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that it be done only upon estimates including cost of transportation carefully prepared by the Assistant Commissioner,and submitted to you monthly.

The manner of conducting the issue is a matter to be carefully considered. The regulations prepared by Genl. Swayne, have already been submitted to you. From my own observation, I am satisfied that this duty can fast be performed by the officers of the Bureau. They can not, it is true, issue in every County, but the supplies should be furnished upon estimates made by them for their Districts, and by them distributed to the respective agents, designated by the Assistant Commissioner, for each County. If the Bureau is charged with this work, and its chief held responsible for the manner in which it is conducted, it does not seem wise or prudent, to relieve its agents, who are on the ground, of all connection with or control over it.

I am not aware of any serious abuse of the power entrusted to County Agents, nor of the unsuitableness of the Judges of Probate (except in the cases of the Judge in Marion County, in whose correspondence with Col. Collis Superintendent of the Northern District, and Mr Cruikshank, there is much conflict of opinion as to the necessity for rations for the work entrusted to them.

But there are complaints that freedmen and the widows of Union soldiers were not