In reply to a letter from the Bureau the captain of claimant's company stated that he had no knowledge of such an injury. The same officer, in a letter dated February 25, 1887, expresses the belief that the disability of the applicant, if any existed, was caused by the injudicious use of mercurial medicine self-administered for venereal disease contracted at Augusta, Me., in January, 1864, and that such was the rumor among his comrades when he was sent to the hospital.
I can not believe that an injury was sustained such as was specified by the applicant in 1880 and that nothing was said of it either in the claim made in 1864 or in 1870. In the absence of this or some other definite cause consistent with an honest claim we are left in the face of some contrary evidence to guess that his arm was injured in the service.
The application of this beneficiary is still pending in the Pension Bureau awaiting further information.
GROVER CLEVELAND.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 16, 1888.
To the House of Representatives:
I return without approval House bill No. 9520, entitled "An act for the relief of Mary Fitzmorris."
It is proposed by this bill to pension the beneficiary named therein, as the widow of Edmund Fitzmorris, under the provisions and limitations of the general pension laws. The name of the beneficiary is already upon the pension roll, and she is now entitled to receive precisely the sum as a pensioner which is allowed her under this bill.
As her application to the Pension Bureau was quite lately favorably acted upon, it is supposed this special bill for her relief was passed by the Congress in ignorance of that fact.
GROVER CLEVELAND.