The number of certificates issued was 80,213.
The names dropped from the rolls for all causes during the year numbered 37,951.
Among our pensioners are 9 widows and 3 daughters of soldiers of the Revolution and 45 survivors of the War of 1812.
The barefaced and extensive pension frauds exposed under the direction of the courageous and generous veteran soldier now at the head of the Bureau leave no room for the claim that no purgation of our pension rolls was needed or that continued vigilance and prompt action are not necessary to the same end.
The accusation that an effort to detect pension frauds is evidence of unfriendliness toward our worthy veterans and a denial of their claims to the generosity of the Government suggests an unfortunate indifference to the commission of any offense which has for its motive the securing of a pension and indicates a willingness to be blind to the existence of mean and treacherous crimes which play upon demagogic fears and make sport of the patriotic impulse of a grateful people.
The completion of the Eleventh Census is now in charge of the Commissioner of Labor. The total disbursements on account of the work for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1894, amounted to $10,365,676.81. At the close of the year the number of persons employed in the Census Office was 679; at present there are about 400. The whole number of volumes necessary to comprehend the Eleventh Census will be 25, and they will contain 22,270 printed pages. The assurance is confidently made that before the close of the present calendar year the material still incomplete will be practically in hand, and the census can certainly be closed by the 4th of March, 1895. After that the revision and proof reading necessary to bring out the volumes will still be required.
The text of the census volumes has been limited as far as possible to the analysis of the statistics presented. This method, which is in accordance with law, has caused more or less friction and in some instances individual disappointment, for when the Commissioner of Labor took charge of the work he found much matter on hand which according to this rule he was compelled to discard. The census is being prepared according to the theory that it is designed to collect facts and certify them to the public, not to elaborate arguments or to present personal views.
The Secretary of Agriculture in his report reviews the operations of his Department for the last fiscal year and makes recommendations for the further extension of its usefulness. He reports a saving in expenditures during the year of $600,000, which is covered back into the Treasury. This sum is 23 per cent of the entire appropriation.
A special study has been made of the demand for American farm products in all foreign markets, especially Great Britain. That country received from the United States during the nine months ending September 30, 1894, 305,910 live beef cattle, valued at $26,500,000, as against 182,611 cattle, valued at $16,634,000, during the same period for 1893.
During the first six months of 1894 the United Kingdom took also 112,000,000 pounds of dressed beef from the United States, valued at nearly $10,000,000.