land-warrants, and do all that this elaborate and expensive system requires of him. In paying pensions he is assisted by Pension Agents, located at offices throughout the country called Pension Agencies. There are now seventeen of these, located at Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Concord, Des Moines, Detroit, Indianapolis, Knoxville, Louisville, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, St. Louis, San Francisco, Syracuse, Washington, D. C. The manner of applying for pensions is carefully guarded by formalities, oaths, examinations, etc., as it must necessarily be, owing to the great number of applicants and the inducement to raise fictitious cases. The ate of pension paid is regulated by the character of the disability and the rank of the pensioner. Widows of soldiers killed in service are entitled, and orphans under sixteen. In addition to pension each soldier is entitled to periodical allowance for an artificial limb or eye, if compelled to use such. INDIAN BUREAU.—A Bureau of Indian Affairs was established as early as 1832, and became connected with the Interior Department in 1849. Its chief officer is a Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The active work of the Bureau is done among the Indians at Agencies, and by Agents, of which there are some seventy, situated so as to accommodate the respective tribes. The government has from time to time made treaties with different tribes, allotted reservations to others, and entered upon a variety of contracts, possible and impossible, according to the whim of the natives, many of which are but little better than agreements to support whole tribes in idleness. The fulfillment. of these compacts makes what are called our Indian relations. These it is the business of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to superintend. The fact that such superintendence never served to ameliorate the condition of the Indian gave rise to a Board of Indian Commissioners, composed of intelligent and charitably disposed men, appointed by the President, and who serve without pay, whose duty it is to supervise all moneys appropriated for Indians, and inspect food and clothing purchased for their use. The necessity for such commission is a confession that the government either had not conducted or could not conduct its Indian affairs properly: both of which were doubtless true, in the absence of a clearly defined Indian policy, which no more exists to-day than when the Cavalier and Puritan landed. PATENT OFFICE.-This interesting office is under the immediate supervision of a Commissioner of Patents. The name of the office suggests its use. The first act relating to patents was that of April 10, 1790. It authorized the granting of patents by the Secretary of State, after consultation with the Secretary of War and Attorney-General, though either could act on his own responsibility. The present office and something like the present system was created by act of March 3, 1849, in connection with the Interior Department. But it was not until the act of July 8, 1870, that the existing system took full shape and vigor. The model-rooms of the Patent Office were begun in 1836. They were greatly enlarged, and quite well filled with models, when the fire of Sept. 24, 1877, destroyed some 87,000 of them, besides other interesting historic relics. They have been again enlarged and are rapidly filling up with evidences of American genius and skill. Patents are granted only after full designs or models have been presented and examined by experts, and something found therein "new and useful, not known or used by others in this country, and not patented or described in print in this or any other country." A patent for an original invention runs for seventeen years. A patent for a design may run from three and a half years to fourteen years. CENSUS OFFICE.-The Secretary of the Interior is charged with the duty of taking each decennial census, through and by means of a Superintendent of Census. The active work of enumeration is done by means of Supervisors of districts, specially appointed. These send out enumerators into all the subdivisions of a district, who gather the facts and figures from the people, and return them in a given time. When they reach the Central Office at Washington they are tabulated and printed in the form of Census Reports. The work of census-taking is important, and it is to be regretted that it has never reached, in this country, the perfection it has in some others. This may seem strange in view of the fact that the United States was the first nation to provide in its fundamental law for a periodical count of its people. The first census under the Constitution was taken in 1790. They have been taken every ten years since, and the results duly published. The early censuses contained but little more than an enumeration of the people. The omission of statistics and facts relating to the industries of the country caused a general overhauling of the census methods in 1849. By act of March 3 of that year a Census Board was created, composed of the Secretary of State, Postmaster-General and Attorney-General, to prepare a plan for the census of 1850. This resulted in an act of May 23, 1850, creating a Census Office in the Department of the Interior, with a Superintendent, as above noted. Since then the census inquiries have been framed so as to cover not only population, but age, nationality, physical and mental condition, social matters, churches, schools, industrial establishments, farms, products of every kind, and whatever will contribute to knowledge of our wealth, progress and actual status as a people. One hundred inquiries could be addressed to the citizen by the census enumerator, but no more. The three censuses taken under the act of 1850 were great advances on those taken before, and their results form a set of volumes which are indispensable to historians, statisticians and students of social problems. Still the act was defective, and the machinery under it clumsy and uncertain. An attempt was made to remedy it by the census act of 1880. It is not yet time to say whether the attempt has been a success or a failure. It has certainly not resulted in a prompter receipt, tabulation and publication of the returns, though those already perfected show a completeness and utility beyond all others. BUREAU OF EDUCATION.-This Bureau was created by act of March 2, 1867, and attached to the Department of the Interior. Its Chief is a Commissioner of Education. The business of the Bureau is to collect, publish and disseminate among the people such information touching schools and school systems as will enable them to keep pace with modern improvements in school organization and management, and meet the national desire to overcome illiteracy wherever it exists. The Bureau was a noble conception, and its work bears on vital points, for our Republic is ever confronting the dangers that lurk in illiteracy. UN RAILROAD ACCOUNTS.-The Bureau was established in 1878, and connected with the Interior Department. It was made necessary by the new policy of the government extending aid to the Pacific and other railroads. The aid to build these long, through and necessary lines was either by guarantee of their bonds or by gift of public lands. In either event the government felt that it should exercise a control over the management of such roads to the extent of auditing their accounts and seeing that all acts of Congress in their interest were respected. This is the duty of the Bureau of Railroad Accounts, whose chief is called Auditor. CAPITOL ARCHITECT.—This officer has control of the Capitol repairs and Capitol grounds. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.-Under the head of Public Lands we saw they were divided into Agricultural and Mineral Lands. This division requires a knowledge of their geological structure and underground resource. For this purpose the Geological Survey was established in 1879. Its chief is called Director of the Geological Survey. The annual appropriations for carrying on this work of examining and classifying public lands according to their mineral substances and worth average $100,000. OTHER ADJUNCTS.—The Secretary of the Interior was in 1877 authorized to appoint a Commission of Entomologists to inquire into the visitation of the Rocky Mountain Locusts and devise means for suppressing their annual invasions. He appoints by law a Recorder of Deeds and Register of Wills for the District of Columbia. With his Department is connected the management of the Government Hospital for the Insane. This noble institution, erected at a cost of $500,000, and containing nearly 1,000 inmates, is designed for the care and treatment of the insane of the Army and Navy and the indigent insane of the District of Columbia. It was founded in 1855 and stands on a conspicuous bluff south of the Anacostia River, in full view of the Capitol. So also it has the management of the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, established in 1857, located at Washington, and designed for the free education of the deaf and dumb of the District of Columbia, and the paid education of pupils from all the States and Territories. The Freedmen's Hospital and Columbia Hospital for Women are also under the general superintendence of the Interior Department. SECRETARIES OF THE INTERIOR. Name. Appointed. Thomas H. Ewing, Ohio..Mar. 8, 1849 Alex. H. H. Stuart, Va...Sept. 12, 1850 Robert McClelland, Mich..Mar. 7, 1853 Jacob Thompson, Miss....Mar. 6, 1857 Caleb P. Smith, Ind.. .Mar. 5, 1861 John P. Usher, Ind. ..Jan. 8, 1863 James Harlan, Iowa.. .May 15, 1865 Name. Appointed. THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT. The government comes down closer to the people through the Post-Office Department than any other. It intimately concerns all of us and exists for our accommodation in the matter of correspondence with friends and business folk at home and abroad. The Constitution, Art. I., Sec. 8, authorizes the establishment of Post-offices and Post-roads. This is not peculiar to our government. All civilized powers assume to do the same thing for their people, and nearly all in the same way, so much so at least that what is known as a Postal Union has become possible, whereby different countries agree to recognize our stamps on letters and engage to carry them through their mails, we doing the same toward their stamps and with their letters. This wonderful triumph of political civilization brings the people of all countries in the Postal Union as closely together as if they were of one country. The earliest Post-Office System in our country arose under act of Sept. 22, 1789. It was a crude affair, run in connection |