Viewing page 213 of 557

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

that no discharge should be given up except the claimant applied in person and gave up the receipt, and that order was for the purpose of being certain that the discharges should be placed in the right hands.

Charge 3d. charges the General with criminal neglect of duty in not providing a more safe place for discharges, and with giving his moral support, to a noted scoundrel.

Now as regards the safety of the discharges I have only to say that they were kept in the same place that the Officer who had been in charge of the Division kept them, and he never complained of their being unsafe, as far as I know, and I do not remember of his reporting any lost. Mr Hildreth complains that every key in the Office fitted his desk.  Now I doubt whether any one else in the office is knowing to that fact and I have no doubt Mr Hildreth only knows by trying his keys on other desks. I have been informed that he has opened a drawer in my clerks desk and taken the key to the cabinet where I keep my Bureau Stationary and helped himself to what he wanted, locked