The propriety and expediency of this appropriation, to be applied so largely by the two branches of Congress, should be left to legislative discretion.

I believe, however, that through inadvertence the duplication of the edition of these maps issued in 1886 has been directed by this joint resolution instead of the edition of 1887.

The map of 1886 was published at a cost of $1.25 per copy.

The map of 1887 will very soon be issued at a cost of $1 per copy, and the publishers have offered to print an enlarged edition at the rate of 95 cents for each map.  This map will be later, more correct, more valuable in every way, and cheaper than that issued the previous year.

Upon these facts I return the joint resolution without approval, in the belief that the Congress will prefer to correct the same by directing the publication of the latest, best, and cheapest map, and reducing the amount appropriated therefor.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 14, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 2653, entitled “An act granting a pension to Mary Curtin.”

The husband of this beneficiary was mustered into the military service October 8, 1862, was wounded in the right arm, and was discharged September 3, 1863.

He was pensioned for his wound to the time of his death, September 17, 1880.

The physician attending him in his last illness testified that the deceased was in the last stages of consumption when pneumonia intervened and caused his death.

I do not understand that this physician gives the least support to the theory that the wound for which this soldier was pensioned was in the slightest degree connected with his death, and there seems to be nothing in the case to justify the conclusion that such was the fact.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 14, 1888.

To the Senate: 

I return without approval Senate bill No. 1076, entitled “An act granting a pension to the widow of John Leary, deceased.”

This bill does not give the name of the intended beneficiary, but merely directs that the name of the widow of John Leary, late first sergeant in Battery F, Third Artillery, United States Army, be placed upon the pension roll, and that she be paid the sum of $20 per month.

John Leary first enlisted in the Regular Army July 26, 1854, and reenlisted in August, 1859.  He was slightly wounded July 1, 1862, and appears to have been discharged March 25, 1863, on account of syphilitic iritis.  In April, 1863, he entered the general service and acted as a clerk in the Adjutant-General’s Office until April 1, 1864, when he was discharged.

Neither he nor his widow ever filed a claim in the Pension Bureau, but an application on behalf of his minor children was filed in 1882.

The soldier died on the 8th day of December, 1872, of pneumonia, and his widow remarried in 1876.