RULE XVIII.

Every head of a Department or office shall notify the Commission of the name of every person appointed to or employed in the classified service under him (giving the date of the appointment and the designation of the office or place) from those examined under the Commission, and shall also inform the Commission of the date of any rejection or final appointment or employment of any probationer, and of the promotion, removal, discharge, resignation, transfer, or death of any such person after probation.  Every head of an office in the postal or customs service shall give such information on these subjects to the board of examiners for his office as the regulations of the Commission may provide for.

RULE XIX.

There are excepted from examination the following:  (1) The confidential clerk or secretary of any head of Department or office; (2) cashiers of collectors; (3) cashiers of postmasters; (4) superintendents of money-order divisions in post-offices; (5) the direct custodians of money for whose fidelity another officer is under official bond, but these exceptions shall not extend to any official below the grade of assistant cashier or teller; (6) persons employed exclusively in the secret service of the Government, or as translators or interpreters or stenographers; (7) persons whose employment is exclusively professional; (8) chief clerks, deputy collectors, and superintendents or chiefs of divisions or bureaus.  But no person so excepted shall be either transferred, appointed, or promoted, unless to some excepted place, without an examination under the Commission.  Promotions may be made without examinations in offices where examinations for promotion are not now held until rules on the subject shall be promulgated.

Approved, November 7, 1883.

CHESTER A. ARTHUR.

THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, December 4, 1883.

To the Congress of the United States:

At the threshold of your deliberations I congratulate you upon the favorable aspect of the domestic and foreign affairs of this Government.

Our relations with other countries continue to be upon a friendly footing.  With the Argentine Republic, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Hayti, Italy, Santo Domingo, and Sweden and Norway no incident has occurred which calls for special comment.  The recent opening of new lines of telegraphic communication with Central America and Brazil permitted the interchange of messages of friendship with the Governments of those countries.

During the year there have been perfected and proclaimed consular and commercial treaties with Servia and a consular treaty with Roumania, thus extending our intercourse with the Danubian countries, while our Eastern relations have been put upon a wider basis by treaties with Korea and Madagascar.  The new boundary-survey treaty with Mexico, a trade-marks convention and a supplementary treaty of extradition with Spain, and conventions extending the duration of the Franco-American Claims Commission have also been proclaimed.