possessing the vivid interest of some of the previous volumes of the great series to which it belongs, has much which will reward patient study, at the same time not a little to show how careful and diligent the Editor himself has been with his work. Among, too, the more miscellaneous entries, we find numberless notices of matters we would gladly have had preserved to our own day. Thus we have lists of every application to the Treasury for money grants, many of these commencing with the highest Princes of the Realm and extending to the very lowest "hewer of wood and drawer of water." One, it seems to us, deserves more than ordinary notice-the petition of a certain John Dee, gentleman, to Philip and Mary, for the preservation of the books cast away, and for the most part destroyed, on the dissolution of the monasteries. Books," says he, are the seeds of everlasting excellence;" and he adds that many had already perished, "as at Canterbury, the workCicero de Republica."" Most scholars are familiar with the story of its re-discovery by Angelo Mai, in the form of a palimpsest; but it will interest all to know that it was extant in an English library so late as the middle of, or at least of the early part of the sixteenth century. But entries like these are by no means the whole or the staple of the volume. Sir Isaac Newton, as master of the mint, complains of his miserable salary, and of the 31. 12s. allowed him annually for coals. The mothers, wives, and sisters of defrauded soldiers complain likewise. "Nothing can be done" endorses more

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than one heart-rending petition. Indeed, applicants to the Treasury in those days were not unlike applicants in our times, especially if the application was just and deserving of public support. Roundabout modes of doing businessrather, we would say, roundabout ways of getting rid, by wearing out the patience, of honest and true applicants-were as common then as they are familiar to us now. Mr. Dickens, we believe, invented the term "circumlocution office," but he did not know that it was already in existence and in good working order in the times of William and Mary. Thus we find that the Commissioners for the Registration of Seamen "had to propose that the Lords of the Admiralty would please to move the Lords Justices to direct the Lords of the Treasury to order the Custom-house officers not to permit vessels to be cleared without giving bond for the payment of sixpence per month out of their wages"!

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A very curious volume printed for the Roxburgh Society next claims our notice, as being nearly connected with, if not actually the same, as the public documents issued under the superintendence of the Master of the Rolls; and this is, "Unedited Tracts, illustrating the Manners, Opinions, and Occupations of Englishmen during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries;" a volume containing "The Civil and Uncivil Life" (1579); "The Serving-man's Comfort" (1598); and Nicholas Breton's "The English Courtier and the Country Gentleman (1586); all of which (the two first of unknown parentage) have great value, as showing from certain and untampered-with sources what was really the social life of England during the so-called Augustan era of Elizabeth. We should state that in the case of 'Civil" and "Uncivil," these words are not used according to modern notions and ideas, but rather according to their original and derivative sense, as referring to "town" and its opposite, "country life." This portion is thrown into a dialogue, the speakers in which are named Vincent and Valentine, the former being said to have "been brought up in the country," while "Valentine's" education and life was in courts and cities. It would be impossible to follow out in any detail the many curious facts brought before us in this volume, but we cannot fail to notice that the balance in favour of simplicity and modesty of life is, strange to say, with the Court and not with the Country. Thus the Country nobles are represented as squandering their means on hosts of useless menials; the Town aristocracy, on the other hand, resisting, so far as they can, these needless luxuries, were shy of maintaining crowds of retainers, and rather sought comfort and refinement than the applause of vulgar gazers, won, as this would surely be, by extravagant and unlooked-for hospitalities. The contrast is well put in the argument between Vincent and Valentine.

"Besides these" (the gentleman's gentlemen), says Vincent, "we have sub-serving men (as I may call them) seldom in sight; as bakers, brewers, chamberlains, wardrobers, falconers, hunters, horse-keepers, lackeys, and (for the most part) a natural fool or jester to make us sport; also a cook, with a scullion or two, landerers, hinds, and hog-herds, with some other silly slaves as I know not how to name them." To which speech Valentine replies, "I thought I had known all the retinue of a nobleman's or gentleman's house; but now I find I do not, for it seemeth a whole army or camp; and yet (shall I tell you truly what I think?) this last number, though it be least, is the more necessary sort of servants, because these serve necessity, the other superfluity, or (I may call it) ambition." Many curious incidental notices we find of the manner of thought of different professions in Elizabethan times. Supposing a young man anxious

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