The duties of the paymaster’s department during the war were greatly enlarged and made more complicated and difficult: (1) By reason of the enactment of the war risk insurance act of October 6, 1917. The work connected with family allotments and war risk insurance created by this act was of such magnitude as to require the establishment of a separate administrative section under a commissioned officer to handle the voluminous correspondence, keep the records, and make proper audit of these items in the accounts involved. It was also found necessary in order to facilitate the work of this section, that a liaison group of clerks be kept in the War Risk Bureau. (2) By reason of the taking over of the payment of all Marine Corps allotments, as the deputy of the Navy allotment officer. (3) By reason of the necessity of having to pay many men on affidavits without proper records; service record books and other papers pertaining to their accounts having been lost or destroyed by operation of war or other accidental circumstances. (4) By reason of the large number of wounded men, some of whom were scattered in various hospitals throughout France, and others of whom were returned to the United States without due notice to military authorities, and sent to both naval, military, and civil hospitals at widely scattered points throughout the States. In but a few of these cases were there any records on which full and accurate payments could be made. Hence a system of emergency, or casual payments, as they were called, was established both in France and in the United States. The absence of records in these cases was not the worst feature however, but the absence of any information whatever, as to the whereabouts of the men made it at first impossible to locate some of them and effect regular payments. However, after the first few months’ experience with the handling of payments to the wounded, a system was devised by which most of those returning to the States were immediately reported and prompt payments were thereafter made. A similar system of emergency or casual payments to wounded men was adopted by the department in France, but wounded men in France were evacuated so frequently from one hospital to another, that no system of reporting was practicable. Each hospital there had to be visited in person by a paymaster at least once a month and such wounded Marines as were found, had to be paid on their own representations a sum sufficient to meet their immediate needs. Under such a system some necessarily went without pay for some time, while others more fortunate in meeting a paymaster at frequent intervals, received at times more money than was properly due them. (5) By reason of the enactment of February 24, 1919, providing a gratuity of $60 to all persons in the military and naval forces of the United States, who were discharged under honorable conditions at any time subsequent to April 6, 1917.