234 SUROEONS' REPORTS — CONNECTICUT THIRD DISTRICT. 



1 would further submit, thougli to some extent it bas been aiiticipaled, that in nothing per- 

 taining to recruiting for the Army and Navy have greater abuses, damage, and loss obtained than 

 ill the matter of bounties. 



There have been bounties offered by the General Government, which have been paid liy install 

 ments, and municipal bounties, ottered by States, counties, cities, and towns, which have been paid 

 in full to the recruit on his being mustered into the service. In some instances, where State laws 

 have prohibited towns from paying bounties diiectly to the recruit aftei a suflQcient bounty (or one 

 deemed suflicient) had been offered by the State, the law has been evaded in the following manner: 

 Towns have voted to pay various sums, in addition to the State bounty, to individuals for their 

 expenses in furnishing the recruits needed to fill the quota of the town, and the money in this way, 

 on the ninstering of the men, has been ])aid to substitute brokers, who had bargained with and 

 brought them to the recruiting ofBce. Hence towns, in voting different and larger sums, have been 

 in competition with each other, and recruits have risen in the market to fabulous prices, at some 

 times readily coamianding thirteen, fourteen, and even tifteen hundred dolhirs each; and the 

 purlieus of all the dens in creation have been scraped by substitute-brokers to find, engage, and 

 prepare the men to meet the urgent demand of the crisis for recruits. 



Now, what I have to suggest, is this : that the General Government, so far as it has the j)ower. 

 should take under its own surveibance and control all bounties paid to recruits, whether the same 

 be oflereil and paid by the General Government, or by States, counties, cities, or towns; that the 

 whole matter, at least so far as the time or times of payment is concerned, be fixed, limited, and 

 restricted by the stric^test regulations. Furthermore, I think that the payment of all such bounties 

 should be postponed, for the most part, and as far as practicable and equitable, to the close of the 

 time of service. 



* * * Some of these iniquitous practices it may be proper to note. In the first 



place, the recruit is cheated by the broker, who has induced him to enter the service by false repre- 

 sentations of the bounty really offered and jiaid ; by large bills at exorbitant rates for all manner 

 of indulgences sui)i)lied him by the broker, and which the recruit agrees to pay ; and by winning 

 his confidence, the broker nuiuages to hold his victim faithful to the iniquitous agreement and 

 contract. When officials have interfered by statement and act to prevent such frauds, money has 

 been rolled up by the trusting du|)es and thrown into the streets to these harpies from windows of 

 the building where the recruits were confined. # * * 



The principle upon which payment of bounties should be made is this : after the payment of 

 a suitable sum down, to be considered as payment in advance, the remainder should be divided 

 into equal installments pioportioned to the whole term of service, and payable, when due, to the 

 order of the recruit. Provision should be made, in case of death, that the entire bounty should be 

 paid as willed by the recruit; or, if no will had been made, then payment of the balance due should 

 be^made to the heirs "of the recruit, as in the case of other personal property. ♦ * » 



E. A. PAEK, 

 Surgeon Board of Enrollment of Second District of Connecticut. 



New Haven, Conn., June 10, 1865. 



CONNECTICUT— THIRD DISTRICT. 



Extracts from report of Dr. R. McC. Lord. 



The number of men physically examined is, as near as can be ascertained, 8,627. * * • 

 The third congressional district of Connecticut, comprising the counties of New London and 

 Windham, is situated in the eastern portion of the Stnte. It is seventy miles in length and about 

 twenty in breadth. It is bounded by Massachusetts on the north, on the east by Rhode Island, on 

 the south by Long Island Sound, and on the. west by the counties of Tolland, Hartford, and 

 3Iiddlesex. 



It is watered principally by the river Thames and its tributaries, which runs nearly through 

 the center of the district. The face of the country is exceedingly diversified by hills and valleys, 

 but is nowhere mountainous. The soil varies from a gravelly loam upon the former to a fertile 



