abide their contumely, because I knew that if your assurances were fulfilled all that interests the people would be gained, and that otherwise the wrong of the enrollment would be presented yet more transparently to the public mind. Your Excellency by a reduction of 50 per cent. in the number of conscripts required from this city has conceded the inequality of the enrollment; but this reduction may be comparatively valueless to those who were subjected to the wrong unless accompanied by regulations that will give to it real efficiency.

Under the circumstances I have detailed, it is with no less surprise than regret that I learn tat the draft has ben conducted to-day in the Sixth Congressional District without the observance of such regulations as would have placed its fairness beyond question, and which ordinary justice, to say nothing of expectations reasonably formed, imperatively demanded. There was nothing in the manner of the drawing to-day to defeat the power of a partisan board of enrollment to make the progressing a fraud and a farce. It is not too much to ask that a draft shall not place in any other district until such provision is made that the the public can known certainly that all the names included in the enrollment are placed in the box, and that the drawing is made by some person not selected by a partisan board.

Regulations to secure these objects are suggested on page 24 of my report. They have been approved by the press of this city, including some of the most extreme supporters of your Administration. It is fortunate that the provost-marshal in the Sixth District is a gentleman highly respected for his personal worth by all who know him, but some of the members of the various enrolling boards are not as favorably regarded. Even the provost- marshal for the Sixth District may be the instrument of wrong by the action of subordinates unknown to the public; while the opportunities for fraud, if a provost-marshal is dishonest, are almost unlimited. The draft in the several districts will hereafter be closely scrutinized, and the results will be tried by such tests as can be adduced. It is possible that they may not always rightly characterize the results; but I respectfully submit that it is not just to subject the enrolling boards to that danger of the imputations which may follow such comparisons, when by proper regulations they can be absolutely prevented. If results such as that which in the Ninth District produced scenes of violence which cannot be too greatly deplored are to be presented in other districts, they will leave feelings of nitterness and resentment behind them which all should regret. It is not probable that they would be attended by immediate demonstrations, for the late tumults have taught even the most reckless the folly of violent resistance to any proceedings sanctioned by law, however wrongful; but no man can foresee the future complications of our national perils, and it does not seem to me to be wise to leave large portions of the people under the influence of animosities engendered by a scene of wrong. As one deeply solicitous for the welfare of our country, I appeal to Your Excellency to forestall such possibilities by regulations that will render them impossible.

This appeal to Your Excellency to prescribe regulations to secure absolute fairness in the draft cannot be too earnestly pressed. The lottery which tears some of our fellow-citizens from their homes and places their lives in continual peril, strains with agonizing intensity upon the hearts of wives and children and parents as tender and as dear as those which surround any of the rulers in the land. Will