Now, the affidavit was not attested by the commissioner, but the warrant was signed, and it was issued on the day that the affidavit was taken.

Q. The warrant was signed, but the affidavit was not signed by the commissioner?-A. No. sir.

Q. Was that disallowed?-A. Yes, sir; on the ground that the warrant was not signed by the commissioner.

Q. Then, what you desire to say about it is that it was not signed, but that there was no improper motive?-A. No, sir; I desire to say in this case that it was signed, and that the deputy did exactly right in serving it. It was a neglect of the commissioner not to attest the affidavit, but he went forward and issued the warrant. Now, here is the case of the United States vs. Alfred Garrett, in which there was $24.74 disallowed, upon the ground that there was no surrender of the defendant.

Q. That is, that he was not turned over to the officer ?-A. Yes, sir. Now, in this case I have a certified copy of the surrender, or the commitment issued upon the surrender, of the parties in the case by their bail, taken from the clerk's office and certified to by the clerk, which shows that there was a surrender. The point that we make in this case is that the facts in the case are entirely ignored by the examiner.

Q. Do you know anything about the case of your own knowledge?— A. Nothing whatever; all that I go by is this certified copy from the clerk's office. I stated in the beginning of my testimony that all these facts were furnished me by Mr. Robinson, but as to the certified copies, I aided him in getting them up-a great many of them. I have no individual interest whatever in the matter. I never spoke to the man a half a dozen times in my life until very lately.

Mr. CRISP. Let me make a suggestion, Mr. Mitchell. If there is any part of the evidence before us which contains specific charges against Robinson, and if you can present in his behalf any evidence which refutes or tends to refute those charges, of course we will accord you the opportunity to present it. The charges upon which he was indicted were the only ones, I think, that came before us. That voluminous book of disallowances was not in evidence here. It will not be printed in any report or document of ours. There was reference made, however, to certain items upon which Mr. Robinson was indicted and convicted. If you have any evidence there on his behalf to show that any of those charges, although found true by that jury, were really untrue, we will accord him the privilege of putting that on record here, so that it may go with the testimony on the other side. But the general disallowances we have not got here, and we have not undertaken at all to adjust any of those accounts.

The WITNESS. I thought that when General Longstreet came on the stand as a witness he expected to show before this committee the character of the expenditures made in his office, and that they were not made improperly as stated by the examiners, but were made legitimately and for services legitimately rendered.

Mr. CRISP. Yes; anything of that kind on behalf of General Longstreet is admissible; but I understood that you were speaking particularly about Mr. Robinson. Of course, any intimation of improper charges on the part of General Longstreet he will have the opportunity of refuting here.

The WITNESS. Well, I will take up the items upon which Mr. Robinson was convicted. Here is the case of Andrew Woody, in which Mr. Ballin makes a direct charge that there was no necessity for the man

being carried before the commissioner, and says that the clerk had inserted in the warrant that the prisoner's own recognizance might be taken. Now, here is a certified copy of the warrant, and there is no such insertion in it.

By Mr. CRISP:

Q. You say the statement was made by Mr. Ballin, that that was inserted in the warrant?-A. Yes, sir. He says that the defendant was arrested on a bench warrant, and that by order of the court the clerk inserted that his own recognizance should be taken for his appearance. Now, we have an order of court that in vacation, a bench-warrant being issued by the clerk, the bond may be fixed upon the face of it. In that event the deputy marshal, obeying the order of the court, carries the prisoner before the nearest commissioner, and that was done in this case.

Q. Then the statement of the examiner as to the insertion being made there is not true?-A. No, sir; it is not true.

Here is a case on another bench warrant, the case of the United States vs. Hardy S. Kirby, and also the case of the United States vs. Henry M. Kirby. Mr. Ballin charges that these three were taken on the same day. The charge here for attendance on the commissioner's court is disallowed, as charge for attendance is allowed him in the case of Robert Bennett, who was before the commissioner at the same time, and not on February 13, 1882, as charged.

Now, you see the charge is that this bond was taken on the 15th and that the case of Bennett was taken on the same date, and the charge is allowed in the Bennett case. In the certified copy of the warrant under which Bennet was arrested the date is the 13th. This date, the 13th, is declared fictitious by Mr. Ballin, and he claims that it was on the same date with this other, but here I show you the one taken on the 13th and the other on the 15th. There are a number of accounts just like that, where it was claimed that they were fictitious and fraudulent, and those accounts have been thrown out and we have not been able to get them allowed.

In the cases of the United States vs. Andrew Woody, the original commitment shows that the 22d day of July is not a fictitious date, as charged by the examiner.

In the indictment of Mr. Robinson it was charged that, in the case of Alexander Gilreath, he had rendered a false account for $4, and in the report of disallowances there is a statement showing that $2 of that $4 was allowed as proper, and $2 disallowed. General Longstreet was asked when he was upon the stand in regard to special deputies. Now, in this case there were four arrests made at the same time. This man had two or three men employed under him, and those men had their horses, and their expenses were charged in these accounts as actual expenses in endeavoring to make the arrests. In that way the accounts have been allowed where they have been made by special deputies. But the point was raised by Mr. Ballin that this service was entirely illegal. We contend that that service was not illegal, from the fact that section 788 of the statutes çonfers upon the marshal and his deputies the same power as is exercised by the sheriff and his deputies in the State where the service is rendered. Now, in the State of Georgia the sheriff can appoint; and in one notable instance there was a case before the circuit court (in 3 Ga., I think) where Judge Nesbit, the chief justice, rendered the discision, and went so far as to say that a deputy could be appointed by the sheriff or by his deputy-that he could be depu

tized simply by word; and under that law our deputies deputized men to aid them in making arrests. Last year the comptroller gave us a circular decision that that was illegal, and that no further such accounts could be allowed in such cases even for guards; and since that time every special deputy has been appointed by the office itself. General Longstreet, in order to aid the deputies in making these appointments, had commissions struck off with his name printed, and whenever a deputy would apply for the appointment of special deputies the marshal would send him one of these commissions and the appointment was regarded as coming from himself. We have eleven regular deputies in the field, and two in the office, myself and the clerk. One of us stays in the court-room, so that when it happens that there is no deputy around, and service has to be made at once, we perform that duty; we hold the appointments for that purpose. Then we have some little perquisites which come into the office in civil cases and which we could not charge unless we were deputy marshals. We have, I think it is, some ten or eleven special deputies. They are deputized by the office to aid these men in different Territories.

Q. Do the special deputies give bond and take the oath ?-A. Yes, sir; they take the oath. The oaths are filed in the clerk's office and the bonds are filed. Owing to their being subdeputies and doing very little work except in aiding the other deputies, we require but very light bonds from them. In other cases we require a $2,000 bond.

In the case of Alonzo Strong the examiner claims that Robert Bennett was not serving on the 19th of October; that there was no court held on the 19th of October, 1881, and that no such charge could properly be made. Now, the certified copy of the witness-roll in that case shows that court was held on the 19th and 20th of October.

Q. Have you any further statement to make now in connection with these accounts under our ruling?-A. No, sir.

Q. Is Mr. Robinson, the deputy, at large now?-A. Yes, sir; he was released on the 1st day of March or April, 1884. He served ten months. Q. Did his term expire, or was he pardoned?-A. His term expired. He was very anxious to get a pardon and there were efforts made to get him pardoned, but his time expired before those efforts were successful. Q. Do you know who was acting in his behalf?—A. Only from hear

say.

Q. How long have you been in the office?-A. I went in on the 19th of June last year.

Q. Does your position keep you in the office?-A. Yes, sir; I am chief deputy there.

Q. Your business, then, is more that of a clerk and bookkeeper than that of a deputy to execute processes?-A. Yes, sir. I seldom execute any process at all. When we have no deputies or bailiffs, and the court is not in session, I carry prisoners to and from the jail; and I have made one trip to the penitentiary with the Georgia Ku-Klux.

Q. What efforts are made in your office to verify the accounts of the deputy marshals ?-A. Each deputy is required, when he makes out his account, to date the mileage from the post-office nearest to the place where the arrest is made, so if he puts down the correct place, we know pretty nearly the distance that he has traveled in making the arrest, or the distance that he has to return. If that mileage is charged anything like exorbitantly, or if we think it is, we call the attention of the deputy to it before the account is copied, and if his explanation is satisfactory, it is so specified. The account is then copied, and at the end of the quarter it is forwarded to the Department for payment. We give the H. Mis. 38, vol. 2- -5*

accounts the most rigid scrutiny, and, in fact, we have been cutting out items in the accounts, owing to these previous disallowances that the comptroller, 'in that letter of last week, says that we are entitled to.

Q. What is your rule about guards?-A. Guards are seldom used now, at all. As they cannot be used in attendance upon court (they can be used in field work, but not in attendance before court) we appoint in the Atlanta territory, or in any territory in the division, one man as head deputy, and if he wants a special deputy under him to help him, we appoint one. But the accounts are made out differently now. The head deputy has his page upon our books and his account is sworn to the same as that of any other deputy. They are all under bond, and their oaths of office are filed in the clerk's office.

Q. How many deputies have you?-A. We have eleven in the field and two in the office. But under the fee-bill system there is hardly a living in it for any of them. Another thing I would like to state here is that we have a force of very good men. We have no bad men. I believe that the character of our deputies was questioned here along in the first part of your investigation.

Q. Yes. How long have those men of whom you speak been employed there?-A. Some of them have been employed for several years, and some of them are new men. We have weeded out the bad ones.

Q. Do you know how many commissioners there are in Atlanta ?— A. Yes, sir; there are six.

Q. What is the necessity for so many?-A. There is none whatever. Q. One or two could do all the work, I suppose?-A. Well, it goes sort of by seasons; one commissioner will get on the scent of something and he will get a week or two of work out of it. There is where the difficulty is. It is not in the marshal's office. Under Judge Woods's decision the marshal is compelled to execute the writs, and he has no discretion whatever in the matter. Judge Woods issued an order requiring all warrants in internal revenue cases to be approved by the deputy collector before they could be placed in the hands of the marshal. Those warrants are issued by the commissioner upon the affidavit of some one, the party is taken before the deputy collector and examined, and if he sees fit he approves it, the warrant, and if it is placed in our hands and we execute it without question and without knowing whether it is a good one or not.

Q. That is right. An executive officer has no right to have discre tion about serving a legal process. He does not have it under the State laws?-A. Well, there is where we have our trouble. These subpœnas, warrants, and all their court papers are issued in that way. For instance, take up this case of a habeas corpus ad testificandum that was ventilated before your committee. There was a mistake made in that by Lee Longstreet which the general attempted to rectify. Now those are not writs of habeas corpus; they are simply orders of court. Last week we had some cases of that kind. The commissioner issued his order, but the deputy, obeying the instructions from the office, came to the office before he would execute it and we went to Judge McKay and asked him to indorse it-to issue a court order. He sat down and wrote

The within order is hereby approved, and the jailer will turn over to DeputyMarshal Hubbard the prisoner named, to testify, &c.

Q. Those are not regular writs of habeas corpus, but the one that Lee Longstreet was examined about, as I recollect, was a case of the delivery of a prisoner for the purpose of giving his testimony upon the order

of the district attorney, and not upon the order of a judicial officer at all?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, does that practice obtain there, and is it the rule that, on the order of the district attorney, the jailer will deliver a man to testify?A. The district attorney directs his order to James Longstreet, United States Marshal, saying: "You are hereby directed to take so and so, or bring him to such or such a point"; stating the purpose it is for. Sometimes it is for the purpose of giving information; sometimes for the purpose of testifying. Now, we file away that order of the district attorney in the office, for our own protection, and we issue an order to the jailer to turn over the prisoner.

Q. You do that, then, on the order of the district attorney?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. What authority has he to order a prisoner around in that way?A. None, whatever, that I know of, except the practice there. We do a great many things down there under the direction of the district attorney and the judge that I suppose might be questioned as to their propriety, but they are done to save time.

Q. Is there anything else that you wish to state?-A. I would like to state that the accounts are kept by Mr. W. B. Fitzsimons, who has had an experience in the field of some five or six years, and has had disallowances in his own accounts, and who is really the best qualified man in the force to keep those accounts in accordance with the rulings of the Department and the fee-bill.

Adjourned.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 25, 1884.

JAMES A. WINSTON Sworn and examined.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. Please state your residence, age, and present occupation. -Answer. I shall be 60 years old in August. I reside in Springfield, Ill. I am a lawyer.

Q. Have you held any official position in the State of Illinois ?—A. Yes, sir; for ten years I was connected with the circuit clerk's office, in Sangamon County; eight years of which I was deputy clerk, and eight years principal. My time as clerk expired in December, 1880.

Q. Then you have had considerable experience in the matter of court expenses and the accounts of court officials?-A. Yes, sir; I have been connected with the State circuit court for thirty years, but not so long in Sangamon County.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Winston, the witness, is the gentleman who was designated by the chair to assist Mr. Bowman in making a special examination into the expenditures of the United States courts in Illinois. Q. Please state briefly what duties you have performed in pursuance of your designation to assist Examiner Bowman in his investigation in Illinois.-A. In the first place, we got the books and papers connected with the marshal's office. We got permission of the judge to get such papers as we needed. We then examined the accounts rendered by the ex-marshal, Mr. Wheeler, who had been marshal for four years, and compared those accounts with the books he had kept. We understood that our time was limited, that we had only a certain time in which to perform this work, in order to make a report before Congress adjourned. We looked over the accounts to see if we could find any irregularities on the face of them. We selected out a number of cases, and, after