States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. So help me God.

ROBERT SEWELL.

Sworn to before me, in the city of New York, on this 20th day of October, 1862. WM. L. TAYLOR,

[L. S.]

Notary Public.

The Commissioner of Pensions will furnish printed forms of this oath. After it has been sworn to and signed by an officer authorized to administer oaths, the certificate of the county clerk that the officer is so authorized, and that his signature is genuine, ought to be annexed; and the oath, thus completed, returned to the Commissioner of Pensions, to be filed in his office.

By the act of Congress approved July 1st, 1862,* called the Internal Revenue Law, claim agents are required to take out a license. It has been decided that lawyers, although they have taken out a license as such, must also take out one as claim agents, if they present claims for settlement. The license for claim agents is ten dollars per annum; it should be filed with the Second Auditor of the Treasury, who, in future, will receive no claim from an attorney who has not filed a license or certified copy thereof.

The fees to be charged by persons prosecuting claims, were attempted to be regulated by the act of July 14th, 1862,† entitled "An Act to grant Pensions." The following are the provisions of that law on the subject:

"SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the fees of agents and attorneys for making out and causing to be executed the papers necessary to establish a claim for a pension, bounty, and other allowances before the Pension Office under this act, shall not exceed the following rates: For + Id., chap. 166.

*Thirty-seventh Congress, session 2d, chap. 119.

making out and causing to be duly executed a declaration by the applicant, with the necessary affidavits, forwarding the same to the Pension Office, with the requisite correspondence, five dollars. In cases wherein additional testimony is required by the Commissioner of Pensions, for each affidavit so required and executed and forwarded (except the affidavits of surgeons, for which such agents and attorneys shall not be entitled to any fees), one dollar and fifty

cents.

"SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That any agent or attorney who shall, directly or indirectly, demand or receive any greater compensation for his services under this act than is prescribed in the preceding section of this act, or who shall contract or agree to prosecute any claim for a pension, bounty, or other allowance under this act, on the condition that he shall receive a per centum upon, or any portion of the amount of such claim, or who shall wrongfully withhold from a pensioner or other claimant the whole or any part of the pension or claim allowed and due to such pensioner or claimant, shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall, for every such offence, be fined not exceeding three hundred dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor not exceeding two years, or both, according to the circumstances and aggravations of the offence."

This is one of the most extraordinary pieces of legislation extant, and admirably illustrates the spirit in which attorneys prosecuting claims are treated by Congress and the Departments. For Congress to prescribe the rates at which the labor of an attorney is to be compensated would seem to be ridiculous enough, but to make the violation of such a rule a highly penal offence, punishable by fine and imprisonment with hard labor, or both, caps the climax of absurdity. The astute author of this bill seems to have had his own peculiar notions respecting the Constitution, and to have considered that Congress could pass any law it pleased, without any reference to that celebrated instrument. The

intention of the framer of the bill was undoubtedly to include all claims, whether for bounty, pension, or other allowances, but he overreached the mark. The law provides only for claims "before the Pension Office, under this act;" therefore the regulation as to fees does not extend to any other class of claims than those presented under that act in the Pension Office.

The fee of five dollars may be said to be an adequate payment for drawing a pension declaration, but when proof is to be included, it is not. The law therefore, in many instances, prevents respectable attorneys from having anything to do with the business, for the very simple and easily understood reason, that the rates allowed are not an adequate compensation for the labor to be performed. The business is thus thrown into less scrupulous hands, persons who probably do not confine themselves to the legal rates, or else get compensation in some other way. The law is also defective in this, that it offers inducements to agents to make the claim imperfect in the first place, because in cases where additional evidence is called for, they are allowed additional fees, but they are allowed no fees for the same evidence if made out correctly at first, and submitted with the claim.

The enactment, it is thus seen, has altogether failed in its purpose to protect claimants, and all such laws must so fail. There never was a law of the kind yet that a knave could not evade, and there probably never will be. The proper mode to remedy the evil would be to provide for admission to practise before the Departments, and to recog nize fully attorneys so admitted, receiving claims from no others. These admitted attorneys would then always be under the control of the Departments, and could be punished for malpractices by suspension or expulsion. Some such measure as this is demanded by the growing importance, both as to number and magnitude, of claims on the Government.

Attorneys must file in each case the authority under

which they act. The Pension Office requires a power of attorney signed by the claimant before two witnesses, and acknowledged before a proper officer. It will be seen that the forms of declarations given in this book contain a clause giving power to an attorney to collect, which complies with the Pension Office rule. There is no provision as to fees of attorneys for the collection of arrears of pay and bounty. The matter being left to the parties to settle by private contract, each attorney must settle for himself the proper remuneration which he is willing to receive for the time and trouble expended in each case.

The delays experienced in the prosecution of claims are a fruitful source of annoyance and disappointment to claimants. As at present constituted, the office of the Second Auditor of the Treasury takes an average time of twelve months to reach a claim. It is hoped that some new plan will soon be devised by which the accounts of deceased soldiers will be settled more promptly, but while the present system lasts the delay is inevitable. In the Pension Office claims are reached in less time; but even there, there is always necessarily a delay of some months, after a claim is filed, before it can be acted upon. Attorneys ought therefore, in the first instance, to inform their clients of these facts, and thus prepare them for a delay which seems to them to be vexatious and unreasonable. Some persons professing to be claim agents make a practice of promising to get the claim through within so many weeks, in order to se cure it, a practice which is very reprehensible.

Attorneys' offices are constantly being visited by discharged soldiers of every class, who all imagine that their discharge is a merchantable commodity, like a bond or a bill, entitling the holder to so much money, and which they offer to sell. It is hardly necessary to say here that a discharge is without any value whatever to any person but the owner, and that a man selling his discharge gives to the purchaser no title to any bounty that may be due to him. The boun

ty is due to the person who performed the service, not to the holder of the discharge; and the bounty is not assignable until the warrant is drawn in payment of it.*

Attorneys will act wisely who refrain from advancing money to clients on any claims. I am satisfied that the practice is a bad one, and that an attorney cannot properly engage in it. Besides these considerations, it is very unsafe; there is absolutely no legal security for advances. Clients who have received money on a claim get to thinking that their interests are adverse to the interest of the attorney. The only safe plan is to avoid all such transactions, and confine yourself to the strict duty of prosecuting the claim.

Attorneys who are notaries or other officers cannot take evidence or acknowledgments in cases wherein they are interested as attorneys, and this rule is manifestly proper, and is observed in all the Departments.

Where claimants make out their own papers, it is to be expected that a large percentage of errors will be committed, but where there is an attorney employed, who professes to transact such business, absolute correctness is expected of him. An attorney who habitually prepares his cases with care, and presents his proof clearly and sufficiently, must, of necessity, have an advantage over persons who are deficient in these particulars, and numbers of such will materially alter the tone of the Departments concerning them as a class.

*See acts approved July 29th, 1846, and February 26th, 1853.

Attorneys who are in the habit of forwarding a large number of claims, proven before the same magistrate or notary, will save time, trouble, and expense by filing in the Department to which such claims are forwarded, a certificate of the Secretary of State, or other proper officer, of the official character of such magistrate or notary, together with his official signature. This course will obviate the necessity of a separate authentication of such magistrate's or notary's signature. The attorney should, in such cases, write under the signature of the magistrate, "Proof of official character of this justice of the peace (or notary) on file in the office of the Second Auditor of the Treasury (or in the Pension Office)."