For three months I have been trying to get some lawyers on the eligible list that I may improve the Special Agent Service, and I am this near success: I have had the solicitor for this Department prepare a list of questions to be submitted with others which the Commission may be pleased to prepare. I have not examined the questions. They were prepared by Judge O’Connell, who has been a practicing lawyer of extensive experience for twenty years, and has several times served on the committee to examine applicants for admission to the Supreme Court of his state. These questions your Commission refused to use and declined to prepare others. You tell me that I must fill the vacancies from clerks in the Department. This I will never do. The vacancies will remain while I remain unless I can fill them in a way that in my judgment will improve the service. Possibly some clerk in your Department can prepare a better list of questions than Judge O’Connell has submitted. If so I have no objection. In fact I have no objection to any course you may be pleased to pursue and I have no further suggestions to make. I only ask that some time within a year or so the Civil Service Commission get a few lawyers within reach for the special service where lawyers are necessary. The government loses millions every year for the want of men in the Special Agent force, competent to prepare cases for submission to the Board of General Appraisers. If the Commission shall elect to assist me in the premises I shall appreciate it very much, and if it declines to act in the future, as it has declined in the past I shall submit, unless I can devise some other way to improve the service. Very truly yours, LESLIE M. SHAW. COMMISSION’S REJOINDER DATED DEC. 20, 1905. We are clear that vacancies in the position as Special Agent cannot be satisfactorily filled by open competitive examinations.... ... If it be your desire as indicated in your letter that we should hold an examination for law clerk we will do so; and if you wish to make use of that register in filling vacancies in the position as Special Agent, it is of course your privilege to do so. Very respectfully, ———— Commissioner. Thereupon the Secretary of the Treasury made request: