offenses, so that the inequality of sentences
adjudged by courts-martial may be adjusted; the consolidation of
accounts under which expenditures are made, as a measure of economy;
a reappropriation of the money for the construction of a depot at
San Antonio, the title to the site being now perfected; a special act
placing the cemetery at the City of Mexico on the same basis as other
national cemeteries; authority to purchase sites for military posts in
Texas; the appointment of commissary sergeants from noncommissioned
officers, as a measure for securing the better care and protection
of supplies; an appropriation for the publication of the catalogue
and tables of the anatomical section of the Army Medical Museum; a
reappropriation of the amount for the manufacture of breech-loading
arms, should the selection be so delayed by the board of officers as to
leave the former appropriation unexpended at the close of the fiscal
year; the sale of such arsenals east of the Mississippi as can be
spared, and the proceeds applied to the establishment of one large
arsenal of construction and repair upon the Atlantic Coast and the
purchase of a suitable site for a proving and experimental ground for
heavy ordnance; the abrogation of laws which deprive inventors in the
United States service from deriving any benefit from their inventions;
the repeal of the law prohibiting promotions in the staff corps; a
continuance of the work upon coast defenses; the repeal of the seventh
section of the act of July 13, 1866, taking from engineer soldiers the
per diem granted to other troops; a limitation of time for presentation
of old War claims for subsistence supplies under act of July 4, 1864;
and a modification in the mode of the selection of cadets for the
Military Academy, in order to enhance the usefulness of the Academy,
which is impaired by reason of the large amount of time necessarily
expended in giving new cadets a thorough knowledge of the more
elementary branches of learning, which they should acquire before
entering the Academy. Also an appropriation for philosophical apparatus
and an increase in the numbers and pay of the Military Academy band.

The attention of Congress will be called during its present session to
various enterprises for the more certain and cheaper transportation of
the constantly increasing surplus of Western and Southern products to
the Atlantic Seaboard. The subject is one that will force itself upon
the legisl