The exhibit is made in connection with estimates for the requisite
repair of the defective pavements and sewers of the city, which is
a work of immediate necessity; and in the same connection a plan is
presented for the permanent funding of the outstanding securities of
the District.

The benevolent, reformatory, and penal institutions of the District
are all entitled to the favorable attention of Congress. The Reform
School needs additional buildings and teachers. Appropriations which
will place all of these institutions in a condition to become models
of usefulness and beneficence will be regarded by the country as
liberality wisely bestowed.

The Commissioners, with evident justice, request attention to the
discrimination made by Congress against the District in the donation
of land for the support of the public schools, and ask that the same
liberality that has been shown to the inhabitants of the various
States and Territories of the United States may be extended to the
District of Columbia.

The Commissioners also invite attention to the damage inflicted upon
public and private interests by the present location of the depots and
switching tracks of the several railroads entering the city, and ask
for legislation looking to their removal. The recommendations and
suggestions contained in the report will, I trust, receive the careful
consideration of Congress.

Sufficient time has, perhaps, not elapsed since the reorganization
of the government of the District under the recent legislation
of Congress for the expression of a confident opinion as to its
successful operation, but the practical results already attained are
so satisfactory that the friends of the new government may well
urge upon Congress the wisdom of its continuance, without essential
modification, until by actual experience its advantages and defects
may be more fully ascertained.

R.B. HAYES.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, _December 4, 1878_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to
ratification, a declaration respecting trade-marks between the United
States and Brazil, concluded and signed at Rio de Janeiro on the 24th
day of September last.

R.B. HAYES.

WASHINGTON, _December 4, 1878_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to
ratification, a convention revising certain portions of existing
com