same time that extra expenditure of $8,000 has been the means of effecting a saving of more than $25,000.

Q. (By Mr. BLAIR.) That would give a balance of about $16,000 of gain?-A. Yes, sir.

By Mr. PLATT:

Q. Has any person been dismissed or threatened with dismissal from the custom-house by reason of his vote, or intention to vote at a recent election?-A. No, sir; and nobody has been asked by my knowledge, certainly not with my intent, how he intended to vote. I may say that for twenty odd years I have been a large employer of labor, and that the man does not live who can say that I ever attempted to influence his vote before I went to the custom-house. I certainly should not do as collector what I did not do as a private individual.

Q. Were you aware at the time of the election of 1878, or about that time, either before or after it, of the politics of the men in the customhouse with reference to the contest between Butler and Talbot ?-A. So far as I know anything about it, they were generally Republican, and, so far as they said anything to me about it, they spoke in sympathy with what my own views were well known to be. But a very small portion of the officers of the custom-house have said anything to me about the election, very few of them. Very many of them I do not know by sight to day.

Q. What is the number of officers in the custom-house?-A. I could not tell you the whole number; there are between 300 and 400 officers who are immediately subordinate to myself. The naval office and the appraiser's office are independent of me. I should say that there were some fifty officers in those two departments. The whole number is some. where from four to five hundred.

Q. Have most of these removals and appointments been made by you upon consultation or after consultation with the Treasury Department, you giving, as to removals especially, the reasons for which removals were to be made?-A. No removals can be made without the reason is given and without the removal is confirmed by the Treasury Department. The Treasury Department several times returned my recommendations, as I had not given sufficient reasons. That was in the first of my service as collector; but in those cases in which they thought they had not had sufficient reasons, there were sufficient more to be given. No appoint ment can be made until it is confirmed by the Treasury Department.

Q. Have the removals or appointments in the custom house been made by the influence or in the interest of any political faction or party? -A. The appointments have generally been made from Republicans— those supposed to be Republicans-but not in the interest of any faction or of any partisan; and in no case has an appointment been made that I have not had personal knowledge of the appointee and of his qualifications.

Q. Has a removal of any officer in the custom-house been made except upon what seemed to you to be sufficient cause connected with his discharge of the office?-A. No person has been removed except for good and sufficient cause, aside from all political reasons and without regard to political reasons.

Q. Have you been influenced in your appointment by the recommendations of members of Congress or prominent men?-A. Not unless the recommendation coincided with my own judgment. I take the entire responsibility of my recommendations upon myself.

Q. Have there or not been many instances in which you have failed.

to comply with the wishes of members of Congress and prominent politicians, and in which they seemed to be very much dissatisfied ?—A. I believe that there is a general complaint of me in that respect.

Q. That you are too independent?-A. That I do not make changes enough. They do not seem to think that 25 or 30 removals are enough in a force of nearly 400 in a year and a half.

Q. Will you take the pains to count and to give to the stenographer the number of removals and appointments?-A. [Referring to memorandum.] There seem to have been up to the 28th of May, 1879, in a period of one year and two months, 28 removals. I do not remember of any removals since; possibly there may have been one or two. [To the chairman. I forgot this memorandum when you asked me the same question, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN (after referring to the list in evidence). I make it 29. The WITNESS. That of Shelton was properly a resignation. [To Mr. Platt.] There were 21 offices abolished, making, with 29 removals, a total of 50. There were 58 appointments.

By Mr. PLATT:

Q. You say that you have created no new offices?-A. I should make an explanation in that respect. When the annual examination was made last fall, they found (though this had all been done with the authority of the department, to be sure) that we had watchmen detailed from the labor roll, and that we had clerks detailed from the labor roll; that is, men on the labor roll who are not sworn officers of the government, but who are upon that roll at $2 a day while performing the duties of watchmen and of clerks. They recommended that those should be changed to officers and sworn. For instance, the scrub-woman of the custom-house is a sworn officer of the government by direction of the Treasury Department. That is one of the appointments. So that there is quite a large number of appointments that did not necessitate removals and which were not actual appointments; they were simply changes in the designation from night watchman to laborer, or clerk or customhouse cleaner and so on. Then, as you know, there are more or less of

resignations and several deaths.

Q. This office was made the subject of some special investigation by special agents?-A. The special agents annually go through the different custom-houses, or they are supposed to. I can give this as a sample. We had at that time six night watchmen in the custom-house iu the appraiser's building. They were not returned or recorded as night watchmen, but as laborers on the labor roll-there being a labor roll of 42-but they were performing the duties of night watchmen and receiv ing their pay monthly as laborers. The special agents recommended that they should be changed, I concurring in the recommendation. I suggested the recommendation that they should be changed from the labor roll to night watchmen that they might be sworn in, made sworn officers and responsible to the government as customs officers. Those, too, being taken from the labor roll, made that roll so much less. There are eight of the new appointments.

Q. The number of appointments in excess of the number of removals, then, is accounted for by deaths, resignations, and by giving to persons who are employed, without being specially designated, designations?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Is there any other thing which you desire to state in connection with this inquiry?-A. I do not know that there is, excepting this, that the force of the custom-house could be still further reduced if no regard

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was paid to the claims of decrepid soldiers or of men who have grown in the service. Fifty men could do the work of sixty if a man should remorselessly take out the men who are incapacitated by age or wounds, remove them and put younger or more competent men in their places. The expenses could be reduced largely if that practice was followed.

Q. Do you or not believe that the efficiency of the custom-house has been promoted or increased under your administration ?-A. It would perhaps not be proper for me to express an opinion in that regard. The business of the custom house has increased this last year, notwithstand. ing that we have had less force, and I have heard no complaint of any neglect on the part of any of the officers.

Q. If a man thinks that he has done a good thing, I do not see that modesty requires that he should keep silent about it?-A. I have no fault to find with the public expression in that respect, without saying anything myself.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. I find upon the list produced by you, fifty-eight appointments, and among them ten styled new appointments. Those are night watchmen with one exception, that of a day watchman ?-A. Permit me to look over it. [After looking over list.] The day watchman is a man who has no arms. He had been employed on the labor roll.

Q. That is treated as a new office?-A. Yes.

Q. That leaves then, twenty-nine removals and twenty-one offices abolished?—A. Each entry under the head "Appointments" will show you in whose places the appointees were put.

Q But I want to get at the aggregate.-A. Here [indicating] is one appointment where there was no removal. Mr. White, my confidential clerk of correspondence, is in place of Mr. Allen, resigned. In each case here, I have given the name of the man in whose place the appointee was put in; that is to say, I so directed my regular secretary, Mr. White, who was more conversant with this than anybody else. The gentleman who made this up, Mr. Allen, is now away on his vacation. It was made up from the books; 1 have no doubt it is correct, though there may be one or two mistakes.

Q. I want simply to get the aggregate. There are forty-eight of the old places there that have been filled by appointments, and the total number of removals and officers abolished is fifty; so that the total reduction in the old force amounts to two?-A. I beg your pardon—the force is reduced in number to the extent of the offices abolished. No new offices have been created, but there has been a change of designation, of name or classification.

Q. Fifty is the total that the statement shows?-A. Yes; but as to those appointments, I told you I had not made all of them, and you have not counted in the resignatious and deaths.

Q. Does this statement show the actual number of the reduction in the force?-A. Yes, sir; as I have said, the offices abolished up to the 28th day of May, amount to nineteen, which, with three added since, make twenty-two offices abolished.

Q. In the new appointments that have been made outside of the force, and since these offices were abolished, were any of the former officers included?—A. There were sixteen restored who were formerly in the custom house and turned out.

Q. Did you say you had appointed any Democrats since you had been there? You know the political proclivities of your men?-A. Certainly. I have not professed to appoint Democrats.

Q. You would not appoint a Democrat to office?-A. I don't know but that I would.

Q. You would prefer a Republican ?-A. Everything being equal, I think I would naturally.

Q. How do you get the political opinions of your employés ?—A. I have not appointed any upon that consideration. I am pretty well acquainted with the people throughout the State, however.

Q. You know all about the men who came in before you went there? -A. I made two rules for the government of my inquiries when I went in there, and these were, first, as to the efficiency of a man, and, next, as to the character he bore in the place in which he lived; and I pursued those inquiries in every case.

Q. Then nobody whatever was discharged from the custom-house this last year because of his political sentiments?-A. No, sir.

Q. And no man was appointed by you who was a Democrat?—A. I never made any professions of appointing Democrats. I never took any contract of that kind.

Q. You said a while ago that none of your employés went out for political work?-A. The employés in my building have no privileges excepting to go out of hours, or on leaves of absence, and are restricted in the latter to the absences allowed by the regulations.

Q. Were none of them detailed by you for political work in Boston? -A. Never.

Q. Nor by anybody with your knowledge?-A. By nobody with my knowledge.

Q. Nor for political work beyond Boston ?-A. No, sir.

Q. You did not permit that, if you knew it?-A. I did not say that. What they do outside of the custom house is none of my business.

Q. Have you given any of them leaves of absence outside of the rules? -A. I have given them to all the men impartially, what was due to them. They are entitled to fourteen days.

Q. Can you tell me how many leaves of absence you granted in October last?-A. I could as to the weighers and inspectors, who are in the surveyor's department; I granted no leave of absence in that department unless the application came with the approval of the surveyor, nor to any clerks unless with the approval of the deputy in the department.

Q. It is a machine wielded by the head of each department?—A. The head of each department is competent to say who in his department deserves leave of absence.

Q. Do you not know that leaves of absence were granted with special reference to political work?—A. No, sir; I know that General Swift was absent and made speeches last year; I know he went out to go down to Maine last year, and I think he will this year.

Q. How do you get to know the political proclivities of your employés? The WITNESS. Mr. Chairman, do you think that these are questions which I ought to answer; do you think that they apply to any proper investigation? I am willing to give any information that I think is within a proper limit.

The CHAIRMAN. I only want to know from you, Mr. Collector, whether there is a system of espionage in your department?-A. There is not; nobody is hired by me to dog around and watch men or to know what house of ill fame men go to.

Q. I speak of the department itself, not of the outside of it?-A. The officers whose special businesss it was to do that thing before I went there have gone away.

Q. They have left. There were such things going on?-A. I could not say so under oath.

Q. You have nothing of that kind?-A. Nothing of that kind; I don't believe in a spy system myself; I leave that to the gentleman who prompts your question.

The CHAIRMAN. No one prompted that question, certainly. It originated with myself. If there are wrongful practices existing in the custom-house, I wish to know of them and am able to prompt any question in that direction.

The WITNESS. I would just as lief have any one ask me if I had committed theft, as to be asked if I had dogged any one around.

The CHAIRMAN. The question came, sir, from your own heat. If you had not shown restiveness, you would not have got the question. Being here to perform a duty I intend to perform it without regard to the restiveness of officials. Were you at a meeting at which Mr. Oden Thayer, Mr. George G. Crocker, Mr. Stebbins, officers of the State committee, and candidates for State officers were present in October, 1878, a political gathering?-A. I was at many political gatherings; I was never at a meeting of the State committee.

Q. I ask you as to one?-A. I was at several political gatherings; I was at the State committee room often; I am an active political worker, have been, and always expect to be.

Q. You have told us that repeatedly. Now will you answer my question: were you at a meeting with Mr. Thayer, Mr. Crocker, and Mr. Stebbins, with reference to the management of the campaign of 1878?— A. I was at several of them, not with reference to the management of the campaign particularly, but I was at several of the meetings that were held; I don't belong to the committee.

Q. What was the conversation between you and those gentlemen with reference to that matter?-A. It was nothing with reference to the custom-house or to anything connected with the inquiries that you are pursuing.

Q. Had it no reference to the management of political affairs within the State?-A. That is a very broad and general question.

Q. I only want to know whether the Federal officials in the city of Boston do take part in the political management of general or State elections-A. I think that the President's order allows them orally and in writing to take part in the political campaigus.

The CHAIRMAN. You may answer that question.

The WITNESS. I have answered it. You just told me that I had an swered a question several times. I don't want to repeat my answers until they become tiresome.

Q. Did you consult with the committee or the candidates during the campaign?—A. I don't remember. I may have and may not. They are not consulting men much, the kind of men we have here.

Q. Did you consult with Mr. Brimmer during the time of his canvass ? —A. I don't think that I saw Mr. Brimmer from the time he was nominated until he was defeated.

Q. You had nothing, then, to do with the management of his campaign from the time of his nomination until the election ?-A. I don't think that I had, any more than any other citizen.

Q. You did not consult with him?-A. I don't think I did. I think I told him that if he was nominated he ought to accept. I told him that, if I had the opportunity to tell it to him.

Q. Was the custom-house made use of in bringing or effecting nominations in the city or State? The political machinery here has been used in