Approved, August 3, 1888.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 9, 1888.

The Heads of Departments: 

As a mark of respect to the memory of General Sheridan, the President directs that the several Executive Departments in the city of Washington be closed and all public business at the national capital suspended on Saturday, August 11 instant, the day of the funeral.

By direction of the President: 

DANIEL S. LAMONT,
  Private Secretary.

SPECIAL CUSTOMS RULE NO. 1.

In addition to exceptions from examination in the classified customs service made under Customs Rule II, clause 5, the following special exceptions are made: 

  In the Boston customs district, office of the naval officer:  Assistant
  deputy naval officer.

Approved, August 10, 1888.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

WAR DEPARTMENT,
  Washington City, August 14, 1888.

By direction of the President, Major-General John M. Schofield is assigned to the command of the Army of the United States.

WM.C.  ENDICOTT,
  Secretary of War.

UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION,
  Washington, D.C., August 25, 1888.

The PRESIDENT.

  SIR:  The Commission respectfully submits for your consideration the
  following extract from the minutes of its proceedings of August 23,
  1888: 

“Navy Department, August 23.  Harmony, Acting Secretary of the Navy, refers, with a request that the examination asked for therein be held at the earliest possible moment, a communication of the same date of G.S.  Dyer, lieutenant, United States Navy, in charge of the Hydrographic Office, Navy Department, requesting that Francis A. Lewis, at New York City, and Joseph T. McMillan, of San Francisco, may be noncompetitively examined for the positions of assistants at the branch hydrographic offices at those places, respectively, under General Rule III, paragraph 2 (e), stating that the positions of assistants at those offices require men specially fitted by a technical nautical education, and therefore such as is only obtained in the Navy, and that the young men referred to are recent graduates of the Naval Academy and have been honorably discharged from the service.

“The positions named in this communication, and similar positions at other branch hydrographic offices, being regarded as in the classified departmental service in the Department of the Navy, and subject to examination, and in view of the qualifications required in such positions and of the fact that the service is to be rendered at points remote from the city of Washington, it is deemed impracticable to fill these places by competitive examination.  It is therefore ordered that they be included among the places to be filled by noncompetitive examination