salary fixed by law. The committee do not admit the propriety of regarding messengers as salaried officers. The appropriation for clerks and messengers in the Third Auditor's office in the year 1830, being the first succeeding Mr. Dove's employment, was in these words: 'For compensation to the clerks and messengers in the office of the Third Auditor, twenty-one thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars.'

"In succeeeding years the appropriation was in the same, or equivalent language Under these appropriations the clerks were doubtless entitled to receive, respectively, the amount of compensation fixed by law for the grade to which they were severally appointed. But the committee have not been referred to any law which fixes the amount to be paid for the services of messengers and assistant messengers. Nor have they found any such law in their researches. If, then, there be no law directing and prescribing the amount to be paid to messengers and assistants, it follows that the department must contract for the service, and pay out of the appropriation such sums as are agreed on, not exceeding the amount appropriated. That, it is believed, has been done in the present case, and hence Mr. Dove can justly claim nothing more.

"The act approved 26th May, 1824, authorizing the employment of additional clerks and certain messengers and assistants, provides, that it shall be lawful for the officers of the departments to employ in their respective offices messengers, assistants, and other persons, as follows, (among others :) 'In the office of the Third Auditor one messenger and assistant, at a compensation together not exceeding one thousand and fifty dollars per annum.' This provision confirms the views already stated. The statute does not declare how much shall be paid to the messenger, and how much to the assistant. Nor does it say that both together shall receive the one thousand and fifty dollars. It may be less. It cannot be more. It is not to exceed that sum. But who shall decide whether it shall fall short? Evidently, the officers of the department who are vested with the authority to employ the messenger or assistant.

The committee see no just foundation for the claim of the petitioner, and recommend that it be rejected."

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

APRIL 13, 1858.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. JONES submitted the following

REPORT.

The Committee on Pensions, to whom was referred the "petition of Doct. Adam Hays, for arrears of pension from the disbanding of the army the 15th June, 1815, to the 30th of January, 1838, when his pension was first received," have had the same under consideration, and beg leave to submit the following report :

The petitioner was a surgeon in the army during the war of 1812. While in the service he contracted disease, which resulted in a hernia, which, continuing to become more and more troublesome and dangerous, at length produced "total disability;" for which, in January, 1838, he was allowed a pension, at the rate of $22 50 per month. He now asks "arrears" from the time he left the service.

The Committee on Pensions have, on two former occasions, reported adversely on this petition, since which time nothing has been presented which would induce them to reverse their opinion. The pension now allowed is up to the full rate for total disability; and the committee are not able to see, in the case of this petitioner, any good reason for a departure from the provisions of the law of 1822, which prescribes that all pensions shall be allowed only from the time of the completion of the proofs. They therefore recommend that the prayer of the petitioner be denied,

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185

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

APRIL 13, 1858.-Ordered to be printed.

Mr. JONES submitted the following

REPORT.

The Committee on Pensions, to whom was referred the "memorial of citizens of Michigan, praying that the pension granted to the Hon. Thomas Fitzgerald be extended to his children," have had the same under consideration, and report:

That Thomas Fitzgerald was at the time of his death an invalid pensioner of the United States, on account of having lost the use of his right arm, from a wound received in the war of 1812. The immediate cause of his death, (which occurred in March, 1855,) was from a fall in the street; and which, it is alleged by the petitioners, would probably not have happened but for the original disability of the This, of course, could not be a subject of positive proof. But whether it was so or not, the committee do not think the bounty of the government should be extended to the children of the deceased, and therefore recommend that the prayer of the petitioners be denied.

arm.