And to these ends the Secretary of State is requested to cause public notice to be given of the above direction.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, at the city of Washington, this 12th day of December, A.D. 1885, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and tenth.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, February 9, 1886—­4 o’clock p.m.

Tidings of the death of Winfield Scott Hancock, the senior major-general of the Army of the United States, have just been received.

A patriotic and valiant defender of his country, an able and heroic soldier, a spotless and accomplished gentleman, crowned alike with the laurels of military renown and the highest tribute of his fellow-countrymen to his worth as a citizen, he has gone to his reward.

It is fitting that every mark of public respect should be paid to his memory.

Therefore it is now ordered by the President that the national flag be displayed at half-mast upon all the buildings of the Executive Departments in this city until after his funeral shall have taken place.

By direction of the President: 

DANIEL S. LAMONT,
  Private Secretary.

In the exercise of the power vested in the President by the Constitution, and by virtue of the seventeen hundred and fifty-third section of the Revised Statutes and of the civil-service act approved January 16, 1883, the following rule for the regulation and improvement of the executive civil service is hereby amended and promulgated, as follows: 

  Rule XXII.

  Any person in the classified departmental service may be transferred
  and appointed to any other place therein upon the following conditions: 

  1.  That he is not debarred by clause 2 of Rule XXI.

  2.  That the head of a Department has, in a written statement to be
  filed with the Commission, requested such transfer to a place in said
  Department, to be designated in the statement.

  3.  That said person is shown in the statement or by other evidence
  satisfactory to the Commission to have been during six consecutive
  months in such service since January 16, 1883.

  4.  That such person has passed at the required grade one or more
  examinations under the Commission which are together equal to that
  required for the place to which the transfer is to be made.

  But any person who has for three years last preceding served as a clerk
  in the office of the President of the United States may be transferred
  or appointed to any place in the classified service without examination.

Approved, April 12, 1886.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 20, 1886.

Under the provisions of section 4 of the act approved March 3, 1883, it is hereby ordered that the several Executive Departments, the Department of Agriculture, and the Government Printing Office be closed on Monday, the 31st instant, to enable the employees to participate in the decoration of the graves of the soldiers who fell during the rebellion.