table of the various cut-offs that our steamers only lose seven miles in the whole trip to Hankau by avoiding this one-no great sacrifice for them if thereby life and property are rendered more secure.

There is no power in the Chinese government to close the others without our assent. You allude to strategic and other reasons which have induced them to close this, but only one reason has ever been brought forward by them, viz: a desire to prevent accidents in future and relieve the fears of the native boatmen, and I have no idea that they have had any other motive or object.

They have issued no edict about the matter, for it could not affect us. They have, in the exercise of their guardianship of their own territory, shown the danger of this channel, and I have issued a decree supporting and enforcing the regulation over American steamers. The British minister has done the same, and the French, Russian, and Prussian min isters all approve the propriety of this rule, which does not close the navigation of the river in any way, and merely requires steamers to take the safest of two channels.

If the Chinese steamers use the forbidden passage, they should be reported and required to keep to the main channel.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

G. H. C. SALTER, Esq.

U. S. Consul, Hankau.

S. WELLS WILLIAMS.

No. 18.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, February 6, 1869.

SIR: Referring to Mr. Williams's despatch No. 25, of the 22d of August, 1868, enclosing copies of a regulation made and published by him, with the assent (nearly unanimous) of our consuls in China, for the purpose of giving effect to the prohibition by the Chinese government of the use of the "Straw Shoe channel" to steamers navigating the Yangtsze river, I have to state that this regulation, as a notification to citizens of the United States of the consequences of disregarding an order of the Chinese government, made in the exercise of the police of its internal waters, is reasonable and necessary for the security of navi gation, and is approved.

The fourth section of the act of June 22, 1860, (12 Stat., 73,) to which you refer, has for its principal object to enable our chief diplomatic representative to establish such process, pleadings, and practice, in the consular courts as may be necessary to give effect to the treaties and to the laws of the United States, including the common law, equity, and admiralty. The succeeding section appears to be intended as an enumeration of the subjects to which the power granted by the fourth section is applicable. It is certainly judicious to avoid, as I understand Mr. Williams has avoided, the assertion of a power in the minister to make that unlawful which was not forbidden by the laws of the United States or of China. Such a power is legislative, while the act cited purports by its title and the general tenor of its provisions to confer only judicial power.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

J. Ross BROWNE, Esq, &c., &c., de.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Report of the supervising architect, relative to the marine hospital at Chicago, Illinois.

MARCH 1, 1869. Referred to the Committee on Commerce and ordered to be printed.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, February 27, 1869.

SIR: In response to the resolution of House of Representatives of the 20th ultimo, calling for certain papers and information respecting the marine hospital at Chicago, Illinois, now in course of erection, I have the honor to submit a report of the supervising architect of this department, with accompanying papers, which will, I believe, be found to contain all the information required by the resolution.

Very respectfully,

Hon. SCHUYLER COLFAX,

HUGH MCCULLOCH,

Secretary of the Treasury.

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

Office of the Supervising Architect, February 27, 1869.

SIR: In accordance with your instructions I have prepared and have the honor to submit the following report, which I believe will be found to embody the information called for in the following resolution of the House of Representatives, adopted January 20, 1869, viz:

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to communicate to the House all the facts, estimates, contracts, correspondence, and official papers connected with the building of the marine hospital at Chicago, Illinois, and to state whether the estimates for building such hospital exceed the amount provided specifically by law; and if so, by what authority the building of said hospital has been undertaken to cost a larger sum.

The Secretary of the Treasury was directed by the first section of the act approved June 20, 1864, to dispose of the marine hospital and grounds in Chicago by public auction to the highest bidder, and to

"make, execute, and deliver to the purchaser a good and sufficient deed for the premises, conveying all the right, title, and interest of the United States."

The second section of the act directed the Secretary of the Treasury, out of the proceeds of the sale, "to purchase a new and more eligible site and erect a new hospital thereon," but provided that the new building and site should in no event cost more than the amount realized from the sale of the old hospital and grounds. It was further provided that possession of the old hospital and grounds should be retained by the department until the new building should be completed and ready for use. In accordance with the provisions of this act, the property was sold in the month of September, 1864, at public auction, under the administration of my predecessor, to Mr. J. F. Joy, for the sum of $132,000, which was promptly paid, and a deed for the premises duly executed and delivered to the purchaser.

It will be observed that the act assumed, without knowing what sum would be realized from the sale of the property, that the proceeds would be sufficient to purchase a new site and erect a hospital with ample accommodations for the requirements of the marine hospital service at the port of Chicago, and also that the new building would be completed so speedily that the retention of the old hospital would not materially affect the rights of the purchaser, who, by the first section of the act, was the holder of a deed conveying "all the right, title, and interest of the United States." These results have not been realized. The conditions under which the property was offered undoubtedly affected the sale very materially, persons being unwilling to purchase without obtaining possession at once, or at a fixed period thereafter; as a consequence the amount available for the erection of the new building was less than was anticipated, and far less than the amount necessary to erect a hospital building adequate for the port of Chicago. The purchaser of the property is, also, still deprived of possession, although he paid the full amount of the purchase money more than four years since, and holds a deed conveying to him "all the right, title, and interest of the United States.”

The records of the department show that due diligence was observed in endeavoring to procure a suitable site for the new hospital in pursu ance of the requirements of the law, but, at the time of my accession to office, no site had been obtained. In the Secretary's report for that year (1865) certain recommendations, based upon a thorough examination of the workings of the marine hospital establishment under the existing system, were made, which, it was confidently believed, would induce Congress to sanction the policy of dispensing with most of the United States hospitals, and of substituting therefor the system of providing for the marine patients by contract in municipal or private hospitals, thereby obviating the necessity for erecting any new hospitals, including the proposed hospital at Chicago.

These recommendations of the Secretary were but partially adopted. The act of April 20, 1866, simply authorized the Secretary to dispose of certain marine hospital buildings and lands appertaining thereto, but did not release the department from the obligation to erect a marine hospital at Chicago. The purchaser of the property, Mr. J. F. Joy, having in the mean time demanded possession of the property he had paid for, as already stated, and claimed damages for its detention, the Secre tary of the Treasury, on the 25th of April, 1866, addressed a letter to Hon. E. B. Washburne, chairman of the Committee on Commerce of the House of Representatives, asking such a modification of the second sec tion of the act of June 20, 1864, as would authorize the department to

surrender possession of the property to the purchaser and legal owner; also, on the 14th of November following, to Hon. Lyman Trumbull, United States Senate, to the same effect, the department being prohibited, by that act, from affording Mr. Joy any relief.

No action having been taken by Congress upon these suggestions, all negotiations for the purchase of a site having proved unsuccessful, and the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 17th of December, 1866, in relation to the erection of the hospital, clearly indicating that the law directing its construction would not be repealed, but that the immediate prosecution of the work was expected, I proceeded to Chicago, and, within two weeks after the adoption of the above resolution, effected the purchase, for the sum of $10,000, of ten acres of land on the lake shore, admirably adapted for hospital purposes, the title to which was subsequently approved by the Attorney General. That this property was purchased at a remarkably low figure-indeed below its value has never been questioned, and it certainly was the cheapest property offered to the department.

A site having been obtained it became my duty to prepare plans for a building of sufficient capacity to meet the requirements of the marine hospital establishment for the port of Chicago, and, as a consequence, the size and cost of the proposed hospital was determined by the neces sities of the service, and not by the amount of the appropriation, which it was evident was entirely inadequate. There remained but three courses open to the department.

First. Not to build a hospital.

Second. To erect a building within the amount of the appropriation without regard to the necessities of the service for which it was intended. Third. To commence a durable and suitable building of sufficient capacity to provide the requisite accommodations.

The first course had been recommended by the department, but, as previously shown, not authorized by Congress; and as any further delay would only increase the amount of damages due Mr. Joy, the department did not feel justified in pursuing that course.

The second course, it is obvious, would have been a culpable and unjustifiable waste of the public funds, and would in all probability have resulted in the sale of the so-called hospital at a fraction of its cost, as in the case of the marine hospitals at Burlington, Vermont; Burlington, Iowa; Cincinnati, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; Evansville, Indiana, and Galena, Illinois, and it could not for a moment be supposed that such was the intention of Congress. There remained, therefore, but the third alternative.

Before, however, determining the course of the department, an examination of the precedents in similar cases was made, the result of which is embodied in the accompanying table marked No. 1, from an examination of which it will be seen that in no case has any important structure ever been erected within the limit fixed by the original appropriation therefor, whether erected by days' work or under contract, even in cases where the law had expressly provided that the work should not be commenced until a contract had been executed for the completion of the building within the amount of the appropriation; on the contrary, Congress has invariably sanctioned the construction that the limitation was not intended to compel the erection of an unsuitable or inadequate structure, but as a restriction to the absolute necessities of the government. The same precedent will be found in all appropriations for public improvement, under any department of the government.

It may, however, be objected that the building has been unnecessarily

costly, and that a suitable hospital could have been erected for the amount of the appropriation. I have, therefore, prepared table No. 2, which exhibits the cost of the hospitals erected under the supervision of my predecessors and prior to 1880, from which it will be seen that the cost per cubic foot and the cost per bed will be less in the new hospital (taking the highest estimate for its completion) than in buildings erected prior to the war.

At the same time the building is far superior to them, the exterior walls being of Joliet and Athens stone, with a roof of copper and slate, no pains being spared to make it permanent, while the buildings with which it is compared are principally of brick, with cast-iron dressings and corrugated iron roofs, and so badly constructed that they have either been remodelled and recovered at great expense,.or must be as rapidly as appropriations can be obtained therefor.

In the preparation of plans for the building I availed myself as well of the counsel of eminent physicians of large experience in hospital matters and of the officers of the department in charge of the marine hospital establishment, as of the recorded results of the various structural and sanitary experiments which had been made in that branch of the service since its foundation, my aim being to produce an edifice better adapted for marine hospital purposes than any previously constructed, which would not only be a credit to the government, an ornament to the city of Chicago, and supply the increasing wants of that rapidly growing city, but which would fully meet the requirements of the marine hospital establishment in the northwest, thereby rendering the construction of other buildings for marine hospital purposes in that section unneces

sary.

Instances are not wanting in the history of the marine hospital establishment where large sums of money have been expended for buildings entirely disproportionate to the requirements of that branch of the service at the points where the buildings were authorized by law to be erected. On the other hand, many of the public buildings erected in accordance with the letter of the law have either been built of such inferior materials and in such unworkmanlike manner, or, where well constructed, so entirely inadequate to the wants of the service that it has become necessary to make further and larger appropriations to provide adequate and suitable accommodations in accordance with the original intent of the law. My object, therefore, was to avoid either of these extremes of precedent, which, although established under the sanction of the letter of the law, were manifestly failures to fulfil the objects which the law had in view, beside involving in each instance useless expenditures of the public moneys, and to accomplish what the law in this particular instance evidently contemplated, viz., the erection of a building at Chicago which would meet the wants of that branch of the service for which it was designed; and that, so far as the plans I have prepared, and the progress of the construction of the building thus far are concerned, I have been successful in my efforts in that direction, has never, so far as I am aware, been questioned.

The unvarying result of observation and experience in the wide field for practice and experiment in hospital matters afforded by the late war had demonstrated the fact that the best hygienic results are attained by isolating the sick wards from other parts of the building and restricting the number of longitudinal rows of beds to two instead of four or six, as formerly, and also exposing the external walls of each ward to the atmosphere. The correctness of this principle has now become so generally recognized that I much doubt if any first-class hospital will hereafter be constructed upon any other.