The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-03-02

number of prizes at state fairs before ne
purchased it.
The business of the pension office can
hardly be appreciated The HES OF us
cases would carpet state II the papers
were spread cut The cid documents
among It's recoris would make ii strip as
wide as a wagon road and long enough TO
reach around the world. II has settled
millions of claims, aud there are now more
than four hundred Thousand cases IN the
Office awaiting settlement. General Rauul
believes that the cases should be made
complete by the claimants, and that such
cases should be first passed upon oy nm.
He has given directions that all claims III
which the evidence is complete shall be
first acted upon. and at the present rate OF
progress, if the lawyers and claimants
have all these four hundred thousand cases
ready FOR action to day, ne thinks that in
seven or eight months his bureau would
STAND EVEN WITH TIE woELD,
and everything would be finished up TO
thatdate.
His mail is immense The pension com
missioner gets fully 10000 letters year
and :. 900 900 of these require prompt AN
swers. Think or 100000 letters! Each
one viii contain mt least a foot of note
paper and If you would paste the sheets TO-
geIher the mail received by this man in Il
Single year would make ribbon six inches
wide longer than from New York to Cleve-
land Estimating each letter at costing Il
, cent stamp it makes Si0,0J0 for postage,
and when you figure UP the labor and
brains, the worry and trouble, you have
embodied a number of liGetimes in this
item. Ter thousand letters q day! Seventy
thousand letters u week More than
100000 letters a year! This is
what the pension Office mail amounts
to. The most OF the letters are. however,
managed by clerks, and the pension o;sice
p0st0ilice and distributing room IS is big
as that of many a village posrCllire. Nearly
every letter requires research, and many
of them consume several sheets Of note
paper. Nevertheless about "a Thousand are
answered every day. The letters received
from congressman amount TO about one
thousand day, and Cougressmcu's letters
must always be answered. More than two
thousand pension cases are settled every
week, and during the last six days / ,4O1
invalias have received pensions aud rs
pensions have been granted TO widows, 6l5
men have been granted an increase OF pen.
sion and l,7s3 new claims have been adj
mitted. Al present there are
NEARLY HALF MILLION CLAIMS
pending in the pension Office, and the depart
a half of dollars in pensions every week
1t is the biggest business of the kind in the
world and ii grows digger every year.
Let mc Leli you something about the
building in which this Immense business is
transacted. Ii is the biggest brick huild-
ing in the world and its mighty roof covers
two acres Of ground. II is made of red
pressed brick, a mighty three-story stlqc
turc with great glass roof rising tier by
= ~
ofthc past was the baths Of Dioclctian. The
ruins OF which stand by the Via NazionalC
in Rome. These baths were a .,i!c IN cir
cumIer2nce. their interior was finished ID
marble and Egyptian granite and they had
+ 3.0J0 marble seats for bathcrs Wonderful
mOs3ics covered its floors, hot and colt
water continuously flowed FOR the use OF
/ the bather and The dirtieSt OF plebeians
could have access to them for one
eighth of q cent time. II may
1 be that General Meigs had th;:
! immense structure IN his mind when M
modelled this pension building L is made
after the Roman palaces of the fifteenth
century and il consists OF series of bis
rooms around great central court cover
! ing an acre. This court is much ike the
court OF st. Marks, in Venice. save that
! S.. Marks has only The Italian sky to rooi
! it while the pension conrt is protected from
he cold winds by a sky of glass, and its
/ immense glass roof is upheld by eighty
mighty brick columns higher than any city
house outside of q Hat and thicker than any
/ tree liz america outside Of California
Each of these columns contains enough
brick TO build two good sized houses anC
in the ages Of the future they may stanC
here like cbelisks when the rest of tht
building Las crumbled into ruins.
lporSn Tttts cpr,-r co,-pr
are arcades arising gallery above gallery
and opening out fron the three stories O.
rooms. Some of the columns OF these arr
! gilded or bronzed. The finish OF the court
the columns and the walls is in white: til,
Igreat diamond glass roof is set in framed
mosalc OF yellow and the great acre of fool
/ is OF colored tics. In the centre of the
whole a great fountain sends up a silyerN
spray, and the whole is one of the curiosi
/ ties Of architecture. 1t was IN this build
ing that the last two inaugural balls nave
been held, and it is here that all the rrea
balls of the future Presidents will be cele-
brated AT present the lloor is filed will
great cases OF flies, and you may walk FOL
a mile in and out through the aisles sur
rounded by these great cases of pension
papers.
In these old papers may be found tn,
names OF the most noted men of orr his
tory. Blaine's great-grandmother got !;
pension aad Presidents Grant and Lincoln
received land for their services i'm tht
Mexican and the Back Hawk wars. Rob
ert T.. Lee got 100 acres of land for I'll,
work he did as colonelin our war witt
Mexico, and jefferson Davis received tn,
same amount for his services. The
MEXICAN WAR PENSIONS
are fast dying out, and there are at presen