by the person with whom you shall make the contract, in which receipt must be stated the number of kegs or boxes of specie transported, the date of deposit of such specie, the place of departure and place of arrival, with the distance between the two places, and the number of days employed in going and returning. The receipt must be accompanied by your affidavit that the per diem charge for the transportation is just and reasonable. 2. If a steamboat be employed for the transportation of the specie, a receipt of the captain or clerk of the boat is required for the sum paid as freight of the same, in which receipt the number of kegs or boxes of specie transported on board of said boat, and date of arrival of such specie at the place where landed, must be stated. 3. If specie be transported a part of the distance by land to any point on the route, and from thence by water to the place of deposit, then the above instructions applicable to transportation by land as well as by water, must be strictly complied with. 4. If a guard be employed by you for the security of the specie while in transit from the Land Office to the place of deposit, for the whole distance, or for any part of the same, his receipt for the sum paid him, as a per diem allowance, is required; in which receipt, must be specified the number of kegs or boxes of specie transported; the date of deposit of such specie; the place of departure and place of arrival; the distance between the two places; and the time employed in going and returning. The receipt must be accompanied by your affidavit that the per diem paid the guard is just and reasonable, and the Register is required to certify that the number of days he may charge for is correct. 5. If specie be transported by a wagon and team owned by you, a reasonable per diem allowance will be made for the use of the same, sufficient to cover the actual cost of transportation, exclusive of your personal expenses on the trip,-it being intended and understood that the allowance for mileage and risk in making a deposit are to cover your personal expenses. This item you will debit in your next quarterly account to be rendered thereafter, specifying the number of kegs or boxes of specie transported, the date of deposit of such specie, and the number of days employed in going and returning. It is also required that you will forward with the account, your own affidavit that your charge for the transportation is just and reasonable. 6. Whenever the specie boxes used in the transportation can be disposed of at the place of making the deposit at such price as will justify the sale of them, you are requested to sell them, and to credit the amount received for the same in your next account to be rendered thereafter; but should you be unable to dispose of them upon such terms, it is desirable they should be carried back to your office, to be used again for a like purpose on another occasion. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, No. 363. Circular to Registers of Land Offices and Receivers of Public Moneys. GENERAL LAND OFFICE, October 13, 1845. Gentlemen :-The Secretary of the Treasury having so far modified his Circular of Instructions, under date of 13th June last, relative to accounts for postages, as to dispense with a special order from the Department, for payment in each case, as therein prescribed, the instruction in my Circular of 28th June last, is of course modified accordingly. The postages on all public letters and documents charged to both of your offices, from day to day, is to be paid by the Receiver, and at the end of the quarter, he will transmit a detailed account of the same, receipted by the Postmaster and verified by your oaths, as vouchers to his quarterly ac count. Should it be considered, between you, a convenient arrangement for the Register to pay his own postages as they accrue, and at the end of the quarter to be re-imbursed by the Receiver for the amount of the Postmaster's account for the whole term, (verified by his own affidavit,) such course may be adopted. The official inconvenience found to result from including many subjects in the same letter, has induced me to rescind the instructions of the circular aforesaid in this respect, and to revert to the former regulation under the Circular of 25th May, 1831, (sixth clause thereof,) which requires that every subject should constitute a separate letter. All letters, reports and documents transmitted by you to this Office, are to be endorsed in the mode prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury in the annexed Circular. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, If All official letters, reports, and communications to this Department, or to the head of any office thereof, will be folded and enclosed in a wrapper; and on the middle fold will be endorsed the name of the person making the same, with his official title, the place from which sent, the date, and a brief analysis of its contents, in the manner indicated by the annexed form. more than one paper is sent, the analysis should contain the substance of all such papers, or the subject of them, and the number of papers enclosed should be stated. On the outside wrapper should be endorsed the name of the office from which the communication is sent, when transmitted by any officer of the Government. An observance of this regulation will much promote the convenience of all the officers and clerks of the Department, and will ensure a more prompt attention to the communications thus endorsed. The heads of the different offices of the Department are particularly requested to conform to this rule, and to enforce it on all who address communications to them. J. C. SPENCER, Secretary of the Treasury. When there is more than one paper enclosed, each paper must be separately endorsed, as to its nature, viz :-"Return of specie"-"Monthly return of moneys received and disbursed"-" Weekly return of moneys received and disbursed," &c. ENDORSEMENT. E. Curtis, Collector. New York, March, 17, 1843. Account of Receipts and Expenditures for week ending 11th instant. Also transmits application of A. B. to make entry under Act of 1st March, 1823, with three papers enclosed. No. 364. Circular. GENERAL LAND OFFICE, May 14, 1846. Gentlemen-Enclosed I send you a copy of an act entitled "An act to repeal a part of the act entitled 'An act supplementary to the several laws for the sale of the public lands,' approved April fifth, one thousand eight hundred and thirty two," and for other purposes, approved May 8th, 1846. (No. 104.) Under the provisions of this act, forty-acre tracts, or quarter-quarter sections, are subject to entry, selection, or location, precisely in the same manner that eighty-acre tracts, or half-quarter sections, have heretofore been; consequently, the affidavits for the entry of quarter-quarter sections heretofore required will now be dispensed with; and it will no longer be necessary to note these entries on the returns as being under the Act of fifth April, 1832. All lands, however, will be offered at public sale in half-quarter sections, or eighty-acre tracts, as heretofore. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, JAMES SHIELDS, Commissioner. Register of the Land Office, and Receiver of Public Moneys at No. 365. Circular. GENERAL LAND Office, Gentlemen-Complaints having been made to this Office, that Registers of some of the district land offices demand fees of persons wishing to locate Military Bounty Land Warrants, it is deemed proper to inform you that there is no warrant of law for fees in such cases, and that the reception of them is expressly inhibited. Five hundred dollars per annum is allowed as a salary for Registers, and for this all services required of those officers pursuant to acts of Congress must be performed, except where there is an express allowance made by law. This is the principle that must govern in all cases where application is made to enter land under any description of certificate, scrip, or warrant, and any complaints of this character, made to this Office after the reception. of this circular, will be submitted to the President, for such action as he may consider necessary in the premises. Your attention is called to the annexed copy of a circular from the Secretary of the Treasury, of 18th October, 1843, and you are requested to acknowledge the receipt hereof by return mail. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Commissioner. Register and Receiver, Land Office at Circular to Registers of the Land Offices and Receivers of Public Money. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, October 18, 1843. Sir-It has been intimated to this Department, that at some of the Land Offices fees are demanded or received for services prescribed by law, but to which the law has attached no compensation. Such practice, if it exists, and under whatever circumstances, must cease. The right to demand or receive fees of those for whom official duties are performed, by Registers and Receivers, can only be derived from the express authority of law, and must be limited to the services and occasions for which the law has prescribed them. The public have a right to be protected from all charges for your official services except such as have been imposed upon them by law; and under no circumstances, therefore, can fees not allowed by law, or more than the legal compensation, be demanded or received by the Registers or Receivers for the performance of their official duties. If the legal compensation be deemed inadequate to the labor or responsibility of the service, the remedy is not with the Land Office, nor with this Department, but with Congress alone. It cannot be tolerated by this Department that land officers shall regulate the amount of their own compensation, and appeal for payment to the generosity of those to whom their official services are rendered. I feel it my duty, therefore, as well to enforce the law and protect the community from unauthorized demands as to insure the purity of the public service, distinctly to apprise you that the prohibition of the demand or receipt by Registers or Receivers for official services of any compensation not prescribed by law, must henceforth be regarded as absolute and peremptory. (Signed) J. C. SPENCER, To the Secretary of the Treasury. No. 366. Circular to Registers and Receivers of the several Land Offices of the Union. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, The Registers and Receivers in the several Land Offices in the Union, cannot become purchasers of, depositories or agents for the sale of, the Bounty Land Warrants or Certificates, or any other species of land scrip for location or in payment of public lands. Their duty in relation to such warrants, certificates, or scrip, is prescribed by the law, and is confined to their reception or location, as therein designated. It is expected that these instructions will be faithfully observed, and it will be the duty of this Department. to report all violations of these regulations for such action as may be deemed proper by the President of the United States. R. J. WALKER. No. 367. Circular. GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Gentlemen :-In order that the business of this Office may be carried on promptly and energetically, it is absolutely necessary that the District Land Officers should make their returns immediately after the close of each month and quarter. To do this, it is only necessary that the operations of each day should be entered at the close of it, in the monthly and quarterly returns; and thus, within two or three days after the close of the month or quarter, those returns can be mailed to this Office. It is hoped and expected, that these instructions, the receipt of which you will please acknowledge, will be strictly attended to in future, as the prompt discharge of the business in this Office imperatively demands, that such repeated neglect should not be overlooked. There are of course many meritorious exceptions to which this requirement is not applicable. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, RICHARD M. YOUNG, Commissioner. Register and Receiver at No. 368. GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Gentlemen :-The numerous entries of tracts which had been previously sold at some of the Land Offices, have become extremely embarrassing to this Office, and is in every instance detrimental to the interests of the purchaser. They are owing, it is believed, to the Register relying upon the marks and indications on the plats alone, in ascertaining whether the tract applied for has been entered, or is still vacant. I have therefore to urge upon the Register the necessity of keeping the sales of each day, promptly and correctly posted in the tract books, and whenever a purchaser presents his application, to make a careful examination of the tract book in connection with the plat, to ascertain whether the tract applied for is certainly vacant, before he certifies to that fact. The adoption of, and rigid adherence to, the course here suggested, will effectually remedy the evil complained of. It is also enjoined upon the Register and Receiver to make a rigid and careful examination and comparison of their respective returns, the one with the other, and each with the purchaser's application, plats and tract books, with the view of detecting and correcting any errors or discrepancies that may appear in the orthography of the names, description of the tracts, quantity, purchase-money, &c., before they are certified to, and transmitted to this Office, as is required by the 33d clause of Circular of 25th May, 1831,* and the Circular of 29th September, 1831.† To the Register and Receiver at RICHARD M. YOUNG, Commissioner. The thirty-third clause of the Circular of 25th May, 1831, requires, that prior to the transmission of each monthly abstract of sales, with the receipts and certificates of purchase, the same shall be carefully compared with the "applications" and maps. The greatest particularity is enjoined as to the correct orthography of the name, and the correct designation of the tract. The Register is also required to be punctual in marking on the township plats, from day to day, the lands sold. The Circular of 29th September, 1831, to Registers and Receivers, requires :First. That prior to the transmission of the monthly abstract of sales, with the receipts and certificates of purchase to this Office, a careful examination and com |
