Brewster on the 24th of July with reference to this matter, again sug. gesting, as I recollect it, that the cases proceed. I think I have not a copy of that letter here. He replied to me from Long Branch on the 25th of July as follows:

HOWLAND HOTEL,

Long Branch, N. J., July 25, 1883.

DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 24th of July was handed to me to-day. Some month or more ago-perhaps two months-as I have advised you, the Postmaster-General communicated with me upon the subject of the civil suits arising out of the starroute cases. In consequence of that I put you in the direct communication with him, and I conveyed to him copies of all the correspondence between the Department of Justice and yourself as to these cases. You gave me a verbal but brief account of your interview with the Postmaster-General, and I understood you to say that you were to be retained to assist, in some general way, in the prosecution of those civil suits. [The Postmaster-General assumed that I was to be retained. I said that it was not by any means certain that I was; that it rested with Mr. Brewster, but I certainly would not be retained to try the cases.]

I have not the correspondence by me at this place, or probably I would find in some one of your notes written to me at or abont that time a statement of the result of your interview with the Postmaster-General, and what you understood your position to be. My recollection now is that you were to have charge of them in some general way, and much to be left to your discretion as to when and where you would appear, your desire being that you would not add expense to the case by going to any remote point if it would be necessary to bring suits other than in Washington or New York, or in some other jurisdiction. Indeed, if I am not much amiss, I now remember that it was your purpose mainly to supervise such suits as might be brought in Washington or in New York so as to avoid expense that would be occasioned by your absence from your business in New York.

Since that time the Postmaster-General has verbally said to me that he was having the papers prepared for the purpose of directing suits to be brought. I believe much labor was necessary to arrange the papers and adjust the accounts, and get things ready for the suits. You know that by statute it lies with the Postmaster-General alone to direct suits or not to direct them. I have no power, except as I am requested by him, to direct action to be taken, or to take action myself. When he reports to me the result of his preparations and requests me to bring certain suits to recover claims, of which I can know nothing unless they were so reported to me, I will then be ready and prepared to communicate with you.

When I firs. became Attorney-General, and we advised together upon this subject, it was after you conveyed to me the information that Mr. James had deputed you to take charge of these civil cases, and I nuderstood from you that before you intended to act it was your wish that I should know that you so proposed to do, that I should know by what authority you would undertake to act, and that you wished to have my sanction as the head of the Department of Justice to any such suits as you might think it proper to bring under the authority given to you by Mr. James. Then I promptly accepted your proposals and suggestions, and assented to your immediate action if you thought it necessary, under the instructions you had received from the Post-Office Department.

The impression I had soon after that communication made by you, and to which I responded, I believe, in writing, was that it was considered inexpedient to begin those civil suits at that time, because of the urgency of the criminal proceedings; and from time to time since then, in my letters to you, I have adverted to these outstanding cases and reminded you of them, indicating my intentions to speed them whenever the Post-Office Department and yourself were ready to act, and I have been ever since prepared to sanction such suits, and instruct and direct them when they were brought.

The suggestion of your letter of the 24th of July I will remember. I will also send a copy of that letter to the Postmaster-General, and of this also.

Very respectfully yours,

GEORGE BLISS, Esq.,

BENJAMIN HARRIS BREWSTER,

Attorney-General.

Special Assistant United States Attorney

in the star-route cases, New York City.

Since that time I have written Mr. Brewster two letters on the subject, suggesting proceedings and a mode of procedure. The last plan

that I suggested to him was that he might employ some bright young attorney at a salary, who should have general charge of these suits and at the same time confide the more important matters of the preparation of the pleadings and various things of that character to some connsel whom he should select in Washington or elsewhere, and that in that way the matter might be done without any considerable expense. I learned that the Attorney-General received on the 25th of October the detailed statements to which I have referred.

Q. Were they laid before you?-A. They were not laid before me. The question of what should be done with the civil suits and who should have charge of them was kept in abeyance by Mr. Brewster. He talked at one time of sending them to Mr. Valentine, the district attorney in Philadelphia, who had shown himself very competent in some of these matters, and after a time I thought I saw a way to get jurisdiction of a civil suit against Mr. Dorsey in a forum where I thought there would be no question of fair treatment. I then made personal application to Mr. Brewster, saying that I did not want to be bulging into the cases, but that there was such a condition of things that I wished he would let me have the papers in that case, that I did not care to continue in it, and that all questions of compensation might be left in abeyance for his subsequent consideration. He then did send me statements of all the routes which were embraced in the Dorsey indictment. It turned out, however, that the Postmaster-General had made those statements out in the ordinary skeleton form, referring to the evidence upon the trial as applicable to them. When I came to look at those statements in connection with the subcontract law, I found that that law came in my way. It did not appear how much of the money had been paid to or on the orders of Dorsey himself, and I wrote to Mr. Brewster that fact, and said that I thought it would be necessary to make an examination in Washington on that point. Subsequently I came here and made an examination and got the details.

Q. What did you find?-A. As against Stephen W. Dorsey I found between $100,000 and $200,000 that I thought the Government could recover from him. That was between $100,000 and $200,000 which had been paid either to him upon these nineteen routes, or upon orders given to him or drafts indorsed by him. That left out the subcontractors. Accompanying those were sent me also the papers against Peck, Miner, Vail, and John W. Dorsey. I wrote to the Attorney-General, saying that Peck was dead, leaving substantially no estate, that John W. Dorsey and Miner were irresponsible, and that it seemed to me not wise to be seuding good money after bad by suing irresponsible men; that as to Vail, he was rich and was out in Missouri. I said that I did not suppose the Attorney-General desired to send me the case, if he did to let me know, but that what I was looking after was the case against Stephen W. Dorsey. The arrangement I had made to get jurisdiction of Dorsey was this. It would have been an action in rem, and it failed in consequence of the sudden death of a gentleman.

Q. Mr. Bosler?-A. Mr. Bosler. He, as president of the company, had purchased Dorsey's ranch, and under other circumstances had in his possession property of Mr. Dorsey, and when Bosler came to New York I proposed to attach it. But Mr. Bosler suddenly died the very day, I think, he was leaving for New York. Therefore, subsequent to that I wrote to the Attorney-General saying that my efforts to secure this attachment as against Dorsey had failed; that I had retained the papers, because I understood that Dorsey was in Washington, and my

information was that he was likely to come to New York, so that per-
sonal service might be had there. However, I learned that he would
not come to New York and was going to start for New Mexico early in
the following week. My letter was written, I think, on Thursday, and
it suggested that in going there he would pass through Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois, in either one of which States Judge Gresham had assured
me the Government would have fair treatment, and as either one of
those was nearer the place where witnesses would have to be brought
from than any place in the East, it seemed to me that the proceedings
should be taken to get personal service upon Dorsey there. The At-
torney-General wrote me saying that he had received my letter and had
referred it to the Postmaster-General, and that is all I know about it.

Q. You have had no further answer?-A. No further answer. I understand, though, that no suit has been commenced. I understand, from something that has been told me since I came here by one of these omniscient press gentlemen, that while the gentleman who was expected to travel with Mr. Dorsey left by the ordinary train, Mr. Dorsey went by a little different and somewhat circuitous route, and this gentleman said he supposed that my plan of securing personal service might have reached Dorsey, and that he tried thus to avoid it by going that way. I have no knowledge, however, on that subject beyond what has been told me.

Q. It has been suggested, Mr. Bliss, that in order to retaliate upon Dorsey for eluding you you have interfered with a suit affecting him in the Territory of New Mexico, and have secured there some action unfavorable to him.-A. Nothing of the kind is true.

Q. You are not acquainted with the proceeding?-A. No, sir. Now that you speak of it, I did see it in the papers that he had got into a row with Bosler's company, but I had nothing to do with it in any way. Q. State whether these defendants were responsible for the sums that the Government might reasonably claim from them.-A. Except Stephen W. Dorsey, they were not. I suppose him to be so. burys and the Parkers, I understand that they are responsible. As to the Salis

Q. They are still contractors, are they not?-A. I do not know. I understand them to be still responsible. There is a difficulty, however, which was one of the things that was to be avoided by the arbitration. Luke Voorhees, for instance, is the contractor. Now, Voorhees makes a subcontract with O. J. Salisbury, and the increase and everything of that sort which is alleged to be fraudulent is done while Voorhees is the contractor and before there is any subcontract on file. the money probably to Salisbury, but there comes in the question, Now, you can trace which is a matter of evidence very largely, as to whether you can prove the connection between Salisbury and Voorhees. It is the same with Kerns and Griffith and various other cases of that kind. The Salisburys did a great deal of business in that way by putting forward dummies.

Q. Did you see the statement that the Postmaster-General had prepared of the amounts claimed to be due from these star-route contractors?-A. I never have seen it in possession of the Department of Justice. Since you have summoned me here, when I went to the PostOffice Department for the purpose of getting some facts about this Phoenix and Prescott route, the present Second Assistant PostmasterGeneral showed me a thick paper that had been prepared, but I did not feel that I had any right to go over it, and I did not go over it except as to the Phoenix and Prescott route. Technically, my relations with

the Government had ceased, and as I saw that that was a paper that this committee had called for, and there had been some question as to whether it should be published, I thought I must regard myself as an outsider, and therefore I did not go over it.

Q. You do not know the aggregate amount?-A. I do not; I don't know whether it stated the aggregate; it was quite a thick paper, and I looked over only three or four pages.

Q. So far as you know no civil suits have been brought against any of those contractors?-A. I am very confident no civil suits have been brought. Now, if I may state what I understand to be the facts I will do so. I understand that within a few days the papers in the civil suits have been referred to a gentleman bearing the same name that I do, and yet no earthly relation to me, Mr. William H. Bliss, United States attorney at Saint Louis, who is, by education and experience, I think, as competent a man as can be found in the country to take charge of such He labors, however, under the difficulty of having no knowledge of the interior arrangement of the business of the Post-Office Depart ment, and without considerable special education you cannot appreciate, in my opinion, the force of the cases. If suits are to be brought and prosecuted, Mr. Bliss's experience and the results of his action show that he is as competent a man as can be found anywhere. I understand that he is now in the city engaged in the examination of these cases.

Q. In regard to the employment of detectives, I see in Executive Document No. 40 (matter called for by the Senate), beginning on page 37, a number of accounts of detectives for expenses and services in cases connected with the star-route frauds?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Who employed these detectives?-A. Well, sir, that was done in this way. We were about to go to trial in the first Dorsey case. As I have already testified, we considered the wisdom of applying to have the jury kept confined during the trial, but we ascertained that Judge Wylie was of the opinion that it could not be done in such a case, and moreover that if it could be done, it was not a wise thing to do. We did not agree with him in relation to that, but it was pretty clear before we got through that in one phase of the case he was right. I think that if the jury had been shut up during that entire summer we certainly would have had a mistrial. Under that condition of things people brought us various stories of this juryman and that juryman, that he was doing queer things and meeting with queer people, and in consultation with the other counsel it was decided to recommend that detectives be employed to watch certain jurymen. Of course there were certain jurymen that were of such high standing in the community that we did not think they could be approached. The Attorney-General was communicated with, and he authorized the employment of the detectives, and Mr. Ker sent to Philadelphia for Capt. Lyndon, who was in charge of Pinkerton's service in Philadelphia, and he came here and brought his operatives, and they were employed in that way. I never saw them or had anything to do with them. I think I did once see Lyndon, but that whole business was more in charge of Mr. Ker and Mr. Merrick than of myself.

Q. What were the duties of those detectives?-A. Either of the gentlemen I have named can tell you that better than I can. I can simply state in a general way what we learned which led to their employment. For instance, that a juryman was in the habit of meeting at a particular place such a man, who was known to be in the employment of the other side, and he was "shadowed." That was the general idea. They were

shadowing the jury, with instructions under no circumstances to ever say a word to any juryman. They also made reports which I never

saw.

Q. Did they continue to be employed during the whole of the first trial?-A. I think not. I think we became satisfied that while we got an enormous amount of suspicious matter it would not lead to anything practical, and therefore I think their employment was stopped before the close of the trial.

Q. Did you examine the reports of those detectives to know what they had been doing?-A. I never saw their reports.

Q. How did you know, then, that they were giving suspicious infor mation?-A. I never saw the reports.

Q. Who approved the reports?-A. It is possible that my name appears upon some of them, though I think the bulk of them were approved, not by me, but by Mr. Ker and Mr. Merrick. I think so, but I cannot say so with any certainty. This statement (in Ex. Doc. 40) does not show. Here is one that I approved. That reminds me. In New York I sent for the Pinkerton people there, and made an arrangement with them by which their charge should be $2 a day, which was less than they charged to ordinary private parties. I communicated that fact to the Attorney-General, and it was approved. The amount that they were to be paid per diem was arranged in that way beforehand.

Q. You say that the information that these detectives obtained was not furnished to the counsel in the case?-A. Oh, yes, sir; it was furnished to Mr. Merrick and Mr. Ker; but in the Dorsey case we put 3,600 exhibits, and all of those involved an infinitude of detail, and all of that was in my charge, and so were the witnesses, and I had as much as I could do, or as any man would want to do, and for that reason this other business was thrown onto these other gentlemen.

Q. Then you never received any reports from the detectives?—A. I never received any from them. I saw at Mr. Merrick's office certain reports, and I may have fingered over one, and it is possible that some particular one may have been taken up and my attention called to it or to some passage in it.

Q. Was your attention called to that passage which contains a charge forexpense with Mahone and two Congressmen seeking information, 45 cts."-A. (Laughter.) No, sir; I think my attention was not called to any of those items of expense.

Q. From the accounts the principal occupation of these detectives seems to have been to take drinks and ride on the street cars?—A. Well, that was for the benefit of two influential classes in the Washing. ton community.

Q. I did not know whether the detectives were useful in the trial or not.-A. If you ask my opinion about that, my opinion always was that that business did not pay expenses. I thought it was a wise thing to undertake it, but as it turned out it did not pay expenses, and therefore we did not repeat the experiment on the second trial. I think it was abandoned even on the first trial before we got through with the trial. I feel quite certain that if the detectives were not all discharged the number employed was very much reduced.

Q. Among your personal expense accounts I see that your bills were generally for board at the Arlington; is that the place where you usually stopped?-A. Yes, sir. I see there is some criticism by Mr. Cook as to certain items in my expense accounts. I paid $10 a day for the simple reason, as I have told the committee, that it was neces