The benevolent, reformatory, and penal institutions of the District are all entitled to the favorable attention of Congress. The Reform School needs additional buildings and teachers. Appropriations which will place all of these institutions in a condition to become models of usefulness and beneficence will be regarded by the country as liberality wisely bestowed. The Commissioners, with evident justice, request attention to the discrimination made by Congress against the District in the donation of land for the support of the public schools, and ask that the same liberality that has been shown to the inhabitants of the various States and Territories of the United States may be extended to the District of Columbia. The Commissioners also invite attention to the damage inflicted upon public and private interests by the present location of the depots and switching tracks of the several railroads entering the city, and ask for legislation looking to their removal. The recommendations and suggestions contained in the report will, I trust, receive the careful consideration of Congress. Sufficient time has, perhaps, not elapsed since the reorganization of the government of the District under the recent legislation of Congress for the expression of a confident opinion as to its successful operation, but the practical results already attained are so satisfactory that the friends of the new government may well urge upon Congress the wisdom of its continuance, without essential modification, until by actual experience its advantages and defects may be more fully ascertained. R.B. HAYES. SPECIAL MESSAGES. WASHINGTON, _December 4, 1878_. _To the Senate of the United States_: I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to ratification, a declaration respecting trade-marks between the United States and Brazil, concluded and signed at Rio de Janeiro on the 24th day of September last. R.B. HAYES. WASHINGTON, _December 4, 1878_. _To the Senate of the United States_: I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to ratification, a convention revising certain portions of existing commercial treaties and further extending commercial intercourse between the United States and Japan, concluded and signed at Washington on the 25th day of July last. R.B. HAYES. WASHINGTON, _December 9, 1878_. _To the Senate of the United States_: I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, together with the copies of papers[21] therein referred to, in compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 27th of May last. R.B. HAYES. [Footnote 21: Correspondence relative to claims of United States citizens against Nicaragua.] WASHINGTON, _December 16, 1878_. _To the House of Representatives_: In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 5th instant, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with its accompanying papers.[22] R.B. HAYES.