5th And lastly, such information as may be obtainable as to the business habits and systems of your districts. It is desired that the information which may come to your knowledge on the foregoing points should be embraced in a report to the Department, to be made as soon as may be practicable. I am, etc., F. W. SEWARD, The result of this circular was the publication, by order of Congress, the following year, of the volume known as "Labor in Europe," the precursor of the exhaustive report in three volumes which appeared in 1884. Since the organization of the present Bureau of Statistics numerous other special reports, following the same plan, have been printed, the largest and most elaborate of which are the volumes, profusely illustrated, entitled "Cattle and Dairy Farming of the World." The volumes of "Commercial Relations" issued by this Bureau were authorized by the Act of August 18, 1856. ין In the same year, before the passage of that Act, appeared four large volumes entitled "Report on the Commercial Relations of the United States with all Foreign Nations; Edmund Flagg, Superintendent; Prepared and Printed under the Direction of the Secretary of State in Accordance with Resolutions of the Senate and House of Representatives." The resolutions had voted $10,000 to defray the expense. In his introduction, Mr. Flagg, "Superintendent of the Statistical Office," stated: Three reports on "the privileges and restrictions of the commercial intercourse of the United States with foreign nations" similar to the present, have appeared since the establishment of this government. The first was communicated to the House of Representatives, December 16, 1793, by Mr. Secretary Jefferson, in conformity to "instructions" of that body, February 14, 1791, and embraces what is equivalent to some eight or ten octavo pages. The second was communicated to the Senate by Mr. Secretary Forsyth, December 18, 1839, in compliance with a resolution of that body of December 19, 1838, and comprises seventy-four octavo pages. The third and last report was communicated to the House of Representatives by Mr. Secretary Webster, March 29, 1842, in accordance with resolutions of that body of September 3, 1841, and January 31, 1842, and forms a document of nearly six hundred pages. In addition to these reports, three other commercial compilations issued by the government should be namedto wit: the "Commercial Digest," transmitted to the Senate by President Monroe, December 7, 1819, conformably to a resolution of that body, March 3, 1817; the "Digest of Commercial Regulations," showing the 'changes" in such regulations subsequent to the Digest of 1819, prepared by Mr. Secretary Adams, in accordance with a resolution of the House, January 21, 1823, and communicated to that body January 30, 1824; and last, the "Digest of Commercial Regulations" prepared and printed, in three volumes, under the direction of the Secretary of State, in compliance with a resolution of the House, March 3, 1831; the first volume being completed for transmission to that body, May 28, 1833, and the second and third volume in 1836. But in neither of these works last named, was it required to communicate specifically "the privileges and restrictions of the commercial intercourse of the United States with foreign nations," by which requirement the former were characterized. The four volumes of the report were divided into three parts—“Commercial Digests," "Comparative Tariffs," and "Consular Returns." In 1857 appeared the first volume of the "Commercial Relations," the title page reading: "Report of the Secretary of State, Transmitting a Statement from the Superintendent of Statistics of the Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Nations, for the Year Ending September 30, 1856." The volume was on the same plan as that now pursued, being composed of statistical reports giving information of the condition of trade in their districts by the Consuls. While it is now edited and prepared in the Bureau of Statistics, its distribution is a function of the Bureau of Rolls and Library, which also has in its custody the laws of the United States. Under the terms of the Act creating the Department of State bills, orders, resolutions, etc., passed by Congress and approved by the Presi dent, or passed over his veto, were sent to the Secretary of State, by whom they were printed in at least three newspapers, and copies sent to Senators and Representatives and the Executives of the several States, and the originals recorded and preserved. Applications from the newspapers for the printing were received and duly considered, and the contracts awarded. In 1795 (March 3) this method was abandoned, and the Secretary of State was directed "after the next session of Congress, [to] cause to be collated and printed, at the public expense, a complete edition of the laws of the United States, comprising the Constitution of the United States, the public acts then in force, and the treaties, together with an index of the same." Four thousand five hundred copies were to be divided among the several States and the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, through their respective Executives, according to the rule for apportioning Representatives in Congress, and five hundred copies were re |