Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1872.djvu/16

12 would be constant danger of duplicating patents upon the same invention, and each year's accumulation adds largely to this danger. The office is now being administered under substantially the same law and the same general organization adopted at its inauguration, when only from one hundred to five hundred applications were made per annum.

The office has outgrown the plan of organization that was sufficient for it then, and a new organization has become absolutely necessary to secure to inventors and to the country the benefits of our patent system. I invite attention to the communication forwarded to Congress suggesting a re-organization of the Patent-Office.

The Commissioner urges the importance of a separation of the Patent-Office from the Department of the Interior. This matter is embraced in the bill now pending before Congress for a re-organization of the Bureau. Another subject to which attention is earnestly invited is the necessity for more room for the work of the Patent-Office. A plan has been devised by which it is thought the model-gallery will be sufficient, in all time to come, to store such models as it may be desirable to retain in the office, but for the working force and the necessary files of the office there is great want of room. It is impossible to transact the business of the office, with safety to the inventors or the manufacturing interests of the country, excepting with more room in which to arrange the files and drawings that must be consulted hourly in the transaction of office business.

The work of the office has been conducted in the most satisfactory manner during the entire term of the present Commissioner, and I most cheerfully attest his efficiency and capacity for its manifold and delicate duties.

There are now on the pension-rolls the names of 578 widows of soldiers who served in the revolutionary war, a decrease of 56 since the last annual report. The names of 1,157 widows and children of soldiers who served in the wars subsequent to the Revolution, and prior to the late rebellion, excepting the war of 1812, are borne on the rolls, being 57 less than the preceding year.

During the last fiscal year there were examined and allowed 6,317 original applications for invalid pensions of soldiers, at an annual aggregate rate of $424,626.50, and 5,116 applications for increased pension of invalid soldiers, at an aggregate yearly rate of $261,165.50. During the same period 7,120 original pensions to widows, orphans, and dependent relatives of soldiers were allowed, at an aggregate annual rate of $950,798, and 290 applications, of the same class, for increase of pension were admitted, at a total annual rate of $15,853.35. The number of claims, original and increase, admitted during the year, was 18,843, and the annual amount of pensions thus granted was $1,652,433.35. On the 30th day of June, 1872, there were on the rolls the names of 95,