ers why their application was not made to the Patent Office. Full and ample powers are by the existing laws conferred on the officers of that bureau to extend the patent on a proper case being made out, in conform ity with the sound policy of the law, which protects alike the rights and interest of the patentee, and also the public interest, against the misrepre sentations and frauds of pretended inventors. An application to Congress, therefore, is an application to defeat the policy of the existing law, and to practise a fraud on the public interest. Your committee therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolution: Resolved, That the prayer of the petitioners be rejected. The Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, to whom were referred Senate bill No. 147, the letters of the Postmaster General, the First, Second, and Third Assistant Postmasters General, and the letter of the Chief Clerk of the Post Office Department, have had the same under consideration, and respectfully report: That, in the opinion of the committee, the actual wants of the public service furnish the only true standard whereby the appropriations of Congress should be regulated. The following letters from the Postmaster General and his assistants and the Chief Clerk of the department show conclusively that the additional force of which they treat is indispensable to the proper performance of the duties of the department. POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, March 4, 1850. SIR: In my annual report, which accompanied the President's message at the opening of the present session, I, as in duty bound, briefly presented the pressing wants of this department for additional clerks. While the business of the office has greatly increased with the growth of the country, no additional force has been granted for thirteen years. Some events which have recently transpired have very greatly increased the service within the past year. Four hundred new routes created by Congress have been put in operation. California, with all its golden prospects, has devolved on the department a whole new field of mail operations, both on the way to and in that country and Oregon, requiring extensive and careful attention. The postal treaty with Great Britain has been put in operation by proper regulations within the past year; and to keep and render the accounts between the two countries in pursuance thereof, and to select and return the dead letters, and give the necessary instructions, and extend the required supervision of that service, has very much increased the labor of the department. The terms of that treaty enable this country, through England, to exchange closed mails with the continental nations, either with prepaid or unpaid postage. But it is impracticable fully to avail the country of this arrangement until some further force is granted to this department to carry out the service. Under these circumstances, I have procured from the experienced officers in the department statements of the additional number of clerks now necessary to perform efficiently the duties of the respective divisions, which are herewith sent; by which it appears that the following number in all is required, to 1 desire it to be understood that, in my opinion, the same are necessary for the public service, and that, without them, the service must essentially suffer. SIR: The business that was prescribed to this office when its present force was assigned to it, in 1837, (which force was then barely sufficient,) has increased at least one-third; and now, within a period of little more than a year past, new and important duties have devolved upon it. Simply to meet the present requirements, there should be an additional force provided of at least five more clerks-three of the first grade, one of the second, and one of the third. More than two years since, an extra copying clerk was employed. Beyond this, the improved capacity that practice and experience give has enabled the clerks to keep pace with the increase of their business. Appropriation for this extra clerk has been made till lately. The necessity for his employment is as great now as it has ever been heretofore-indeed greater. The following may be enumerated as the new business, exclusive of the original duties of the office, and the increase arising within the last thirteen years: 1st. The course and distribution of the mails-formerly slight and merely incidental, now grown into a large and distinct business; 2d. The foreign mails under our postal treaties and arrangements, originated within two years past; 3d. The California and Oregon mails, of still more recent origin. Besides the copying clerk referred to, the office needs at once a clerk for arrangements and correspondence on each of the foregoing divisions of duty, and one record clerk also. This is a greater number than I stated in my report of the 12th November last, because the new business specified shows itself since to be of greater extent than I then anticipated. This provision will only meet the present wants. Hereafter, when postage is further reduced, and radical changes and improvements will have to be made in our system of post-office business, and when our postal intercourse with other countries is enlarged and improved to the extent that our interests demand, still more force will be required in the General Post Office, and most probably an additional bureau will have to be created, to divide the business with the contract office. I have the honor to be, respectfully, your obedient servant, First Assistant Postmaster General. Hon. JACOB COLLAMER, Postmaster General, APPOINTMENT OFFICE, Post Office Department, March 4, 1850. SIR: In obedience to your requisition, I have the honor to state that the permanent force of this bureau should be increased by the addition of Four clerks at.. Two clerks at. One clerk at.... ... $1,000 1,200 1,400 The vast increase of correspondence renders this additional service imperative. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, • FITZ HENRY WARREN. POSTMASTER GENERAL, &c., &c., &.c. POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, SIR: Having been requested by you to say whether or not the number of clerks employed in my division is sufficient for the proper despatch of the business assigned to it, I answer that the number is not sufficient, and beg leave to submit the following brief statement. By the regulations of the department, I have the management of its funds. I see that they are concentrated and transferred to the proper point for disbursement; that drafts are issued in payment of all sums reported by the Auditor to be due to contractors and other public creditors; and that the corps of more than 17,000 postmasters render promptly to my office their quarterly returns. The dead-letter office is under my supervision; and it is my duty to procure and distribute stamps for the prepayment of postage. The registration of postmasters' quarterly returns and the examination of the returns of dead letters occupy two clerks, the same number having performed those duties for the last thirteen years; but the time has arrived when two clerks are inadequate to their performance, and therefore I recommend the addition of one to this branch. The selection and return of dead letters from foreign countries under our postal arrangements cannot be done well and in season without an additional clerk, who should be charged with the whole subject of foreign letters. The registration and transmission of valuable dead letters to their owners are much in arrear, and an additional registering clerk is required in that service. The opening of the dead letters, numbering nearly 600,000 a quarter. having become too laborious for two clerks to perform within the quarter, I recommend that a third opener be added., The distribution of postage stamps is a new and rapidly-increasing business, demanding the employment of a clerk to conduct it, and to prepare the correspondence connected with it. In recapitulation of the foregoing recommendations, I affirm that the proper despatch of business in my office requires the appointment of five clerks, as follows: One clerk, first class... Two clerks, third class... I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. JACOB COLLAMER, $1,400 per annum. 1,200 Third Assistant Postmaster General. Postmaster General. POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT, Office of Chief Clerk, November 15, 1849. SIR: It is my duty to state that the force in this office is insufficient for the proper execution of its business. This deficiency has been more seriously felt during each succeeding year of late, in proportion to the gradual, and more recently the rapid extension of the business of the department. The operations of the department have been regularly extended by the establishment of new offices and routes in all parts of the country, but especially upon the constantly-retreating frontiers. Besides, the establishment of mail routes and conveyances for the vast territories recently acquired, and to foreign countries, added to the increased magnitude and importance of the postal business through the old channels, has contributed to enlarge the correspondence of the department to such an extent, that it is not possible, with our present means, to give that particular attention to its details which the creditable or successful discharge of the trusts confided to this branch of the department absolutely requires. In addition to the enlargement of the ordinary business of the inspec tion branch, formerly assigned to the Third Assistant Postmaster General, the officer now in charge of this business, upon a new organization about three years ago, was required also to assume the office and duties of Chief Clerk of the department. A return to the system of registers, requiring weekly or monthly reports from postmasters at the ends of routes of the exact time of the arrival and departure of each mail, is deemed, after full experience, necessary to secure precision in the performance of their service by contractors, and to the general discipline of the service. On the last reorganization of the bureau, it was thought that a different system might be advantageously |