are sent into the field to rummage for what they can find.  This difficulty is peculiarly great where the fact to be established is the disloyalty of the claimant during the war.  If this great threat against our revenues is to have no other check, certainly Congress should supply the Department of Justice with appropriations sufficiently liberal to secure the best legal talent in the defense of these claims and to pursue its vague search for evidence effectively.

The report of the Postmaster-General shows a most gratifying increase and a most efficient and progressive management of the great business of that Department.  The remarkable increase in revenues, in the number of post-offices, and in the miles of mail carriage furnishes further evidence of the high state of prosperity which our people are enjoying.  New offices mean new hamlets and towns, new routes mean the extension of our border settlements, and increased revenues mean an active commerce.  The Postmaster-General reviews the whole period of his administration of the office and brings some of his statistics down to the month of November last.  The postal revenues have increased during the last year nearly $5,000,000.  The deficit for the year ending June 30, 1892, is $848,341 less than the deficiency of the preceding year.  The deficiency of the present fiscal year it is estimated will be reduced to $1,552,423, which will not only be extinguished during the next fiscal year but a surplus of nearly $1,000,000 should then be shown.  In these calculations the payments to be made under the contracts for ocean mail service have not been included.  There have been added 1,590 new mail routes during the year, with a mileage of 8,563 miles, and the total number of new miles of mail trips added during the year is nearly 17,000,000.  The number of miles of mail journeys added during the last four years is about 76,000,000, this addition being 21,000,000 miles more than were in operation in the whole country in 1861.

The number of post-offices has been increased by 2,790 during the year, and during the past four years, and up to October 29 last, the total increase in the number of offices has been nearly 9,000.  The number of free-delivery offices has been nearly doubled in the last four years, and the number of money-order offices more than doubled within that time.

For the three years ending June 30, 1892, the postal revenue amounted to $197,744,359, which was an increase of $52,263,150 over the revenue for the three years ending June 30, 1888, the increase during the last three years being more than three and a half times as great as the increase during the three years ending June 30, 1888.  No such increase as that shown for these three years has ever previously appeared in the revenues of the Department.  The Postmaster-General has extended to the post-offices in the larger cities the merit system of promotion introduced by my direction into the Departments here, and it has resulted there, as in the Departments, in a larger volume of work and that better done.