Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Report of the City Bounty Fund Commission
It has been suggested in some quarters that the City ought to lay claim to funds which have accumulated at the rendezvous here, arising from the local bounties taken from recruits who have subsequently deserted or been rejected. Had it been proper and advisable to make such a claim, the Commission would have felt it their duty to do so. It is the rule of the regular service to require two examina tions of each recruit, and during last summer, this rule was extended to the volunteers, in consequence of the numerous complaints that men unfit for service were received in the army. When the Commission learned that a portion of the men to whom they were paying bounty were rejected at the rendezvous, they made enquiry to ascertain whether the city was deprived of credit for these men, and not obtaining satisfactory assurances, they announced that no bounty would be paid without a certificate that the recruithad been finally accepted. This virtually put a stop to recruiting until an order was received from the Provost Marshal General, that, at the time of muster-ih, absolute credits should be given, which would not be cancelled by the subsequent rejection of the recruits. The Government thus consented, when it rejected a recruit, to lose' a man; as an equivalent it retained his local bounty, or such part of it as might have been detained from him. The City preserved the credit, and had no further claim on the moneys accumulating from that source in the hands of the officers entitled to hold them.
With the investigations now in progress as to the manner in which the agents of the Government have administered the trust confided to them, the City has therefore nothing to do. The Commission, however, is glad to learn that arrangements are being perfected by which a paymaster will be stationed at the rendezvous, and the business of handling the bounty of recruits will be systematized so as to afford to the Government reasonable security against desertion, while the honest recruit will be protected from imposition.
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