1. No person shall be promoted, without examination under these rules, from any position for which an examination is not required to any position for which an examination is required under the rules; nor shall any person who has passed only a limited examination under clause 4 of Rule VII for the lower classes or grades in the departmental or customs service be promoted within two years after appointment to any position giving a salary of $1,000 or upward without first passing an examination under clause I of said rule, and such examination shall not be allowed within the first year after appointment. 2. But a person who has passed the examination under said clause I and has accepted a position giving a salary of $900 or less shall have the same right of promotion as if originally appointed to a position giving a salary of $1,000 or more. 3. The Commission may at any time certify for a $900 or any lower place in the classified service any person upon the register who has passed the examination under clause I of Rule VII if such person does not object before such certification is made. II. The following words are added as a fifth clause at the end of Rule XVI, viz: 5. Any person appointed to or employed in any part of the classified service, after due certification for the same under these rules, who shall be dismissed or separated therefrom without fault or delinquency on his part may be reappointed or reemployed in the same part or grade of such service at the same office, within eight months next following such dismissal or separation, without further examination. III. It is further ordered that the rule heretofore designated XXI be hereafter designated XXII, and XXII as Rule XXIII. Approved, January 18, 1884. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 8, 1884_. General William T. Sherman, General of the Army, having this day reached the age of 64 years, is, in accordance with law, placed upon the retired list of the Army without reduction in his current pay and allowances. The announcement of the severance from the command of the Army of one who has been for so many years its distinguished chief can but awaken in the minds, not only of the Army, but of the people of the United States, mingled emotions of regret and gratitude--regret at the withdrawal from active military service of an officer whose lofty sense of duty has been a model for all soldiers since he first entered the Army in July, 1840, and gratitude, freshly awakened, for the services, of incalculable value, rendered by him in the war for the Union, which his great military genius and daring did so much to end. The President deems this a fitting occasion to give expression in this manner to the gratitude felt toward General Sherman by his fellow-citizens, and to the hope that Providence may grant him many years of health and happiness in the relief from the active duties of his profession. CHESTER A. ARTHUR.