however, been presented to the Department
by numerous merchants and manufacturers for the establishment of a
direct service to the Argentine Republic and for semimonthly dispatches
to the Empire of Brazil, and the subject is commended to your
consideration. It is an obvious duty to provide the means of postal
communication which our commerce requires, and with prudent forecast of
results the wise extension of it may lead to stimulating intercourse and
become the harbinger of a profitable traffic which will open new avenues
for the disposition of the products of our industry. The circumstances
of the countries at the far south of our continent are such as to invite
our enterprise and afford the promise of sufficient advantages to
justify an unusual effort to bring about the closer relations which
greater freedom of communication would tend to establish.

I suggest that, as distinguished from a grant or subsidy for the mere
benefit of any line of trade or travel, whatever outlay may be required
to secure additional postal service, necessary and proper and not
otherwise attainable, should be regarded as within the limit of
legitimate compensation for such service.

The extension of the free-delivery service as suggested by the
Post-master-General has heretofore received my sanction, and it is to be
hoped a suitable enactment may soon be agreed upon.

The request for an appropriation sufficient to enable the general
inspection of fourth-class offices has my approbation.

I renew my approval of the recommendation of the Postmaster-General that
another assistant be provided for the Post-Office Department, and I
invite your attention to the several other recommendations in his
report.

The conduct of the Department of Justice for the last fiscal year is
fully detailed in the report of the Attorney-General, and I invite the
earnest attention of the Congress to the same and due consideration of
the recommendations therein contained.

In the report submitted by this officer to the last session of the
Congress he strongly recommended the erection of a penitentiary for the
confinement of prisoners convicted and sentenced in the United States
courts, and he repeats the recommendation in his report for the last
year.

This is a matter of very great importance and should at once receive
Congressional action. United States prisoners are now confined in more
than thirty different State prisons and penitentiaries scattered in
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