REPORTS — NEW YORK — TENTH DISTRICT. 255 



stitutes from this city, were mostly laborers, and would, therefore, show more generally a full bodily 

 development. This view is borue out by the experience of lS(i4, when we had no draft, but only 

 volunteers; for my statistics for that year stand as to physique: Americans, {good physique,) 50.05 

 per cent. ; Germans, do., 50.00 per cent. ; Irish, do., 49.05 per cent. 



The Americans on my books prove to be the smallest-chested of all the nationalities as well 

 as the tallest. The direct inference, however, from tbis comparison, I think, would be fallacious, 

 because, first, as above mentioned, the Americans are largely from sedentary, and the foreigners 

 from laboring, occupations; and, secondly, by far the largest ratio of persons examined under the 

 age of tice7ity-one were Americans. As d general deduction from an experience of 17,000 exam- 

 inations, I would pronoimco our American male population — rural and maritime — to be the best 

 material of any of the three nationalities when compared for first-rate soldiers. 



My experience with colored recruits in New York is not very extensive. In muscular develop- 

 ment, they are fully equal to the white recruits, but inferior to the latter in osseous symmetry. 

 Their percentage of good physique I found to be like the Germans, above noted, viz, exactly 50 

 per cent. Phthisis, however, appears as a commoner cause of rejection of colored men than of 

 others, according to my record. 



The creation of boards of enrollment, I think, has proved by the result to have been one of the 

 wisest and most practical measures of the war. That measure should be judged by the objects 

 which it was proposed to effect, namely, by its means to render available the whole military strength 

 of a republican country. A people who boasted that their rulers were their servants had to bo 

 suddenly reconciled to being forced into the ranks, by the half million at a time, on the call of their 

 Chief Magistrate. The manner of doing this could hardly have been better than by the creation of 

 these boards, which fell in with the local instincts of our people; for, while the members were 

 officials of the Central Government, they were, at the same time, citizens of the district, cognizant 

 of all its circumstances and conditions, aiid identified with its interests. Nothing could have been 

 better adapted to have kept up, in every part of our wide country, tLe volunteering which caused 

 our vast armies to be filled to the last, as well as to carry out the draft when it became necessary. 



That our Government was able to do as much as it did without the employment of enforced 

 military service is to be regarded as one of the most gracious providences of our time ; and it is no 

 more than justice to say that this result, occurring in spite of the discontents and discouragements 

 •which followed the disastei-s of the first years of the wax-, was largely owing to the efficient and 

 widespread working of the Provost-Marshal-Generars Bureau. 



The only recommendation I would at present make in reference to the enrollment-law would be 

 to construct the board of a provost-marshal and two surgeons; the first with the rank of a full army 

 surgeon, and the secoud with that of an assistant surgeon. A board should consist of at least three 

 members, and such a board as the one indicated would consist of more efficient oificers than as 

 organized by the conscription-act, where the commissioner represented, aud generally performed, 

 no duty in particular. 



W. H. THOMSON, 

 Surgeon Board of Enrollment Ninth District of New York. 



New York City, June 28, 18G3. 



NEW YORK— TENTH DISTEICT. 

 Extracts from report of Dk. L. F. Pelton. 



Upon the 15th of October, 1SG3, I received the appointment of assistant surgeon to the board 

 of enrollment of this district, aud served as such for two months. At that time, no record of 

 recruits and substitutes rejected for physical disability was kept, and I am able only to give a 

 proximate estimate of the whole number examined. I received August -!S, 1804, the appointment 

 of surgeon to the board of enrollment. The whole number examined at this office I estimate at 

 fifteen thousand, of which number four thousand were examined since the 1st September, 18G4. 



The tenth congressional district of New York comprises the counties of Westchester, Putnam, 

 and Rockland. 



