take fifty dollars,' but as I did not want that much I only took enough to make forty dollars. When I came to Washington to dispose of my goods, which was on the 5th of August, 1864, I put up at the National Hotel, registered my name as J. W. Harris, under which name I did business with Wall & Company." Here we have a straightforward, circumstantial account of the efforts made and the means used to spread pestilence and death amongst citizens and soldiers alike, in the capital of the nation, and in other cities and camps, a special consignment, supposed to contain the contagion of yellow fever and small-pox, being sent as "a donation to President Lincoln." This was for the purpose of taking his life, and at the risk of the lives of his household. Blackburn, Clay, Thompson, and Holcomb were the originators of the plan, and as guilty as the infamous scoundrel, Hyams, who, to gratify his desire for revenge on them for their perfidy in putting him off with a mere pittance of the promised reward for his services in the matter, comes before the Commission and reveals the whole history of their infamy. No one who reads his story will doubt that he was a conscienceless scoundrel, who, for the hope of obtaining a large sum of money, according to their promise, was willing to make himself an instrument in the wholesale and indiscriminate destruction of human life. But monster as he was, he was not more a monster than was each one of his employers. He was evidently a man well qualified for the task in which he was employed; in the first place destitute of conscience, and then a man of a good degree of intelligence, shrewdness, and knowledge of affairs. Granting that he was selected by Dr. Robinson, and recommended by him to Dr. Blackburn, he could not have made a better selection had he had full knowledge of the work cut out for him to do. And when we consider Blackburn's perfidy in his dealings with him, pledging his faith as a freemason and giving him his hand in friendship, assuring him that he would never deceive him; then building him up in the idea that he would receive one hundred thousand dollars, and perhaps ten times that amount as his reward; and then, after he had performed a service that put his own life in jeopardy, to put him off with a mere pittance of the amount promised, we cannot wonder that a man constituted as Hyams was should divulge the terrible secret in revenge for the shabby treatment he had received at their hands. See how Clay and Holcomb meet him on his return! They understand all about the character of his mission, congratulate him on his safe return, and on the fact that from thenceforth he was not to be known as a laboring man and a mechanic, but as a gentleman.