1st Session. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. DECEMBER 15, 1873.-Ordered to be printed. No. 3. Mr. WRIGHT, from the Committee on Finance, submitted the following REPORT: The Committee on Finance, to whom was referred the petition of A. S. Rosenbaum & Co., that they be re-imbursed the cost of tax-stamps on certain tobacco, burned at sea, submit the following report: Petitioners state that about the 1st of June, 1872, they bought of Pace & Stowell, of Danville, Va., 383 boxes of tobacco, net weight 18,929 pounds. This was shipped in bond to New York, consigned to the collector of the proper district. While in transit, and on the 6th of June, 1872, the act decreasing the tax from 32 to 20 cents per pound was passed, to take effect 1st July ensuing. Upon the holding of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, that this tobacco would in the bonded warehouse be taxable at the rate of 32 cents per pound, and by his permission, (as petitioners state,) it was returned to the place of manufacture and stamped with the new tax, or 20 cents per pound. It was again, thus stamped, reshipped to New York, and afterwards 100 boxes sent by railroad to San Francisco, and the remaining 283 boxes, weighing 14,008 pounds, by steamer, to the same place, which steamer was destroyed by fire and the whole cargo lost. By the statement of Pace & Stowell it appears that the tobacco was sold to petitioners on the 29th of July, 1872. It also appears, by the certificate of the collector in Virginia, that Pace & Stowell purchased the stamps which were placed on the tobacco. Petitioners claim to be re-imbursed the amount paid for the stamps placed on the tobacco lost at sea, or 20 cents on the 14,008 pounds, or $2,801.60. On these facts your committee are of opinion that petitioners are not entitled to relief. They never purchased any stamps, as far as we know. The revenue was never increased a dollar by any contribution from them. We know of no principle upon which they can ask to be subrogated to any possible rights of Pace & Stowell. Because they purchased and lost tobacco, upon which others paid the tax, is no ground for re-imbursing them the tax thus paid. Then, again, we cannot recognize a rule which would render the Government liable to thus re-imburse taxes where the property has passed beyond its control, in no manner subject to the care or protection of any of its officers, where the owner selects his own means of shipment, and may take those more or less hazardous, dependent upon the prospect for large or small profits. Without more, we report that the claim ought not to be allowed, and we ask to be discharged from its further consideration. 1st Session. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. DECEMBER 17, 1873.-Ordered to be printed. No. 4. Mr. SCOTT, from the Committee on Claims, submitted the following REPORT: The Committee on Claims, to whom was referred the petition of Antoinette Darling, praying compensation for damages sustained in consequence of Indian depredations in Minnesota, have had the same under consideration, and submit the following report : This petition was originally introduced in the Fortieth Congress on the 26th May, 1868, and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs. It has been since introduced in the Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses, has been successively referred to the Committees on Indian Affairs, Appropriations, and Claims, and on the 15th February, 1873, the Committee on Claims was discharged from its further consideration. Some remedy should be found to prevent the continued reference of claims which have been repeatedly examined and found to be such as ought not to be allowed, and the committee are of opinion that there should be a rigid enforcement of the spirit of the forty-ninth rule of the Senate, which provides that "whenever a claim is presented to the Senate and referred to a committee, and the committee report that the claim ought not to be allowed, and the report be adopted by the Senate, it shall not be in order to move to take the papers from the files for the purpose of referring them at a subsequent session, unless the claimant. shall present a memorial for that purpose, stating in what respect the committee have erred in their report, or that new evidence has been discovered since the report, and setting forth the new evidence in the memorial." To bring this case within the rule, a report is now made upon it, which the committee ask the Senate to adopt. The petitioner resided in Douglas County, Minnesota, with her husband, Andreas Darling, in August, 1862, on a farm owned by the husband. She claims that, owing to the Sioux Indian massacre in that month, the crops of grain and vegetables growing on about forty acres of the farm, and worth $1,974, were destroyed and lost, and claims compensation for them; her husband having, in the fall of 1862, removed to Missouri, where he was killed by bushwhackers in 1864. Under act of 16th of February, 1863, (12 Stat. at Large, 652,) commissioners were appointed to ascertain the amount of damages suffered by these depredations, and the persons who have suffered the same, two hundred thousand dollars being set apart from the annuities due the Indians named in the act to pay the sums awarded. By act of 28th May, 1864, (13 Stat., pp. 92, 93,) an appropriation was made to pay the persons named in the report of the commissioners, and by letter of the Secretary of the Interior, dated 10th January, 1873, it is stated that "the name of Antoinette Darling does not appear among those whose claims were examined and reported upon by the commis sioners." If the claim was a proper one it ought to have been presented to the commissioners thus specially provided to examine it; and, as it was not so presented, it ought not to be paid by a general appropriation out of the Treasury. The committee therefore report that the claim ought not to be allowed. |