EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 29, 1884_. _To the Senate and House of Representatives:_ In compliance with the act of Congress approved January 16, 1883, entitled "An act to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States," the Civil Service Commission has made to the President its first annual report. That report is herewith transmitted, together with communications from the heads of the several Executive Departments of the Government respecting the practical workings of the law under which the Commission has been acting. Upon the good results which that law has already accomplished I congratulate Congress and the people, and I avow my conviction that it will henceforth prove to be of still more signal benefit to the public service. I heartily commend the zeal and fidelity of the Commissioners and their suggestion for further legislation, and I advise the making of such an appropriation as shall be adequate for their needs. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, February 29, 1884_. _To the Senate and House of Representatives:_ I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a report of the Secretary of State, accompanying a report made by the commission lately designated by me to examine and report upon the asserted unhealthfulness of the swine products of this country. The views and conclusions of the commission deserve the most careful consideration of Congress, to the end that if any path be legitimately open for removing the prohibition which closes important foreign markets to those products it may be followed and appropriate legislation devised. I earnestly recommend that Congress provide for reimbursing the expenses incurred by the commissioners in this praiseworthy service, and I should be glad also if some remunerative recognition of their public-spirited action in accepting the onerous and responsible duties imposed on them were to suggest itself to Congress. At all events, in view of the conflicting theories touching the origin and propagation of trichiniasis and the means of isolating and extirpating it among domestic swine, and considering the important bearing which precise knowledge on these points would have on the commercial aspects of the matter, I recommend provision for special research in this direction. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, March 5, 1884_. _To the House of Representatives:_ In further response to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 15th January last, calling for copies of correspondence on file in the Department of State in relation to the reported arrest at Lodz, in Russia, of Reinhardt Wagner, a citizen of the United States, I transmit, in addition to the papers sent you on the 7th ultimo, a copy of a dispatch subsequently received. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, March 6, 1884_. _To the House of Representatives of the United States:_