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, were not justified by any
sufficient remuneration of revenue to sustain the department, as required
in every other respect with regard to its agency.

The committee, in view of these objections, has been solicitous to frame
a bill which would not be obnoxious to them in principle or in practical
effect.

It is confidently believed that by limiting the offices for receiving
subscriptions to less than one tenth of the number authorized by the
experiment already tried, and designating the county seat in each
county for the purpose, the control of the department will be rendered
satisfactory; particularly as it will be in the power of the Auditor,
who is the officer required by law to check the accounts, to approve or
disapprove of the deposits, and to sanction not only the payments, but to
point out the place of payment. If these payments should cause a drain
on the principal offices of the seaboard, it will be compensated by the
accumulation of funds at county seats, where the contractors on those
routes can be paid to that extent by the department's drafts, with more
local convenience to themselves than by drafts on the seaboard offices.

The legal responsibility for these deposits is defined, and the
accumulation of funds at the point of deposit, and the repayment at
points drawn upon, being known to and controlled by the Auditor, will not
occasion any such embarrassments as were before felt; the record kept
by the Auditor on the passing of the certifi