XLVI ACTS AND RESOLUTIONS OF CONGRESS. 



meritorious cases, where a clerk or employee is personally ill, and where 

 to limit the annual leave to thirty days in any one calendar year would 

 work peculiar hardship, it may be extended, in the discretion of the 

 head of the department, with pay, not exceeding thirty days in any 

 one case or in any one calendar year. 



" This section shall not be construed to mean that so long as a clerk 

 or employee is borne upon the rolls of the department in excess of the 

 time herein provided for or granted that he or she shall be entitled to 

 pay during the period of such excessive absence, but that the pay shall 

 stop upon the expiration of the granted leave. 



" Hereafter it shall be the duty of the head of each executive 

 department to require monthly reports to be made to him as to the 

 conditiou of the public business in the several bureaus or offices of his 

 department at Washington ; and in each case where such reports 

 disclose that the public business is in arrears, the head of the depart- 

 ment in which such arrears exist shall require, as provided herein, an 

 extension of the hours of service to such clerks or employees as may 

 be necessary to bring up such arrears of public business." (Legisla- 

 tive, executive, and judicial act approved March 15, 1898; Statutes of 

 1897-98, chap. 68, p. 316.) 



Nothing contained in section seven of the act making appropriations 

 for legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for 

 the fiscal year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, approved March fif- 

 teenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, shall be construed to pre- 

 vent the head of any executive department from granting thirty days' 

 annual leave with pay in any one year to a clerk or employee, notwith- 

 standing such clerk or employee may have had during such year not 

 exceeding thirty days' leave with pay on account of sickness as pro- 

 vided in said section seven. (Deficiency appropriation act July 7, 

 1898; Statutes of 1897-98, chap. 571, p. 653.) 



QUARTERLY REPORT ON CONDITION OF PUBLIC BUSINESS. 



Hereafter it shall be the duty of the head of each executive depart- 

 ment, or other Government establishment at the seat of Government 

 not under an executive department, to make at the expiration of each 

 quarter of the fiscal year a written report to the President as to the 

 condition of the public business in his executive department or Gov- 

 ernment establishment, and whether any branch thereof is in arrears. 

 (Section 7, legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation act, ap- 

 proved March 15, 1898; Statutes of 1897-98, p. 317.) 



PURCHASE OF BOOKS OF REFERENCE. 



That hereafter law books, books of reference, and periodicals for use 

 of any executive department, or other Government establishment not 

 under an executive department, at the seat of Government, shall not 

 be purchased or paid for from any appropriation made for contingent 



