862 



NEW ENGLAND FARJklER. 



Aug. 



such benefactor is the motive for writing this 

 coniniunication. K. O. 



Wuod''s Ilole, June 5, 1868. 



WOOL AT THE CUSTOM HOUSES. 



The following is the report in full of the 

 committee appointed by the National Wool 

 Grower's Association, with authority from the 

 Secretary of the Ti-easury to examine the 

 manner in which imported wools have been 

 classified and appraised for the payment of 

 duties in the New York and Boston custom 

 houses, since the'wool tariff, passed March 2, 

 1867, went into effect. The committee con- 

 sisted of Henry S.Randall, S. D. Harris, Ed- 

 win Hammond, J. W. Colburn, Wm. R. San- 

 ford, Winthrop W. Chenery, John D. Wing, 

 Burdett Loomis, Leander Wetherell,and Wm. 

 Chamberlain, who fully concurs in the report 

 so far as the New York Custom House is con- 

 cerned, but not being present at the examin- 

 ation made at the Boston Custom House he 

 withholds any expression of opinion in relation 

 thereto. 



Mr. John A. Bausch, the Assistant Ap- 

 praiser in the New York Custom House, hav- 

 ing wools in charge, and Mr. Thomas G. Rice, 

 General Appraiser in the Boston Custom 

 House, having the same in charge, extended 

 to the committee every possible facility for 

 making a thorouj^h examination, and evinced 

 the utmost willincness to communicate all de- 

 sired information explanatory of their official 

 action generally or in particular cases, and 

 also in regard to all facts tending to illustrate 

 the practical operation of the law. 



Both of these officers had put an official 

 construction on the provisions of the wool 

 tariff, in regard to classification and in other 

 respects, corresponding with that put upon 

 them by the Couunittee of the National Wool 

 Growers' Association, who assisted in framing 

 the bill ; and accordingly tlicy did not ask, in 

 any case, to have the correctness of their offi- 

 cial proceedings tested by any other standard. 



Invoices of wool, on being entered at the 

 custom house, are (jxamined by the appraiser, 

 whose business it is to classify them and ap- 

 praise their value, in order that the legal rate 

 of duties may be levied ^nd collected on them. 

 Every invoice is recorded in the books of the 

 office, with the number and weight of bales, 

 name of vessel, name of consignee, date of 

 entry, etc., and the adjudged classification, 

 appraisal and rate of duties levied are also 

 recorded ; so that the books furnish a full his- 

 torj" of the official action of the department in 

 every separate case. 



In the examination of an invoicp of wool by 

 the appraiser, the bales are cut open, and sam- 



ples taken from different parts of the bale 

 mdiscriminately and from enough bales to de- 

 termine beyond a reasonable doubt the char- 

 acter and condition of all the wool embraced in 

 the invoice. When wools of dilferent classes 

 are found to be mixed, or any indications of 

 intended fraud are discovered, the examina- 

 tions of the bales are made more rigorous, and 

 more numerous samjiles taken from them. 



Tlie samples in the New York Appraiser's 

 Office generally weigh from one to three 

 pounds each, and in cases where, owing to a 

 mixture of differeut wools, or other circum- 

 stances, doubts were entertained by the ap- 

 praiser in respect to classification, etc., the 

 samples are considerably larger. They are 

 all put up in well secured packages, marked 

 so that the particular invoice from which they 

 were taken can at once be determined, and 

 hence, by reference to the records of the 

 office, they furnish satisfactory evidence of 

 the appraiser's action in regard to each sepa- 

 rate invoice of wool, and enable the correct- 

 ness or incorrectness of that action to be pro- 

 perly reviewed. That is to say, they furnish 

 such evidence unless it can be supposed that 

 the samples are not what they purport to be, 

 but are false ones substituted to cover up 

 fraudulent classifications and appraisal. The 

 official action of the appraiser is necessarily 

 subject to the inspection of so many persons — 

 official persons and others, including wool im- 

 porters, keenly anxious to prevent other wools 

 of the same description from going into the 

 market with the advantage of being burdened 

 with less duties than their own — that any at- 

 tempted fraud in this particular would be sub- 

 ject to immediate detection and exposure. 

 We believe no suspicions are entertained in 

 any quarter that such frauds have been prac- 

 ticed. 



The committee examined samples from every 

 invoice of wool which has been entered at 

 the port of New York from the day the 

 wool tarilf went into effect, down to May 20, 

 1868. with the exception of a few invoices,-^ 

 not exceeding a dozen in all, — which were en- 

 tered in bond, and which were immediately 

 ve-shipped to foreign ports without being 

 landed. In such cases there was no object in 

 the appraisers taking samples. 



The examination made in Mr. Bausch's de- 

 partment, at New York, satisfied the commit- 

 tee that this experienced and valuable officer 

 has faithfully executed his duties as wool ap- 



S raiser, to the utmost letter and spirit of the law. 

 iOt an instance was found where a shadow of 

 doubt was entertained by any member of the 

 committee, in regard to the accuracy of any 

 of his official decisions or acts. • 



The committee found that the wool aj)- 

 praiser's department at Boston was conducted 

 on substantially the same system with that of 

 New York. Here, too, the committee exam- 

 ined samples taken from every invoice of wool 

 entered since the enactment of the wool tariff 



