Form of certificate.

(F.)

OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR OF THE TREASURY

FOR THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT.

I, J. H. Ela, Auditor of the Treasury for the Post-Office Department, do hereby certify the annexed to be a true and correct statement from the records of this office, showing the gross and the net revenues of the post-offices located on route No. 46132, Julian to Colton, California, from July 1, 1878, to June 30, 1881.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name, and caused to be affixed my seal of office, at the city of Washington, this twelfth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two,

[SEAL.]

J. H. ELA,

Auditor.

65.

JOHN T. CALLEGHAN recalled and examined.

By Mr. BLISS:

Question. [Submitting a jacket filled with papers to witness.] What is this bundle of papers, among the others that you handed to me just now?-Answer. These are cases of deduction in the office of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, division of inspection.

Q. Cases of deduction for failure to arrive?-A. Yes, sir.

Q. On what route?-A. Route 38156, from Silverton to Parrott City. Q. For what quarter ?—A. For the quarter ending March 31, 1880. Q. Made up in the manner you explained yesterday?—A. Yes, sir. Q. Any remissions?-A. Yes, sir; those are remissions on the back of it, dated August 19, 1880.

Mr. TOTTEN. I thought your honor ruled out this kind of testimony yesterday.

The COURT. It has not yet been offered.

Mr. BLISS. [After having submitted papers to counsel for defense.] Have you any objection, gentlemen?

Mr. WILSON. Well, if you put in any put them all in. We want the whole, or we do not want any.

Mr. BLISS. I propose to offer the jacket.

The COURT. Well, I object that you cannot read all these papers. Mr. TOTTEN. These are fines, deductions, and remissions, your honor.

The COURT. I understand. I do not see what tendency they have to establish either the combination or the corruption.

Mr. BLISS. Your honor will bear in mind, and it is only for that reason that I desire to present it, because one consideration was not presented to your mind yesterday when the question was up; these are papers connected with a particular quarter ending March 1, 1880, upon this route where $1,958.05 was first deducted, and then $1,845 of it was remitted. Yesterday I called your honor's attention solely to the ground of remissions based upon the alleged cause of remissions-of the inability to perform the time as therefore having some bearing, which your honor thought was not very direct, upon the question of the good faith of the expedition. Now, I desire, while reminding your honor of that point as to why it is admissible, to call your honor's attention also to the allegations in the indictment which aver, among other things, as a part of the conspiracy, the corrupt allowance of remissions, in connection with other matters, which we expect to offer at some future time as bearing upon that precise feature of the case.

The COURT. You first offered them for the purpose of proving the impossibility of performing the service.

Mr. BLISS. We offered them yesterday, as in that connection on that route, for the purpose of proving the impossibility of performing the service.

The COURT. That is a good ground for making the remissions, is it not?

Mr. BLISS. No, sir; I do not know that it is, because under the rules of the department, as I understand it, the question of the act of God is a matter where the contractor and not the Government accepts the responsibility. I do not want to argue that phase of the case, because your honor has decided it, and I do not propose to try to reopen it. I simply bring it to your honor's attention, and do not desire to argue it even on the other ground which has a bearing on the question charged in our indictment, and as to which we expect to offer some evidence at

a later stage, that it was a part of the conspiracy that for improper motives and improper reasons Mr. Brady was to make remissions. Of course, if there is evidence of that sort, we should have to show remissions.

The COURT. But you would have to show remissions for improper grounds.

Mr. BLISS. I say we expect to do that by other matters.

The COURT. All the evidence in this case shows that the time was, if anything, unreasonably short, considering the character of the route, and that the failures were excusable.

Mr. BLISS. Were excusable in a certain sense, or excusable because the contractor did not perform the service. But it did not justify the Post-Office Department or the Second Assistant Postmaster-General in making an order for a time that could not be performed, and having made the order for a time that could not be performed and taken out of the Treasury therefore money for service that could not be rendered. It did not justify him, having thereafter imposed fines, because the service was not rendered, remitting that imposition of fine and thereby take so much money out of the Treasury. We say, and we expect to offer evidence to that effect, that it was a part of this conspiracy, one branch of it, that there were to be remissions improperly made, and that there were remissions to be made-we do not use the word corruptly in the indictment-from improper motives.

Mr. TOTTEN. You do not make that allegation in the indictment. Mr. BLISS. We charge that it was a part of the conspiracy to make improper remissions.

The COURT. Let me see what it does say about that. Refer me to the page of your indictment. [After a pause.] If the fines were improperly made-that is, if the failures were excusable, then the remission for the failures is not taking any money improperly from the Government, because the Government has no right to put money into its own pocket from fines improperly imposed. If this evidence were tending to prove that this route was unreasonably expedited for the benefit of these defendants, I would unhesitatingly admit the evidence, but I do not see how the imposition of fines for failures, and the subsequent remission of those fines by the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, would have any tendency at all to show that the expedition allowed was unreasonable because they were subsequent, and if you want to bring that charge home to the Second Assistant PostmasterGeneral you will have to fasten it upon him by something that occurred before.

Mr. BLISS. We expect to show, your honor, that there were direct payments made to Mr. Brady of a portion of the sums remitted. Mr. TOTTEN. Then you had better show it now.

Mr. BLISS. We expect to prove it at the proper time.

Mr. TOTTEN. If you have got that testimony why not let us see it? Mr. MERRICK. I was called away to attend to some other duty yesterday when this question was up, and I desire now to make one suggestion in connection with it. Apart from the views stated by Mr. Bliss just now, I think that there is a very important consideration arising out of the offer as affecting the good faith of the original expedition. Where a route is being run by a contractor, and any circumstance occurs for which he is not to blame that makes it impossible for. him to perform the service he has undertaken according to his obligation and covenant, there he certainly ought to have any fine imposed remitted upon a showing of that circumstance. But where a route is