Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/88

768 executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the year ending June 30, 1874, and for other purposes," the Secretary of the Treasury was directed to "pay to the census-takers of 1860, or their assigns, the sums set to their credit now in the Treasury of the United States, any provision of existing laws to the contrary notwithstanding." In this legislation it was assumed that the accounts of the unpaid census-takers at the Eighth Census were in the Treasury Department; but the dict was otherwise. During the continuance of the Census Office us organized for the purposes of the Eighth Census, the Treasury Department received no notification of services rendered in enumeration, except upon and after the payment of individual accounts for such services, the marshals and assistant marshals for that census having been paid directly by the disbursing clerk of the Census Office. Subsequently to the disbandment of the Census Office, accounts of assistant marshals were occasionally paid by the disbursing clerk of the Department of the Interior, upon requisitions issued by the Treasury; but it was only in cases where the accounts were complete for payment that they were forwarded to the latter Department. The great body of claims from the Southern States, being cut off from present payment by the requirements of law in respect to proof of loyalty, were held in the Department of the Interior awaiting a11thority and appropriation for their adjustment. The passage of the act of March 3, 1873, therefore, involved the careful re-examination of these accounts, their verification by the original census returns of 1860, and the identification of claimants. Blank forms for executing the necessary papers were immediately dispatched to the latest known addresses of the unpaid assistant marshals of 1860. Up to the present time, the accounts of 828 assistant marshals, reaching a total of $164,341.53, have been forwarded to the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury for his action.

The following table exhibits the number and aggregate amount of claims which have thus been adjusted for each of the judicial districts of 1860. It will be seen that three of the claims adjusted were from non-slaveholding States, the persons interested having, it may be presumed, been compromised by subsequent removal to States in rebellion; at any rate, not offering to make proof of loyalty while that requirement of law continued as a condition of payment:

The First Comptroller of the Treasury having notified this Office of his decision that the term "census takers" in the act cited does not embrace United States marshals superintending the enumeration, but only assistant-marshals, the actual enumerators, no steps have been taken toward the adjustment of the claims of the unpaid marshals at the Eighth Census. The number of such marshals is 18. As no authority or appropriation exists for their payment, their accounts have not been