was only $868, the entire amount of revenue from all the post-offices on that route was $2,348.22. Kearney was a railroad station and got a large portion of its mail revenues from other sources than this route. The other offices on the route earned in a year only $227; yet the contract price was carried up from $868 to $4,302. The original price on the route from Vermillion to Sioux Falls was carried up from $398 to $6,133. The entire receipts of offices dependent upon the route were $261.51, and after the expedition of the service the receipts fell off $20! The price on the route from Bismarck to Tongue River (where there was, however, a rapid development going on) was run up from $2,350 to $70,000. Excluding the Bismarck office, which was also on other mail routes, the entire receipts of the offices on this route, and dependent upon it, were $710.75. On the route from White River to Rawlins the pay was run up from $1,700 to $31,981. The entire amount of the receipts of all the offices on the route, including Rawlins (which was an important station on the Union Pacific road, and, therefore, not dependent upon this route) was $1,245.43, and all the offices on the route other than Rawlins produced only $79. The pay on the route from Pueblo to Rosita was run up from $388 to $8,148. Pueblo is a large town on the railroad, fed by six other routes, and the entire emoluments of the offices on this route were only $6,621, leaving only $2,179, excluding Pueblo. The pay on the route from Saint Charles to Greenborn was run up from $548 to $3,945.60. The emoluments of all the offices on the route amounted to a little over $5,500, and the emoluments of the offices dependent on the route amounted to $60. On the Mineral Park and Pioche route the original pay was $2,982, which was run up to $22.300, and afterwards to about $50,000. The emoluments of all the offices on the route were but $761, which after the expedition ran down to $597. It afterwards recovered to $653, but never got so high as it was originally. There was a regulation requiring each postmaster to state in his return how many bags of mail left his office on any given day, so that the contractor should not have a chance to cheat by taking just a day longer than the time allowed, say by carrying the mail in 48 hours instead of in 24 hours. In order to obviate that, the Department required that there should be a record to show the date of the mails leaving the offices. The postmasters on this route, in their innocence, did not suppose there could be anybody in Washington who thought that there were really bags of mail matter passing over the route; so, instead of making a return of bags, they went to work and counted the letters and papers, and they made reports showing the entire number that had passed during 70 or 80 days, and it appeared that for 39 days there did not pass a letter or a paper over that route on which the Government was paying $40,000 or $50,000 for carrying the mail.

The CHAIRMAN. For carrying the bags, you mean.

Mr. WOODWARD. I think there were two or three letters in that period, but during 20 days there were none.

Mr. BLISS. I will put into the record at this point these two tabular statements, one showing the contracts and their modifications on these Dineteen routes, and the other the revenues from the post-offices on those

routes:

Statement comparing the net revenues on nineteen post routes let to Dorsey, Miner, and Peck, with contractor's pay before and after expedition.

From

Termini.

Net revenues year ended June 30, 1879.

Exclud-
ing cer-
tain of-
fices.

Exclud-
ing cer-
tain of

offices.

offices.

fices.

Exclud-
ing cer
tain of-
fices.

41, 135 00 448, 670 90 41, 654 44 10, 299 68 54, 942 14 13, 167 79 68, 595 88 11, 622 36

By Mr. MILLIKEN:

Q. You showed the state of things which you have stated here at the trial, I suppose?-A. Yes, sir.

Q. And the jury found a verdict of acquittal?-A. The jury the first time found that M. C. Rerdell, who was the clerk of these parties, employed on a salary, was guilty, and they found that John R. Miner, one of these contractors, was guilty. They could not agree that Mr. Brady was guilty. They could not agree that John W. Dorsey, who was in the business as much as Miner was, except that he had not as large a pecuniary interest, was guilty. They could not agree that Peck, or that Vaile, who was a mail contractor, and who got away with a good deal of swag, was guilty.

Now we selected these nineteen routes of this combination as the basis of the indictments. I might have put a dozen more routes into the indictment, but I thought when I had got these nineteen I had got specimens of all these variegated frauds, but you would be amused if I should go through the record and refresh my memory and give you a little details of the different kinds of minor frauds that were connected with the business.

Then we proved also that they had sent out agents on the routes to sublet them, and we proved the statements of those agents and parties out there that there would be an increase of pay; we proved their statements that there would be an increase of pay on a given route to a certain sum within a given time, and so much within another given period; these statements being made as inducements to the subcontractors to take the subcontracts, because, under those contracts, the subcontractors were to have 40 per cent. of the increases that might be allowed. We proved also that in three successive cases the increases were made precisely according to the predictions made by these agents. We put on the stand the agents who had made the statements, we put on the stand the men who said they had made the subcontracts with that understanding, and we proved that the orders of increase were made precisely as those agents had predicted, except that in one case where the increase was promised in a year they got it in eight months. Q. You proved all that, and yet the jury did not convict?-A. No sir; they did not convict.

Q. And Mr. Cook thinks there is nothing so high-toned as a Washington jury?-A. Except a Washington lawyer. Then as to one of those routes, let me say that it appeared in the evidence that these agents who were sent out said to one of the parties that they thought they would get the pay on that route increased up to $30,000. The man replied, "That is absurd; you can't do anything of the kind; I can carry all the mail that goes over this route in my hat." And we actually proved that in point of fact he did go over the mountain from day to day carrying the entire mail in the leg of his boot!

By Mr. HEMPHILL :

Q. How much did it cost the Government to have that mail carried$30,000?—A. Oh, $50,000; that gave the speculators a profit of $30,000. Q. Yet this wise Washington jury thought that was a legitimate trausaction?-A. It seems so. However, I do not care to pitch into anybody. There was a distinguished judge of our court of appeals in New York who said that when a lawyer got beaten in court there was one of two courses open to him, but he had no right to adopt both. One course was to take an appeal, and the other was to go down to the tavern and abuse the court. I have my own opinion on this sub

ject, and it will probably crop out some time what was done. But we selected these routes for the reasons I have stated. If we had taken any one of these routes and gone along with it by an indictment for conspiracy, we should never have succeeded in establishing any conspiracy, and we had to satisfy the court of the existence of a conspiracy before we could get this additional evidence in. But by taking this variegation of frauds we got the benefit of that, and we got the benefit also of Walsh's testimony as to the transactions which had been alleged in the Prescott and Santa Fé route, but the jury did not believe Mr. Walsh, either. I took the idea of prosecuting the case in this way very largely from having come fresh from a knowledge (though not as counsel) of the way in which Tweed was prosecuted and convicted in New York. They tried him on one fraudulent warrant and on another, separately, and could never accomplish anything, but when they went into court with an indictment based on a combination of, I think, eighty-nine of these fraudulent warrants, the proof became overwhelming and carried absolute conviction to the minds of the jury.

By Mr. MILLIKEN:

Q. Did Mr. Cook or Mr. Gibson protest against your taking up this Dorsey case?-A. Not in the least. They encouraged it. They produced it at Elberon as the case that was to be taken up next after the Prescott and Santa Fé route. My letter of the 1st of October, addressed to Colonel Cook, which I have put into your record, relates to this Dorsey combination, and the papers that Colonel Cook was himself calling for related to that case. As late as December 21, 1881, he wrote to Mr. Woodward, for the reports upon the Dorsey case. There never was an intimation from the beginning to the end of Mr. Cook's connection with the cases that he had any question in his mind as to proceeding with the Dorsey routes, until in his letter of resignation he said, "Whether the strongest routes have been selected remains to be seen." There never was a dissent on the part of anybody. Colonel Cook and Mr. Gibson did want the Prescott and Santa Fé case to go ahead, and I did not want that case to ahead. There was a transaction at one time which looked very much like an attempt on the part of Colonel Cook and Mr. Gibson to use the Department as a means of pushing things along to a certain point, but I take all the responsibility and. as I think, all the glory of the selection of the Dorsey case as a greatly stronger case than any of the others.

Mr. Gibson comes here and tells you that he wanted the Santa Fé and Corpus Christi case, among others, to be followed up. Now, let us see what that case was.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. Before you proceed with that, let me ask you what was the evidence adduced in the trial which connected ex-Senator Dorsey with this combination?-A. Ex-Senator Dorsey was admittedly interested in the contracts-he became interested within a month after he went out of the Senate.

Q. Was that admitted by him?-A. Yes, sir; certainly.

Q. To what extent was he interested?-A. He owned them all, except what went to Vaile. Vaile and he divided up. Vaile and Miner went together, taking part, and Stephen W. Dorsey took the rest.

Q. Was that the arrangement as to the whole of these nineteen routes?-A. Oh, yes; and it extended away beyond them. The bids, in the first place, were all prepared at the house of Stephen W. Dorsey

while he was Senator, and he furnished the bondsmen to a considerable extent.

Q. Who were the bondsmen?—A. D. W. C. Wheeler was one. There was a variety of bondsmen, some good and some not good. S. M. Hoyt was one. Those were on the bids.

Q. Were any of those bondsmen unreliable parties?-A. Mr. Wheeler subsequently, and not very long subsequently, became bankrupt, but I think at the time he became a bondsman he was considered good, and I think he so considered himself. Mr. Hoyt was not so, I think.

Q. Was Mr. Wheeler on all the bids?-A. I think not; but, about the bonds, I am liable to get a little mixed, because I know there were bondsmen on the bids and bondsmen on the contracts.

Q. I am speaking about the bondsmen on whom the Government could have recourse in case of the failure of the contractors.-A. Both the bondsmen on the bids and the bondsmen on the contracts would probably be liable, although that is a matter as to which there is some dispute. Ordinarily, when the Department seeks to hold anybody, I think it proceeds upon the bond given upon the bid.

Q. Was there any evidence on the trial as to the character of the bondsmen-A. No, sir; we did not go into that. In addition to what I have stated there was evidence connecting Dorsey with the getting up of the bids at his house. Mr. Dorsey also furnished the money which started people out there to go over the routes and get up petitions to have the service put on.

Q. To find good places to have expedition?-A. Not exactly; he claimed that he was making loans to those parties. Mr. Dorsey was, I believe, really concerned in the matter right along while he was in the Senate. The business was done with a boldness which might be regarded as, to some extent, implying innocence. Letters were written on United States Senate paper, and statements were made by these agents who were sent out that Senator Dorsey was interested. For instance, when some of the parties out there said, "You cannot get any expedi tion on this route," the answer was made, "Oh, you never had a contractor before who was in the United States Senate." There was a great mass of evidence in detail which we thought showed clearly Senator Dorsey's connection with the business while he was in the Senate. It was claimed that he had no formal connection with the business, but that he was helping relatives and friends, and he certainly did lots of things that were very obliging.

Now, it has been claimed that among the routes that we ought to have proceeded with was that from San Antonio to Corpus Christi. That is the route in connection with which Mr. Kellogg comes into the matter. The details of that route appear in the document containing the inspector's reports, which you have called for, on page 146. The route was 148 miles long. The original bid was $2,733 for two trips a week, on 40 hours time. On the 26th of August, 1878, before service actually commenced-because on that route the service was not commenced on July 1st, the ordinary time of commencing service-on the 26th of August, before the service was actually commenced, the pay was increased to $8,199. On the 1st of August, 1879, a year later, the time was decreased from 40 to 294 hours, and in consideration of that $20,204 was allowed; making the total pay $28,403 on a contract on which the original bid was $2,733. Then there was a subcontract to a man named Ellis, which was subsequently rescinded and a new contract made, by which he got only $12,750, but that was subsequently increased to $15,500. I think that gives you, in brief, the history of the case. In that case