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a year? What is the object of your rule? It is to prevent legislation, at the end of a session, in this hurried manner; to require the safeguard of an estimate; to require the recommendation of a standing committee. But, sir, I do not know that it is worth while to urge this matter. 1 see that this amendment is to pass, and I do not believe that all the rules that ever were made will stand in the way of it.

Mr. BAYARD. I trust the Senate will rather adjourn than violate so plain a rule of order as must be violated if we receive this proposition. I am aware that the Senate is impatient, and I shall not say more than a word or two. At the same time, I deprecate the idea that under an immediate excitement connected with a trivial measure, in some respects, a great general rule of the Senate should be violated. I am in favor of the proposition on its coming properly before the Senate. I agree that the reporters of the Senate are entitled, properly-not because a different course degrades them, but because it degrades ourselves in not doing justice to them-to the same compensation you give for similar labor in the House of Representatives. I agree to that; but for all that, or for any purpose, I am not willing to introduce a precedent which violates so plainly the order of the Senate, and puts down entirely every rule or regulation you have, at the mere will of a majority. I must vote against the proposition to receive the amendment.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I am in favor of the amendment offered by the Senator from Mississippi; but I do not think, with my understanding of the rules, that it is in order, and I shall be bound to vote against receiving it. I believe the rules, as the Senator from Georgia has said, are made for minorities; and if majorities are to set them aside they will do no good. Majorities need no rules. They are for the benefit of the minority; and if it is insisted upon, therefore, that a question of order is to be made, I move that the Senate adjourn; and let this amendment come from a committee. Mr. HUNTER. Let us finish it. The motion was agreed to; there being, on a division-ayes 25, noes 15; and the Senate adjourned.

DE VISSER AND VILLARUBIA-CUSTOM-HOUSE FRAUDS AT NEW ORLEANS.

DEBATE IN THE SENATE, FRIDAY, May 14, 1858.

Mr. HUNTER's motion to reconsider the vote passing the bill for the relief of Simon De Visser and José Villarubia, of New Orleans, having been agreed to

Mr. SLIDELL. I have no disposition at all to enter into any discussion of the merits of this case. I merely wish to present a fact for the consideration of the Senate that I think will be conclusive with the majority. The purpose of the bill is to relieve Messrs. De Visser & Co. from all penalties and forfeitures incurred in consequence of fraudulent invoices of some sugar that was entered at New Orleans. I am inclined to think, in fact I am willing to concede from an examination of the testimony, that the now members of that house, the other partners of the house, were entirely innocent of all fraudulent intention; that they were the victims of a misplaced confidence in one of their partners. I shall now only move to postpone the further consideration of this bill until December next, and I will state very briefly the reasons that induce me to do so.

A full investigation of this case was had in the district court of the United States at New Orleans. De Visser & Co. were large importers of sugars and other merchandise from Havana to the port of New Orleans. There is no imputation upon the good faith of the larger portion of the members of the firm; their character is not impeached. But a person of the name of Météyé, a full partner in the concern, having, it is true, but a small share in the profits-I think some fifteen or sixteen per cent. in lieu of salary-was employed to transact their custom-house business. A discovery was made, almost accidentally, that an invoice of two hundred boxes of sugar, which, it appeared afterwards, had been fabricated in New Orleans, was a forgery, by a simple substitution of one set of figures for another, by carrying out a false mul

tiplication. The amount of the invoice on which duty was to be charged was reduced very considerably, so as to make on that single importation a difference of some two thousand dollars. This discovery was not made until some weeks, or perhaps months, after the entry of the sugar; and the sugar had been discharged and had passed into the warehouses of these gentlemen. When the discovery was made, the sugar was seized; all the facts were submitted to a jury, and a verdict in favor of the claimants of the sugar was rendered. If the sugar had been seized on board ship, the case would have been on the admiralty side of the district court, and there would have been no intervention of a jury. Be that as it may, the law officer at New Orleans, and his superiors here, think that the charge of the court to the jury, which probably caused their decision in this case, is obnoxious to very grave objections in point of law, and they have appealed from the decision of the district court to the circuit court, which sits, I think (my colleague can inform me, for he is more familiar with the details) towards the end of this month; or, at any rate, in the beginning of June. If the decision of the circuit court should affirm that of the district court, 1 shall have nothing further to say on this subject. It involves a very great principle.

The fraud which was the subject of controversy in the particular case that I have alluded to, was but one of a series of frauds, extending back for so some two or three years, including some thirty or forty entries, if I mistake not, and involving a loss of revenue, if they had not been discovered, of twenty or thirty thousand dollars. The partner who made these entries at the custom-house, charged the firm with the full amount of the duties that ought to have been levied on the invoices; but by a fraudulent change in the invoices he was enabled to enter the goods at a much lower rate of duty, and he pocketed the difference between the amount which ought to have been paid, and the amount which was actually paid under these fraudulent invoices. It does not appear, I am willing to admit, that Messrs. De Visser and Villarubia, the remaining partners in the firm, had any cognizance of these frauds, or in any degree profited by the perjury and fraud of their partner; but it is a very grave question whether a commercial house is not responsible, morally, if it is not legally, to the Government for the acts of its partners, however innocent its other members may have been of any participation in them. That is the question. That question is to be submitted to the circuit court of the United States, and will be decided in a few weeks.

I admit the case is a very hard one. These gentlemen for a time suffered in reputation and character from the act of a dishonest partner; but I have a letter here from the district attorney-I will not occupy the time of the Senate in reading it-in which he points out exceptions to the charge of the district court to the jury, which I think tenable and well founded; but at any rate this case being now on appeal to the circuit court, and very soon about to be decided, involving very grave questions of law and a large amount of moneybecause the claim against De Visser & Co., I think, amounts to $200,000 for various penalties and forfeitures-I consider it but right that the question should be submitted to the action of that court. If it should be decided by that court that these gentlemen are in no sense legally or morally responsible for the act of their partner, I certainly shall have no disposition to contest any measure of relief that may be brought forward, however early at the next session of Congress; but for the moment I think we should at least let this matter

be considered by the appellate court. I will not enter into any discussion as to the particular facts of the case, but I move now to postpone the further consideration of the bill until the first Mon

day in December next. If that motion shall fail,

I will then state to the Senate all the circumstances of the case, and dispute the bill upon its merits.

Mr. TOOMBS. I oppose the postponement of this case. It was referred to the Committee on Commerce, of which I am a member, and submitted by that committee to me. The facts are full, clear, and distinct beyond all sort of question, and I suppose the main difficulty is as to the

SENATE.

amount of forfeiture of which the custom-house officers, and probably the clerks themselves by whose omission these transactions occurred, are to be beneficiaries.

Mr. SLIDELL. In order to relieve the Senator from any embarrassment on that score, I will state that probably I should have known nothing of this case, and should not have thought proper to interpose if the officers of the custom-house had not called my attention to it.

Mr. TOOMBS. I had no doubt whatever it was a question of forfeiture with clerks who are endeavoring to visit these heavy penalties on gentlemen, whom the evidence taken before a judicial tribunal shows to be entirely innocent, to justify Se themselves for their own gross neglect. Any Senator who will read the petition in this case cannot doubt for an instant as to what ought to be done. It seems that these two gentlemen, Messrs. De Visser and Villarubia, bought out a concern then existing in New Orleans, as importers of sugars. The old house had a clerk who had attended to the business of passing their commodities through the custom-house. The new firm took him in at the rate of one eighth. He was really a clerk, but they gave him a compensation of one eighth of the profits, and afterwards carried it to fifteen per cent., his whole duty being to attend to the entries of the custom-house, he being acquainted with the language in which the original invoices were drawn, and familiar with custom-house business. They dealt to a very large amount through the custom-house. It is in evidence before the judicial tribunal which tried the case that these gentlemen paid to their clerk every dollar of the amount of duties due according to the correct invoices, that they checked for it, and that he went to the bank and drew the money, then went to the custom-house where he committed the frauds. In some cases they were done by the simple running out of figures, which would have been detected but for the carelessness of the officers of the Government. By a simple mistake in the figures in turning the Spanish money into our money he would oftentimes filch three, four, or five hundred dollars. This went on for three or four years by the grossest negligence of the officers of the United States themselves-these very clerks who are pressing the forfeitures. The evidence supporting this claim is all before me judicially settled-it is not in pais-and I will read the decision of the commissioner and the statement of the district attorney. This man, as I said, who is charged as a full partner, had but a special duty to perform, that of passing the invoices and paying the duties, and it turns out upon examination of the evidence before the court, and by the examination of the books of these gentlemen, who seem to be as honorable merchants as their fellows from all account, that they paid every dime of the legal duties. They checked for the money and he drew it out of the bank, and by the negligence of the officers of the Government he was allowed to steal on single invoices sometimes two hundred, sometimes three hundred dollars, and again would forge invoices instead of giving the true ones, thereby cheating the Government out of large amounts of duty.

When this was discovered at the custom-house, the officers did not communicate with this house; but knowing that he was in this scrape, and having confessed it to the officers of the Government, they allowed him to remain two or three days without communicating the facts to the other partners, gave him an opportunity to run away, which he did, and then arrested these two gentlemen for frauds on the United States. The case went through a thorough examination, and I will read to the Senate the admissions of the commissioner of the United States and the district attorney:

The district attorney waiving all opposition or reply to the appeal of the defense, the commissioner said he was prepared to pronounce his opinion promptly; that he could see no evidence and no circumstance implicating the gentlemen, as they were charged in the transactions of Météye; and, at the request of the defense, he promised to give a written certificate to that effect for the satisfaction of the

gentlemen.

"The district attorney then said, that now, as the case was fairly closed, he felt it incumbent on him, in justice to the gentlemen accused, as well as to the cause of truth, to express his entire concurrence in the decision of the com missioner. The examination, he was free to say, had resulted as he had believed it would, though he was impelled,

35TH CONG.... 1ST SESS.

by a sense of duty to the Government, to prosecute the matter thus far. He was gratified to find that his own private convictions were so completely demonstrated to be correct as they were by the result of the examination."

of which Congress cannot divest them by legislation. I submit that point to the consideration of the Senator from Georgia. The Secretary unThey had no participation in the frauds. They questionably can remit a penalty; and in remitting paid the correct amount of duties according to the it, as regards the United States, he has a right to original invoices. The frauds were committed by titled to no share of any forfeiture that may be say that the custom-house officers shall be enthis man, who received fifteen per cent. of the prof-made; but this is a very different question; I am its, as clerk's hire, for doing this business, instead inclined to think, a new one. If there be any of a standing salary, he having belonged to the old house whom they purchased out, and recomrights vested in these officers by the seizure, which mended by that house to them, and not knowing any constitutional action of Congress, the rights the Secretary cannot remit, I doubt whether, by anything of his character more than that. Subsequently the leading merchants of New Orleans appointed a committee to examine the books of those gentlemen, and I will read what they say. Mr. SLIDELL. Allow me to suggest to the Senator from Georgia that I think I have admitted that there is no shadow of suspicion attaching to the character of these gentlemen, and I think, that point being conceded, he may pass it over.

Mr. TOOMBS. I want to show that the carelessness was with the Government, and that therefore the Government ought not to insist on these extraordinary penalties. They have seized a cargo of sugar, not for the duties owing to the Government, but for forfeitures to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars, when the duties were but a few thousand. They sue for forfeitures for the benefit of clerks in the custom-house, when the whole fraud was produced by their own carelessness; and this opposition, as the Senator very frankly concedes, comes from them. They are the people who are seeking the forfeiture to increase their pay, when it was the neglect of these very officers that allowed the frauds to be perpetrated.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Allow me to suggest that I have only one possible doubt about the matter, and that doubt arises from my ignorance of the law governing the case. This appears to have been a very large seizure; and I suppose, if the property be condemned, the custom-house officers will be entitled to a certain proportion. Mr. TOOMBS. One half.

Mr. FESSENDEN. If Congress remits the penalties, will they not have any possible claim at all?

Mr. TOOMBS. None whatever.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I do not know the law on that point.

Mr. HAMLIN. If they do not recover the penalties they will not get any portion.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Has there not been a condemnation?

Mr. BENJAMIN. Not at all. These parties do not go into the question whether they are legally responsible; but they say it is a very cruel thing to have such a suit pending against them even if it is a legal liability.

of officers of the custom-house can be divested.

Mr. TOOMBS. There is no difficulty whatever in the suggestion of the Senator from Louisanybody. I take it the Senator will find that to iana. There is no vested right in forfeitures by by this Government from the beginning. There be a universal principle of law; one practiced upon is no such thing as a vested right in a forfeiture until there is a judgment of a court adjudicating the forfeiture. That is a universal principle; and there are cases running through your whole system of revenue laws showing it. The importance of present action is to defeat these very people who are attempting to obtain these forfeitures. The custom-house officers, for a series of years, by the greatest negligence-which would ordinarily amount to a connivance at fraud-allowed this proceeding to be carried on; and now they want the amount of the forfeiture, not the Government debt. The Government became satisfied that cruel injustice was done to these honest men, who had been imposed upon by their own clerk, and yet seek to obtain from them two or three hundred thousand dollars of a forfeiture. I will read -for it is important-the certificate of a committee appointed by the leading merchants of New Orleans on this subject. The books of these gentlemen were examined by a committee; and I beg the indulgence of the Senate while I read the results of that examination:

"At the request of Messrs. S. De Visser & Co., the undersigned have examined the above extracts* from the books of their firm, and on examining the statement and comparing its several items with the check books of S. De Visser & Co. on the Canal Bank and other banks, their cash book, invoice book, journal and ledger, and whatever other books

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Every dollar was paid by them according to the true amount of the invoices. They paid the money to this clerk, who cheated the Government by running the Spanish reals out into dollars. Ho would cheat the Government two or three hundred dollars on every invoice, and the custom-house of ficers could have detected it in a moment, if they had made the calculation as they ought to have done.

Mr. POLK. I should like to be distinctly inhave paid the duties to which the Government formed whether this house of De Visser & Co. was really entitled, or whether the only thing in controversy is the penalties on the seizure at the custom-house?

Mr. BENJAMIN. The Government had the choice of sucing for the duties as a debt, or for the forfeitures. Instead of claiming from this house the back duties, they have preferred to sue for the forfeiture of the entire invoices imported for a series of years, and commenced suit against them for over three hundred thousand dollars. They could not sue for both at once, and they have preferred to sue for the forfeiture of the invoices.

Mr. POLK. I understand that the house of De Visser & Co. have actually parted with the true amount of the duties.

Mr. TOOMBS and Mr. BENJAMIN. Every dollar.

Mr. POLK. And the fraudulent contrivance, by which the United States got less than they were entitled to, was one of which this Météyé, the clerk, got the advantage.

Mr. SLIDELL. A partner.

Mr. TOOMBS. I have stated the partnership. He was made a partner first at one eighth, and That was the evidence. then at fifteen per cent, as a mere compensation.

Mr. SLIDELL. I wish to ask whether it was not in the power of these gentlemen to have deposited in court the amount of duties short paid, which they acknowledged to be due to the United States; and whether they have done so or not? and whether, by possibility, the consequences of this act may not be to release De Visser and Vil. larubia altogether from any debt to the United have been defrauded to the amount of twenty or thirty thousand dollars by their agent?

Mr. FESSENDEN. What is the shape of this ledger, are charged with the same amounts as those named

bill?'

Mr. BENJAMIN. To discharge them from the pending suits. One suit has already been decided in their favor, but there is an appeal.

Mr. FESSENDEN. If a man recognized as their agent committed the fraud, it would not be right that the Government should lose the amount of the duties.

Mr. BENJAMIN. Oh, no; that is not provided.

Mr. TOOMBS. The Government loses nothing. Mr. MALLORY. The Senator from Maine anticipated me. I desire to ask what the rights of the seizing officers are, in case of seizure? If a forfeiture had taken place, they would undoubtedly have had a portion of the proceeds, and it would have been beyond the power of the Treasury Department to release that portion coming to them. Have they any such rights now, while the prosecution of the suit is going on?

Mr. TOOMBS. No; and that is the importance of passing the bill now-that they shall not have. They have got none now.

Mr. SLIDELL. Under certain circumstances, for certain violations of the revenue laws, the Secretary of the Treasury has a right to remit; but he has no right to remit in this case. The forfeiture has either accrued, or it has not. If it has, it seems to me there is a vested right in these officers to the extent of their interest in the seizure,

5. That the profits on their invoices have been duly carried to their profit and loss account.

6. That their books are kept in the most regular and correct manner, and bear every indication of honesty and fair dealing.

"From this examination, the undersigned conclude, that they give full credit to the above statement, as furnishing a true and correct account of the course pursued by Messrs. De Visser and Villarubia, with reference to the duties on merchandise to which it refers. That the memoranda from Météyé of the sums set forth in the foregoing statement as excess of duties returned by the custom-house,' was well calculated to induce them to believe that Méteyé, to whom the actual duties had been intrusted, had honestly used them in the payment of the duties justly due. That the books show clearly that Messrs. De Visser and Villarubia could

*These extracts were the statements copied from the books of all the custom-house entries.

35TH CONG....1ST SESS.

It was a clerk's duty. Afterwards, on account of his fidelity, as they believed, they raised his compensation to fifteen per cent. on the profits. He had no capital, but instead of giving him a standing salary as clerk, they gave him a contingent interest in the profits of the concern. He had no other duty to do but this particular one of passing goods through the custom-house, and they took him on the recommendation of the parties whom they bought out, who testified to his ability, fidelity, and good character. He discharged this duty for the firm whom they bought out for many years, without the least suspicion attaching to him. No men have acted with more caution, more prudence, more honor, or more integrity, than these gentlemen. These are not ex parte statements, but they have undergone judicial investigation, and the words used by the commissioner of the United States, and the district attorney, fully justify what I have said.

Mr. SIMMONS. I hope the Senator from Georgia will agree to allow this bill to lie over until to-morrow. If he will agree to have the Government secured in the payment of the amount actually due, I shall not object to the bill. I suppose he will not pretend that these men are not responsible for the act of their partner. Mr. TOOMBS. Not at all.

Mr. SIMMONS. I do not want to enforce a forfeiture, because I think there is a fair showing that this man was a rogue, and that they confided in him; but I would not permit them to get rid of the amount they actually owe the Government. Mr. TOOMBS. I shall not object to such an amendment, though, according to my judgment, I would relieve them even from that. I think the bill, in its present shape, does not touch that question. I do not think it right to require them to pay these duties over again, because the frauds would not have happened if the Government officers had not been to blame. If the clerks in the custom-house had made the calculations turning the reals into our money, they might have known what the duties were. The Government officers took this clerk's statements, when the slightest attention on their part would have enabled them to detect the fraud. But, for the grossest negligence of the worthless people who are generally kept about custom-houses, the thing could not have happened three times without detection. Some of the invoices, it is true, were forgeries; but most of the frauds were in the mere running out of the calculations. If the Senate differ with me, and say these parties shall be liable to duties, at all events, let the Senate put in an amendment requiring the duties to be paid.

The petition exhibits the facts as they were tried before the court. Here is the ample testimony of the judge who tried it, of the late district attorney, and the present district attorney, and of all the importing merchants of the city of New Orleans, as to the integrity of the transaction on the part of these gentlemen. The proof is that the Government officers knew all about the frauds two days before they communicated with the partners, and gave this man an opportunity to flee the country, and after having done that, they bring a suit against these gentlemen for forfeitures. think the course of the Government officers against them has been extremely hard.

Mr. SIMMONS. I never like to mulct any body in damages for the fault of a partner, but I think it would be better to let this bill lie over for the present.

Mr. TOOMBS. There is importance in carry

ing it now.

Mr. SIMMONS. Not this day. Mr. SLIDELL. The Senator from Georgia has entered somewhat into the merits of the claim upon the question of the postponement, which should have been answered by itself. I shall not reply to the attacks, I think rather harsh, and in some instances gratuitous, he has made upon the officers of the customs at New Orleans. I should be prepared to take the vote now, without further delay; but that the Senate may understand this question, I will state that these frauds run back four or five years. I will state the character and extent of them, and I will then endeavor to relieve the officers of the customs from this charge of gross negligence and incapacity which has been so freely indulged in.

De Visser and Villarubia-Mr. Slidell.

Mr. Météyé, the person who was the active agent in committing these frauds, (and it is unnecessary for me to repeat again that I absolve his partners from any moral complicity, though they have legal liability,) has been a partner in this house five or six years. The manner in which the frauds were perpetrated is not such as the Senator from Georgia represents. I do not think he understands the particulars of the case. Sugars are sold in Havana at so many reals the arroba. The arroba is about a fourth of a quintal of sugar-twentyfive or twenty-eight pounds. It is always sold at so many reals the arroba. The weights and prices of the sugar were correctly stated in the invoices. Perhaps the invoices do not give the exact amount, and in that opinion, I think, my friend from Rhode Island, [Mr. SIMMONS,] who is so exceedingly anxious to have the mode of the valuation changed, would agree with me. These gentlemen have been large importers of sugar from Havana for many years. As I said before, we will suppose that the price given for sugar was an honest and fair price; but in the particular instance on which the court passed there was an importation of two hundred boxes of sugar. A box of sugar contains about sixteen or eighteen arrobas. Then the invoice would be in these words: "two hundred boxes of sugar, containing three thousand six hundred arrobas, at so many reals per arroba." If it had been carried out so many pounds of sugar at so many cents per pound, the most negligent clerk, in running his eye over the calculations, would at once have seen that there was a mistake or a fraud in them. But the Senate will very well understand that, unless a minute critical examination was made of every multiplication and addition in this invoice, it might very well escape the observation of a clerk.

These frauds began on the 2d of August, 1854. The first importation was three hundred and thirty-five boxes of sugar. The invoice amount was $5,544, and the correct amount was $6,573; the amount of excess $1,029 72, and the duty on excess $308 91. It is unnecessary for me to do more than state that a great many entries were made of the same character, probably forty or fifty in number, the aggregate between the invoices as carried out by the additions and multiplications being $289,000 when it should have been $371,000. The amount which these invoices fraudulently represented less than the real amount was $81,725, the duty on which was $24,517. Now this system of fraud was continued without intermission during the whole period of four years, until it was discovered under the administration of the collector who was recently appointed.

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to put in that confidential position towards the general public, and towards the Government? He enjoyed this confidence at the custom-house, be. cause he was the partner of De Visser, and went there as such. These frauds probably could not have been perpetrated by him unless he had been the partner of a great commercial firm, for all we know

Mr. BENJAMIN. My colleague will remember that it is proven here that he had been the entering clerk at the custom-house for a long series of years for their predecessors.

Mr. SLIDELL. I think it will also appear that he has been their partner for the last four years.

Mr. BENJAMIN. I do not dispute that. I say that did not give him credit at the custom-house. He was palmed on them, as well as on the custom-house.

Mr. SLIDELL. If the Senate so understands the

Mr. PUGH. I want to ask the Senator from Louisiana a question. I do not understand the civil law, but I ask on what principle he calls this man a partner? He would not be so at common law, but simply a clerk.

Mr. SLIDELL. I am as ignorant of the common law as the Senator professes to be of civil law. I hope he knows a little more of the one than I do of the other. But Mr. Météyé was a full, complete partner, in every sense of the word; he had as full rights towards the public as every other member of the firm. His signature bound the firm. The gentleman shakes his head. He has just declared he knew nothing of the civil law; and when I give it to him as it is, he intimates his dissent.

Mr. PUGH. I understood the gentleman to say there was no difference.

Mr. SLIDELL. I say there is no difference, under our system of laws, on this subject. But the gentleman shakes his head, after appealing to me for information.

Mr. PUGH. The gentleman said there was no distinction.

Mr. SLIDELL. I say there is no distinction. In every sense of the word he was a full and complete partner under the civil law.

Mr. PUGH. Ah!

Mr. SLIDELL. I profess to know nothing of the common law. Now, I come to the charge of gross carelessness on the part of the custom-house officers. If the Senate understand the explanation I have already given of the manner in which these frauds were made, accompanied by some other circumstances, I think that charge of gross care

seldom steal money from their employers or the Government unless they have extravagant habits, and I think it is fair to presume that such was Mr. Météye's character; and if it were so, his partners ought to have been cognizant of it, if they exercised proper discretion. It is very easy. It may not be so in New York, but in a town like New Orleans, containing a population of one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty thousand, a man who is enjoying a revenue of three or four thousand dollars a year, cannot very well spend three times that amount without attracting public attention towards his habits of extravagance, and his partners ought to be the first men to know it; but, unfortunately, too often they are the very

last.

Now, the question is, whether it is consistent with public interest, with public policy, and, I may say, with good morals, to let innocent partners of a commercial firm escape, scot free, from the delinquency of men whom they have chosen

customs. That seems to be a point very much insisted upon. The inadequacy of the force at the New Orleans custom-house has been very often represented. I was perfectly satisfied of the fact myself, and have called the attention of the Government to it on repeated occasions. I have never been able to obtain for the officers of the customs there the same degree of aid in the discharge of their duties that has been extended to other custom-houses. We live in a remote and not a very important section of the country, and we do not receive quite as much attention here as others do. At any rate it is a fact that I assert, from my own knowledge, that the clerical aid of the customhouse has been, and now is, totally inadequate to the proper discharge of the duties of the officer of the customs in the protection of the revenue.

The character of the business at New Orleans is very different from that at New York, and other large importing towns in the country. We have a very large number of small merchants who import assortments of every variety of merchandise, and our invoices frequently occupy folios, columns of entire sheets of paper, half a dozen of them combining every possible variety of articles and every variety of price. The importations at the North are almost exclusively made by large merchants, who import in packages of great value, and then sell out to the retailers. Such is not the character of the principal importing trade of New Orleans.

Now, I say it was physically impossible, with the number of clerks employed in that branch of the service at New Orleans, to have collated all the invoices that were sent to them, and gone