ATEMENT SHOWING THE PROPORTION OF UNITED STATES BONDS OUTSTANDING
JANUARY 25, 1900, ON WHICH INTEREST IS PAID BY CHECK.

TITLE OF LOAN. Total issue. Registered Percentage
bonds on of bonds on
which interest which interest
is paid by is paid by
check. check.

Funded loan of 1891 continued at 2 per cent
. . . . . . . . .$ 25,364,500 $ 25,364,500 100.00
Four per cent funded loan of 1907
. . . . . . . . . 545,342,950 478,195,600 87.69
Five per cent loan of 1904
. . . . . . . . . 95,009,700 64,615,650 68.01
Four per cent loan of 1925
. . . . . . . . . 162,315,400 117,997,200 72.70
Three per cent ten-twenties of 1898
. . . . . . . . . 168,679,000 109,450,060 55.09

Totals . . . . . . . . $996,711,550 $795,623,030 77.49

TREASURY DEPARTMENT.
OFFICE OF THE TREASURER,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
_January_ 25, 1900.

HONORABLE GEORGE S. BOUTWELL,
Boston, Massachusetts.

_My Dear Mr. Secretary:_ It gives me pleasure to enclose to you a
table showing by classes of bonds the percentage of interest paid by
checks. The interest on all registered bonds is now so paid. Only
the coupon bonds, by their nature, are differently treated.

Your plan has worked admirably, and the drift is slowly from the coupon
to the registered form, and so to an increase of the payment of
interest by checks.

With kind regards, Yours very truly,
(Signed) ELLIS H. ROBERTS,
_Treasurer of the United States._

The plan has been adopted by corporations that are borrowers of large
sums of money upon an issue of bonds, and the use of the system is
very general in the United States.

In my report to Congress in December, 1869, I made recommendation of
the Funding Bill, and I placed copies of the bill that I had prepared
in the hands of the Finance Committee of the Senate, and in the hands
of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives.

When the bill became a law, the authorized issue of five per cent
bonds was limited to two hundred million dollars, and the issue of four
per cent was raised to twelve hundred million. Simultaneously with the
passage of the Funding Bill of July, 1870, the war between France and
Prussia opened, and the opportunity for negotiations