1564 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
To pay Melville Lindsay for rubber boots furnished to employees 
engaged to work in water in the National Zoological Park, $38. 
Norr.—These boots were issued to the men each morning and taken from them 
at night, being worn only while on duty. The First Comptroller holds that the sum 
can not properly be paid without special legislation. 
January 27, 1892—House. 
Estimates for 1893. 
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, January 25, 1892. 
Str: I have the honor to transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a 
communication from the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, of the 23d instant, 
in relation to the estimates on page 231 of the Book of Estimates for the fiscal year 
1893, submitted for the improvement, maintenance, etc., of the National Zoological 
Park, District of Columbia, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893. 
Respectfully, yours, 
O. L. SPAULDING, 
Acting Secretary. 
The SPEAKER OF THE House OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 
Washington, D. C., January 23, 1892. 
Str: I beg leave to invite your attention to the estimates under the Smithsonian 
Institution for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1893, duly submitted to you October 
7, 1891, and to the modified form in which these estimates were transmitted to 
Congress, whereby it would seem to be recommended that no increase be made over 
the amounts appropriated for the current year. ? 
While feeling that all the amounts asked for by the Institution have been only 
such as are adequate with the strictest economy, I have to ask your especial atten- 
tion to the three items for the National Zoological Park, i. e., improvements, build- 
ings, and maintenance. Disasters from floods and like contingencies for which no 
provision was made by Congress in the appropriations for the present year empha- 
size the necessity of securing the full amount estimated under the headings Improve- 
ments and Buildings, while there exists exceptional necessity in the item for 
Maintenance, which is essentially for the food and care of the living animals. 
The appropriations made by the act of March 3, 1891, for ‘‘maintenance”’ during 
the present fiscal year (for which $35,000 was asked) was $17,500, but the sum of 
$5,122.71 from the appropriation of April 30, 1890, was available and has been used 
for this purpose; and even with this addition it has been necessary to ask for a defi- 
ciency appropriation of $4,434, chiefly to cover expenditures which were found to be 
absolutely necessary to prevent loss to the Government. 
The minimum expenditures for the present year under this item will therefore be 
$22,622.71; the expenses for the first six months being $14,269.73, or at the rate of 
$28,539.46 per annum: I trust, therefore, that it is made sufficiently clear that with 
an appropriation of $17,500 it will be impossible to properly care for and feed the 
animals now on hand. 
The past expenditures would have been still larger but that the work on the 
accounts for the Treasury has in part been done gratuitously by the Institution, 
which has also supplied free of cost office rooms, as well as the aid and supervision 
of unpaid naturalists. This can not be reckoned upon for the future, but has been 
sanctioned by the Regents as a means to meet the exigency until the need of a larger 
appropriation can be represented to Congress, and in the meantime the working 
force has been reduced to an extreme degree, the policing, for instance, being now 
done by one watchman, aided by two employees who are largely engaged with other 
duties; and these three men are required to maintain order over an area of 167 acres, 
visited during each day by thousands of people. These details are mentioned in 
connection with the fact that (unless some small purchases of animals made at the 
