When they are reached, the examiner’s duties begin. He first searches for such recorded evidence as can be found in any of the Departments of the Government. From these he notes all omissions, and points unsupported, and calls upon the claimant, or his attorney, for corroborative evidence of the statements made in the declaration. He is guided in his requirements by the hundreds of rulings applicable to the smallest details of the various kinds of claims. All the evidence furnished in response must comply with the minutest demand of the law; the law of evidence as applied in courts, and the express requirements of the law under which the pension is claimed, are both brought to bear in the consideration of the points to be met, and the testimony offered in proof. You will not be astonished to be told that very often they are not met, or that in thousands of just cases the testimony is unequal to the gradgrind requirements of the law. A want of a knowledge of the provisions of the law—more than of willful knavery—is the great acknowledged difficulty with which the Office has to contend. Many a poor sinner, who lost his leg or arm, or carries a bullet in him, received in his country’s battles, knows all about the minus members, the battles, and the bullet, and not an atom about “the provisions of the law,” or the inextricable windings of official red-tape. Because his knowledge is of so one-sided a character, he finds it no easy matter to get the governmental reward for that buried leg or arm; and by the time all “the requirements of the law” have been slowly beaten into his brains, the greater portion of his pension is pocketed by the claim-agent who showed him how to get it. All these provisions and safeguards of the law are said to be necessary, to protect the Government against fraudulent claims. Perhaps they are; but that makes them no less hard, or ofttimes unjust “to the soldier and widow” who, in writing a letter, are as ignorant as babies of “the requirements of the law.” Under these requirements, and with the utter ignorance of common people of technical terms, and judicial statements, it is not strange that “a large percentage of the evidence offered, is imperfectly prepared.” A great deal more is deficient in substance, or suspected of fraud. The correspondence from this Division, stating objections, requiring further proof, and elucidating doubtful points, amounts to hundreds of letters a day. The long delay inevitable, is said to be the fault of the system. “_Ex-parte_ evidence is the criminal.” “Were means afforded for a cross-examination of all applicants and witnesses, these difficulties and delays would disappear. One-half of the amount now taken from the pockets of pensioners, to compensate agents for procuring their pensions, would pay the entire cost of such a system, to say nothing of the thousands of dollars paid from the Treasury upon fraudulent claims, that would be saved.”