e full service was continued after such
reduction there was no doubt that the Congress would at its next session
make provision for the payment of the sum deducted.

Of course no legal claim in favor of the contractor can be predicated
upon the facts which he alleges; and if he did continue full service
under the circumstances stated, it must be conceded that his conduct was
hardly in accordance with the rules which regulate transactions of this
kind.

But a thorough search of the correspondence and records in the
Post-Office Department fails to disclose any letter, document, or record
giving the least support to the allegation that any such intimation or
assurance as is claimed was given; nor is there the least evidence in
the Department that the full service was actually performed. There is,
however, on the files of the Department a letter from the claimant,
dated August 25, 1860, containing the following statement:

When I received official information of the curtailing service, the
reasons why, I wrote to the Department that I would, if allowed,
continue service three times a week and take certificates, if I could
be allowed to connect with La Crosse at _pro rata_ rates. That letter
was never answered and I continued service three times a week till
3d of September following, then run twice a week.

Thus it appears that this contractor, who in August, 1860, claimed that
he continued full service upon the invitation of his own unanswered
letter for less than four months, insists twenty-seven years after the
date of the alleged service that he performed such service for seventeen
months, and up to October, 1860. Not only has he himself in this manner
almost conclusively shown that the claim now made and allowed is
exorbitant, but the evidence gives rise to a strong presumption that it
is entirely fictitious.

The remainder of the amount allowed to the claimant in this bill is
based upon an alleged performance by the contractor of the same mail
service which has been referred to from October 1, 1860, to February 14,
1861, a period of four months and fourteen days.

Prior to October 1, 1860, the claimant's contract was annulled and a new
or more extended route established, entirely covering that upon which he
had carried the mails. Thereupon a month's extra pay was allowed to him,
and new contractors undertook the service and were paid therefor by the
Government for the period covered by the claimant'