It is provided in the bill that the additional 30 feet mentioned shall be purchased for a sum not to exceed $10,000.  The adjoining 106 feet and 10 inches, located on the corner of two streets, were purchased in the year 1882 by the Government for $15,000.  The permission to purchase this addition at a price per foot greatly in excess of that already owned by the Government seems so unnecessary, except to benefit the owner, that I am of the opinion it should not be granted.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 5, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 739, entitled “An act granting a pension to Johanna Loewinger.”

The husband of the beneficiary named in this bill enlisted June 28, 1861, and was discharged May 8, 1862, upon a surgeon’s certificate of disability.  He was pensioned for chronic diarrhea.  He died July 17, 1876.  A coroner’s inquest was held, who found by their verdict that the deceased came to his death “from suicide by cutting his throat with a razor, caused by long-continued illness.”

This inquest was held immediately after the soldier’s death, and it appears that the case was fully investigated, with full opportunities to discover the truth.  Upon the verdict found, in the absence of insanity caused by any disability, it can hardly be claimed that his death was caused by his military service.  The attempts afterwards to impeach this verdict and introduce another cause of death do not seem to be successful.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 12, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 1772, entitled “An act for the relief of John H. Marion.”

It is proposed by this bill to relieve the party named therein from an indebtedness to the Government amounting to $1,042.45, arising from the nonfulfillment of a contract made by him in 1884 with the Government, by which he agreed to furnish for the use of the Quartermaster’s Department a quantity of grama hay.

The contractor wholly failed to furnish the hay as agreed, and thereupon the Government, pursuant to the terms of the contract, obtained the hay in other quarters, paying therefor a larger sum by $1,042.45 than it would have been obliged to pay the contractor if he had fulfilled his agreement.  This amount was charged against the contractor.

It is alleged that the crop of the particular kind of hay which was to be furnished under the contract failed the season in which it was to be supplied on account of drought, and that thus performance became impossible on the part of the contractor.

Between individuals no injustice could be claimed if the contractor in such circumstances should be held to have taken the chances of the crop; and if an equitable adjustment should be suggested in such a case as is here presented it would hardly be asked that the party suffering from the default or failure of the other should sustain all the loss.