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Show I REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONEB. OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 31 The various agents and superintendents have been advised of the provisions of the Burke Act and instructed how to proceed nider it. On receipt of an application they are to post a notice of it as con-spicuously as possible, giving the allottee's name and the description of the land, announcing that at the expiration of thirty days the Indian Office will consider the application with a view of recommending to the Secretary of the Interior the issue of the patent desired, and urging that any person acquainted with the applicant and aware of any fact which would tend to =how that the patent ought not to issue will make it known forthwith. Experience may show that other safeguards are necessary. Many applications have already been received, and doubtless a large number of patents will be distributed during the coming year. INPROVEEENTS IN LETTINa CONTRACTS. Three important changes have been made since my last annual report in the method, places, and times of opening bids and award-ing contracts for supplies for the Indian Service. The first change did away with the old practise of always opening bids at the Indian warehouses in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco. The opening is purely a ministerial proceeding, yet the old plan necessitated the detail each year of several clerks from this Office for a period of three or four weeks on a per diem of $4 in lieu of hotel and incidental expenses, besides their railroad trans-portation and sleeping-car fares. It was believed that this large expense could be &ved and as good; if not better, results obtained by having all bids opened at Washington. To this end intending bid-ders were informed last spring that their sealed pro'posals would hereafter, till further notice, be opened in this Office, tho the sam-ples submitted simultaneously with the bids were to be delivered at the respective warehouses as in the past. As soon as the clerical force here had finished abstracting the bids, both bids and abstract. sheets were immediately forwarded to the proper warehouses by regis-tered mail. While the bids were in course of being abstracted here the warehouse employees were engaged in. laying out the various samples, so that by the time the papers had reached a' warehouse the samples were ready for examination and test by our corps of competent inspectors. The work of the inspecto? was carefully reviewed, and in many instances personally assisted, by me on the spot, and I noted my awards on the abstract sheets. Sheets and bids were then returned to this OEce, and the contracts and bonds drawn and mailed to the successful bidders for execution. This plan has proved so comparatively inexpensive, has &sturbed the regular work of this C%ce so little, and has been generally so |