Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1872.djvu/18

14 $30,169,340.60, being $2,908,043.03 less than the amount paid during the preceding year.

Four hundred and forty-three bounty-land warrants were issued during the year, for 68,040 acres, being 338,120 less than the number of acres issued for the preceding year.

During the same period, 782 persons availed themselves of the benefits of the act of June 30, 1870, providing for artificial limbs and apparatus for resection, or commutation, of whom 458 perferred the latter.

On the 30th of June, 1872, there were on file, unadjusted, 37,176 claims for invalid pension, 33,762 claims of widows, orphans, and dependent relatives, and 11,580 claims of soldiers and widows of soldiers in the war of 1812, making a total of 82,518 claims. The Commissioner estimates that the claims for pension on account of the war of 1812 will be disposed of by the 1st of May next.

The investigation of frauds continues to receive especial attention, with such gratifying results, both in the detection and repression of wrong-doing, as to demand a continuance of the present policy.

It is estimated that $30,480,000 will be required for the pension service during the next fiscal year.

The great increase of interest in education throughout the country, in the last few years, is gratifying to every sincere patriot. Of this increase I believe the Bureau of Education is one of the principal exciting causes; and the hearty indorsement of the office, by educators of every section and every sort of institution, is a fitting recognition.

The business of the office has increased so rapidly during the past year, that 2,300 letters have been received and 3,500 have been written by it, an increase of more than 150 per cent. over the same work last year. More than 33,000 documents have been distributed in the same time, an increase of nearly 200 per cent, over last year.

The report of the Educational Bureau will show the amount and character of the work of the office. No previous volume contains such a mine of educational facts and statistics for the guidance and information of the country. I recommend increased appropriations for the office.

The bill, introduced at the last session of Congress by the Committee of the House on Education and Labor, providing for the expenditure of the net proceeds of the sale of public lands in establishing an educational fund and in assisting the States in the universal education of their youth, has received the unanimous approval of the educators of the Union; and I commend it to the favorable attention of Congress.

The report of the Superintendent of the Ninth Census announces the completion of that great national work. All the tables of the census