"The _modus operandi_ by which these swindles are carried on is as follows: A. is a discharged soldier, B. the claim agent. A. calls on B., and requests him to procure his bounty money for him. A. is informed that, in order to enforce his claim, it will be necessary for him to intrust B. with his certificate of honorable discharge, to be forwarded to Washington as a voucher. Thus far the transaction is legitimate; but now comes the trickery. B. further informs A. that there is another paper to be forwarded with the discharge, a blank, which he (A.) must sign. It is merely a matter of form, B. says, which the government requires, for some reason best known to itself. The signature is given, and the soldier goes away, assured that within a few days his check will be ready for him. The paper to which, in his ignorance, A. signed his name, turns out to be an absolute power of attorney conferred upon B., not only to enforce the claim, but also to indorse the draft when it is received, and to collect the money therefor at the bank. Thus authorized, B. draws the cash at the proper time, puts it into his own pocket, and keeps it there. A. calls for his money at the appointed time, but is put off with the excuse that the return has not yet been made by the department at Washington. This explanation is repeated each time that A. calls, until, finally, he becomes suspicious of unfair dealing, and peremptorily demands either his certificate or the bounty. As a rule, this demand leads to the speedy unfolding of the base villany. B. acknowledges that he has collected the money, and adds that he has spent it, but that he will refund it as soon as he is able to do so. The claim agent having acted by full power of attorney in the matter, cannot be prosecuted criminally, and the only remedy open to the victimized soldier is a civil suit for the recovery of the amount of his claim. The remedy is ineffectual, however, by reason of the fact that the swindler has no property out of which to satisfy judgment, and the soldier being too poor to prosecute the case, the affair ends at this point. "There are now in the Second Auditor's office as many as sixty-five thousand unsettled bounty claims, representing about four millions five hundred thousand dollars, and by the recent passage of another bounty act, that sum will soon be augmented by nearly five hundred thousand dollars. It will thus be seen that, unless some measures are taken by the government to prevent it, five million dollars more will pass into the hands of swindling agents, to the great loss of those for whose benefit it was intended."