promoters of this important undertaking have already received
assurances of the lively interest which it has excited abroad.

The report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia is herewith
transmitted. I ask for it your careful attention, especially for those
portions which relate to assessments, arrears of taxes, and increase of
water supply.

The commissioners who were appointed under the act of January 16, 1883,
entitled "An act to regulate and improve the civil service of the United
States," entered promptly upon the discharge of their duties.

A series of rules, framed in accordance with the spirit of the statute,
was approved and promulgated by the President.

In some particulars wherein they seemed defective those rules were
subsequently amended. It will be perceived that they discountenance any
political or religious tests for admission to those offices of the
public service to which the statute relates.

The act is limited in its original application to the classified
clerkships in the several Executive Departments at Washington
(numbering about 5,600) and to similar positions in customs districts
and post-offices where as many as fifty persons are employed.
A classification of these positions analogous to that existing in
the Washington offices was duly made before the law went into effect.
Eleven customs districts and twenty-three post-offices were thus
brought under the immediate operation of the statute.

The annual report of the Civil Service Commission which will soon be
submitted to Congress will doubtless afford the means of a more definite
judgment than I am now prepared to express as to the merits of the new
system. I am persuaded that its effects have thus far proved beneficial.
Its practical methods appear to be adequate for the ends proposed, and
there has been no serious difficulty in carrying them into effect.
Since the 16th of July last no person, so far as I am aware, has been
appointed to the public service in the classified portions thereof
at any of the Departments, or at any of the post-offices and customs
districts above named, except those certified by the Commission to be
the most competent on the basis of the examinations held in conformity
to the rules.

At the time when the present Executive entered upon his office his
death, removal, resignation, or inability to discharge his duties would
have left the Government without a constitutional head.

It is possible, of co