t by the postmasters, at points where it was
inconvenient to the department so to disburse its funds.

(4) The inconvenience of accumulating uncertain and fluctuating sums at
small offices was felt seriously in consequent overpayments to contractors
on their quarterly collecting orders; and, in case of private mail routes,
in litigation concerning the misapplication of such funds to the special
service of supplying mails.

(5) The accumulation of such funds on draft offices could not be known
to the financial clerks of the department in time to control it, and too
often this rendered uncertain all their calculations of funds in hand.

(6) The orders of payment were for the most part issued upon the principal
offices, such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, etc., where
the large offices of publishers are located, causing an illimitable and
uncontrollable drain of the department funds from those points where
it was essential to husband them for its own regular disbursements. In
Philadelphia alone this drain averaged $5000 per quarter; and in other
cities of the seaboard it was proportionate.

(7) The embarrassment of the department was increased by the illimitable,
uncontrollable, and irresponsible scattering of its funds from
concentrated points suitable for its distributions, to remote, unsafe, and
inconvenient offices, where they could not be again made available till
collected by special agents, or were transferred at considerable expense
into the principal disbursing offices again.

(8) There was a vast increase of duties thrown upon the limited force
before necessary to conduct the business of the department; and from the
delay of obtaining vouchers impediments arose to the speedy settlement of
accounts with present or retired post-masters, causing postponements which
endangered the liability of sureties under the act of limitations, and
causing much danger of an increase of such cases.

(9) The most responsible postmasters (at the large offices) were ordered
by the least responsible (at small offices) to make payments upon their
vouchers, without having the means of ascertaining whether these vouchers
were genuine or forged, or if genuine, whether the signers were in or out
of office, or solvent or defaulters.

(10) The transaction of this business for subscribers and publishers at
the public expense, an the embarrassment, inconvenience, and delay of
the department's own business occasioned by it,